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中文学校每周简讯 - 11月19日 11/28/2014 - 12:00pm

中文学校的各位家长、老师，你们好，

上个星期没有发一周简讯，好几位朋友致电问安。我心惴惴，在这儿说明一下。每次写一周简讯前都要把费校长以前同时间的简讯好好读一遍，依葫芦画瓢也。轮到上一周时，没了“葫芦”，心想费校长也有大意的时候，正好学校无甚事，我就偷一次懒。直到看了本周费校长的简迅才恍然大悟，原来费校长去年这个时期回中国探亲去了，故而缺了一周。幸得费校长只回去了两周，不然事大矣。拍额称庆之余，暗想以后无论有无事恙，都得向全校师生报个到，让大家安心。本学期只剩三次课，感恩节周末没有课。提醒大家最后一次课是12月14日上午10钟开课并期末考试。下面还有一些相关事宜请大家关注，以圆满顺利地完成这个学期的教学。

1．青少年义工团活动 11月29日Regional Food Bank of Northeastern
大家开始准备感恩节的晚宴时，我们的青少年义工团员们将会进行一年一度的Food Drive或“冬令救济”活动。“冬令救济”主要目的是捐助、收集、分发可以存储的食物（主要是罐头食品）以帮助社区无家可归的人们渡过严冬。上个周末我和儿子（陈旭之）参加了童子军在Niskayuna社区收集食品的“冬令救济”活动。这是鼓励孩子们奉献爱心的一次很好的机会，让他们参与到具体的活动中来，培养责任心以及义务感，同时也是一次很好的与别人交流、协作的机会，锻炼他们的独立能力。
现在已有8个义工团员加入。根据以往经验，我们还需要至少8个学生才能完成当天分配的任务。每年的“冬令救济”活动是华社青少年义工团的一次主要活动，代表了华人社区参与公共活动， 请大家积极响应。具体时间地点如下：
地点：Regional Food Bank of Northeastern
     965 Albany Shaker Road, Latham NY 12110
时间：11/29th Saturday 10AM to 12PM
任务：室内，食品分类归放
联系人： Ryan Guo (rguo98@gmail.com) 或Jeffrey Shen (jeffshen321@yahoo.com)

2．奖学金申请
2014-2014年度奖学金申请已于上个周末截至。现已收到8份申请。如果你因为特殊原因错过了申请日期，请与校方联系，于本周末11月23日前提交所有材料。这次奖学金评审委员会由孙旭峰副校长任主席，冯晋哲老师、周淼老师、家长会代表黄友琴、李凌云任委员。评审结果会在期末总结大会上宣布。

3．故事会
本届故事会盛况空前，共有60多个节目把三个小时的时间安排得满满的。感谢各位家长以及青年义工团员在会场的协助，让故事会顺利、准时的完成。孩子们在众目睽睽之下能够完成故事讲述，对于低年级的学生并不是一件容易的事，我们应该为他们骄傲。故事会重在参与，给孩子们提供一个表演的舞台。只是我们华社现有的场地似乎不够用，明年学校会考虑如何更好的举办故事会，充分发挥每个小故事大王的语言天份。在这里还有感谢每一位老师，是你们辛勤的培育，让孩子们不怯场，口齿流利，把一个个故事讲述的生动活泼。根据评委的现场打分统计，获奖的名单已经确认，请查看附件。

4．家长值日
为了保证每位完成值日的家长领到退款，家长会代表黄友琴女士会在家长会办公处（餐厅西南角圆桌）上课期间恭候各位。12月7日由家长会代表旷建坤女士代理。

谢谢大家关注，周末愉快！

陈峰
中文学校校长2014-2015

 

Dear Chinese School Families,

The first dust of snow has not faded in my memory and yet here comes another. Standing by the window and watching a thin blanket of snow covering the lawn, I wondered for a moment whether it is Thanksgiving or Christmas we are going to celebrate in two-week time. Then I had to remind myself that fall is always a short season in a northern country, so is the fall semester. Only three sessions are left before we conclude for this year. To successfully wrap up this semester, there are a few things I’d like to have your attention before celebrating the holiday season ahead of us.

1.    Youth Team Volunteer Activity on 11/29th at Regional Food Bank of Northeastern

Food drive is a traditional event the Chinese School Youth Team has been participating for many years. This year is no exception. Two hours of volunteering work at food bank on 11/29th is an important part of effort in fight against hunger in the local community. During the Thanksgiving holidays, it will mean a lot to help prepare a home cocked meal for the people in need and your generous help will be much appreciated.

Currently we have about 8 students signed up for this event. We need at least another 8 to have enough hands for next Saturday. Please encourage your kid to participate in this annual fun and meaningful food drive event. 

When: 11/29th Saturday 10AM to 12PM
Where: Regional Food Bank of Northeastern, 965 Albany Shaker Road, Latham NY 12110
What: Indoor event, organize and categorize non-perish food
Contact: Ryan Guo (rguo98@gmail.com) or  Jeffrey Shen (jeffshen321@yahoo.com)

2.    Scholarship 

Last Sunday marks the deadline for scholarship application of school year 2014-2015. We have received 8 scholarship applications so far. If your kid still wants to apply for scholarship, you have till this weekend to submit your application. Make sure you go through the online scholarship application policy to include all the necessary material to avoid delay. Also, please send us a notice if you intend to apply so I can coordinate with the scholarship committee, which is headed by Vice Principal Xufeng Sun and consists of two teachers and two PTA members: Jinzhe Feng, Miao Zhou, Lingyun Li, and Youqing Huang.

3.    Story Telling Contest

What a turn out for the annual story telling contest! The three-hour time window was packed with over sixty stories. Our students being able to tell the stories in their own ways to a big crowd itself is a huge achievement. We should all be proud of them. In the meantime, we should be thankful to the teachers who have devoted a lot of their personal time in helping our students learn and speak Chinese. The gallery room at CCC was filled with joy and laughter throughout the event to an extent that I felt we probably should look for a “bigger than bigger” stage next year. 
The award list has been finalized and attached. Thanks to Vice Principal Xufeng Sun and the team coordinating this event. We all look forward to next year’s event.

4.    PTA duty refund

Parents who have fulfilled their PTA duties should be able to get the refund before the year end. PTA member Youqing Huang is designated to handle refund throughout the school year, except on 12/7 that she will be absent and PTA member Jiankun Kuang will be delegated. You can find PTA members by the round table at the south-west café corner. If you can’t find either one of them, please come to see the school staff. We want you to be refunded once commitment is fulfilled.

Stay warm and see you on Sunday again.

Feng Chen
Principal
CCC Chinese School 2014-2015

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中文学校每周简讯 - 10月25日 11/20/2014 - 1:29am

中文学校的各位家长、老师，你们好，

上个周末姒玉明博士给我们作了两次精彩的演讲，上午是面对老师们，下午是针对家长。相信大家都能感受到他对中文教育的热忱之心。虽然我们这些非专业人士常常干些专业人士的活，比如我自己在家里常做些水电工（都是被北美生活所迫），但是姒玉明博士以农业专业背景，软件工程师之职编写“整全的教育”一套八本十几万字的系统中文教材，不愧是现代“愚公移山”精神的真实写照；教材中体现的理念有很多我们值得思考、学习和借鉴的地方。一、两场讲座并不会给我们带来万能的钥匙，只是希望催进我们去发现、交流、思考、实践。今后我们还会请更多的老师、专家来学校和大家分