Compass Family Update
October 10, 2016
Upcoming Important Dates and Events
Monday, October 10th
- School is OPEN! No yellow bus service. Please make alternate arrangements for getting your child(ren) to and from school.
- Mark Morris Dance Classes for Chestnut (3rd Grade) and Elm (2nd Grade)
- Amanda, our former School Psychologist visits Compass for the day!
Tuesday, October 11th
- Beech Class (First Grade) Field Trip to the Whitney Museum
- Mark Morris Dance Classes for Tulip (3rd Grade) and Pine (2nd Grade)
Wednesday, October 12th
- No School: Yom Kippur
- TEA Collection School Days Fundraiser begins (Enter our code: SDF16COMPASSCHARTER to receive 15% off your order and donate 15% of your order to Compass. This fundraiser will run from 10/12-10/19)
Thursday, October 13th
- Second Grade (Pine and Elm Classes) Field Trip to New Victory Theater to see Mr. Popper's Penguins
- 6:00PM-8:00PM: Curriculum Night
Friday, October 14th
- Second Grade (Pine and Elm Classes) Post Show Theater Workshops with New Victory Theater
FROM THE CO-DIRECTORS
Dear Families,
It's the 6th week of school! Please take a few minutes to read through the information below.
Curriculum Night (Thursday, 6PM-8PM)
Curriculum Night is on Thursday! Please plan for at least one adult from your family to attend. We will provide childcare and dinner for the children and snacks for the adults.
This year we are changing our Curriculum Night to provide access to more of our curriculum and for families to be able to visit multiple classes/grade levels. This is especially necessary for families with more than one child at the school. Each grade level will have four stations set up (reading, writing, math, integrated units) for you to visit, interact with materials, and talk to the teachers about the curriculum. Our arts/sustainability teachers, learning support team, and community support team will also have stations set up. We encourage you to visit those stations as well.
Please plan to arrive between 5:45PM-6:00PM to drop your children off in the cafeteria for dinner. We will have several babysitters available there. Adults should then proceed to the auditorium for a brief whole school meeting where the Co-Directors will share some information with you all. Family members will then go up to the fourth floor to experience the curriculum. You will also be provided with Curriculum Overview packets.
We'll see you on Thursday evening and please let us know if you have questions!
First Family School Collaborative Meeting
Thank you so much for coming out to our first Family School Collaborative (FSC) meeting of the school year. We ate dinner together, shared our hopes and dreams for our children and our school with one another, and learned about upcoming events the FSC is hosting. If you would like to share any feedback about the first meeting, please email the FSC co-chairs at fsc@brooklyncompass.org.
We look forward to seeing you at future meetings!
Meet the New Members of our Support Team
This year, we have two new support staff members you may be interacting with for a variety of reasons. Please see their photos below.
Johanna is our new School Psychologist. She comes to Compass with close to 20 years of experience in a variety of school settings. In the Compass community, Johanna will be providing individual and small group counseling services for children with mandated services on their individual education plan. In addition, Johanna will be conducting individual psychoeducational assessments prior to referrals to the New York State Committee on Special Education.
Stephanie has joined Compass as the Community Support Coordinator. She is supporting the implementation of Caring School Community, the social-emotional learning curriculum being used school-wide. She will also be available to provide behavior support throughout the day. In addition to supporting social emotional learning and behavior, Stephanie will provide small group and individual counseling services to children identified by their teacher or families in need of support and is available to meet with parents who have questions about their child’s development. Stephanie is looking forward to collaborating with the Family School Collaborative as one of the co-chairs. Please reach out if you have any questions!
stephanie@brooklyncompass.org, 646-618-0304
johanna@brooklyncompass.org, 347-677-3243
We hope you all have a great week!
Sincerely,
Brooke, Michelle, and Todd
Johanna
Stephanie
FSC Meeting
Save the Date: Curriculum Night
Compass Curriculum Night is an evening dedicated to sharing our approach to teaching and learning at our school. Our teachers will provide an outline of our curricular plans for the year as well as reflections from the first few weeks of school. There will also be time to ask questions.
Curriculum Night is an important event and we request to have at least one person from each child's family present to learn more about our curriculum and expectations for the children at our school. Please let us know if you have any questions.
We will meet in the auditorium from 6:00-6:30 as an entire school community and then families will disperse to the classrooms for curriculum presentations by the teachers.
Childcare will be provided. Children can be dropped off for childcare beginning at 5:45pm.
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016, 06:00 PM
300 Adelphi Street, Brooklyn, NY, United States
Information from our Operations Team (Please read carefully)
Changes in Afternoon Transportation
If there is a change to your normal afternoon transportation (for example, your child normally rides the bus but will be picked up), please let Laurie know via email at least 24 hours in advance so that the bus/ after school/ pick up list can be adjusted and communicated to the teachers. If you are not able to give 24 hours notice, your child will be on his/her normal list. If this is the bus list, you will need to check your child out from the bus captain. Bus captains are as follows:
- K9704 (Driver Jose) - Bus Captain Johanna
- K9306 (Driver Morris) - Bus Captain Tameka
- K9724 (Driver Bert) - Bus Captain Chelsea
If you need to let us know about a permanent change to your child's afternoon transportation method, including additional authorized escorts, please continue to use this survey to inform us.
Late Arrival
The arrival window every morning is 7:45- 8AM. Arrivals after 8AM are considered late. If you arrive between 8 and 9AM, you must sign in at the security desk and bring your child up to the 4th floor and to class. If you arrive after 9AM, please sign in at the Compass Main Office (room 431), get a late pass and bring your child and the late pass to the classroom.
Administration of Medication in School
If your child needs medication administered to him/her in school, this is the process that must be followed:
- Download the appropriate form here (there are different forms for different types of medication)
- Have your child's doctor fill out the form
- Bring the completed form and unopened medication directly to our nurse (Kathleen on the 1st floor); please stop by the Compass main office or call to let Chelsea or Laurie know so we can accompany you and pass any relevant information back to teachers.
Uniform Purchase
Coming next week!
Food Services and Breakfast & Lunch Menus
Every year, the DoE asks us to ask our families to fill out the Food Services application even if you have no intention of using Food Services. Please take five minutes to fill out this form, as this information about our community's demographics could help us with raising money for the school. Only 37% of Compass families have filled this out; our goal is 100%. Students who were eligible for free meals during the 2015–16 school year will continue to receive free meals until October 21, unless a new eligibility has been determined. On October 24, the carryover of eligibility from the previous year expires, and we will have to begin charging.
At the end of October, we will be sending email invoices to those families who owe money for the meals their children consumed, and we will begin sending monthly reminders for the rest of the year.
Click HERE to access the breakfast menu for October.
Click HERE to access the lunch menu for October. Please note that SchoolFood staff have informed us that they are no longer serving pizza on Fridays due to a dispute with the vendor
Online Fundraiser: Tea Collection School Days (10/12-10/19)
Our online fundraiser with Tea Collection begins this week! Shop for a cause and stock up on fall threads for your kids and/or get an early start on your holiday shopping!
Enter SDF16COMPASSCHARTER in the promo code box at checkout and click "apply code."
Last year, Compass received one of the largest donation checks compared to all other schools participating in this fundraiser.
Please share this online fundraiser with your networks (we will post to our Facebook and Instagram for easy sharing). Thank you for shopping and for supporting our school!
Our Healthy School Fund
Last week we shared the information below regarding our Healthy School Fund. Thank you to all of the families who have already begun contributing for this year. Please take a look below and send in your contributions for September and October. Thank you so much!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every year, Compass pays for a healthy snack for your children, as well as two lice check-ups by a lice removal company (including follow-up consultations), weekly cleaning service of the rags, towels, and other linens used across the school, and a number of cleaning supplies to keep our classrooms and common spaces clean. In response to student, teacher, and family concerns that students are leaving school hungry at the end of the day, this year we are adding a second snack in the afternoon. These items cost Compass $30 a month per child (or a total of $300 a year per child), and we ask families to pay for these expenses (also known as the Healthy School Fund).
In the future, this information will be included in a Back to School packet that we will send out in August.
Various ways you can make payments to Compass (for the Healthy Snack Fund, t-shirts, school lunches) include:
- Mail or hand-deliver a Cash, Check, or Money Order to Todd or Chelsea (For the time being, please only give money to these two Compass employees. Haleema, our new Finance Manager, will be setting up a new process for receiving funds in the near future.)
- Venmo: username = compasscharter
- Square Cash = send your contribution to Todd’s work email address: todd@brooklyncompass.org.
- Here are slightly sophisticated directions for how to setup an automatic payment through Square Cash if that helps you.
- Chase QuickPay = send your contribution to Todd’s work email address: todd@brooklyncompass.org. Chase's platform allows you to easily setup a recurring payment.
- Online: https://brooklyncompass.org/donate/
We hope to identify a platform that makes it easy for all of you to schedule electronic payments if you wish, thereby removing the need to remember each month. Thank you for covering the expense of keeping the school a little bit cleaner and your child a little better fed. Please let us know if you have questions about the Healthy School Fund.
This Week's Morning Snack Menu
We're recycling snack and drink pouches to raise money for our school!
Any brand of snack or drink pouches can be collected (not just the brands featured in the images below). We will have a collection bucket available during lunch each day. We also encourage you to save pouches at home and to drop them off in the Terracycle bins in the Community Room. We are able to accept any food pouches (baby food, applesauce, other fruit/veggie/yogurt snack pouches) and drink pouches.
Please let us know if you have questions. Thanks for your help!
We're collecting Box Tops to raise money for our school...and there is a new Bonus App
Compass has a super easy way for YOU to help earn cash for our school: BOX TOPS!
Just look for the pink "Box Tops" label on hundreds of products. You can find them on Cheerios, Annie's, Cascadian Farms, Betty Crocker, Progresso soups, Ziploc brands...among others! Click HERE to see a full list of participating products.
All you have to do is clip them and send them to school with your child. There are collection cans located outside each classroom.
Then we collect them and send them in twice per year --- and they send us a check! Each box top is worth 10¢!!! It adds up quickly!
Please note that there are expiration dates on the tops so please check before sending in.
Also, please download the new Box Tops Bonus App for double box tops of some products. Money will be added electronically to our Box Tops account each time you use the app. Click HERE to find out more and take a look at the image below to learn more.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact either of us. We're here to help make our school’sBox Tops for Education™ program a huge success this year.
Thanks for your help!
Karen Goodwin (mom to Sophie in Pine)
Rocio Calzadilla (mom to Bruce in Tulip)
No DoE-Busing on Columbus and Veterans Day
Looking ahead to October and November, please mark your calendars and plan for the fact that there are no DoE yellow busses provided on Monday, October 10 and Friday, November 11. Unfortunately, you will be expected to get your child to school through other means. We apologize for this inconvenience.
2016-2017 School Year Calendar
Click HERE to access our public Compass calendar.
Compass Charter School
Follow us on Instagram @brooklyn_compass
Feel free to reach out anytime with questions or to catch up. Our contact info is listed below.
Brooke Peters, Co-Director of Curriculum and Instruction
718-310-3588, extension 503
Michelle Healy, Co-Director of Curriculum and Instruction
718-310-3588, extension 504
Todd Sutler, Co-Director of Strategic Development
718-310-3588, extension 501
Email: info@brooklyncompass.org
Website: brooklyncompass.org
Location: 300 Adelphi Street, Brooklyn, NY, United States
Phone: (718) 310-3588
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CompassCharterSchool
Twitter: @compasscharter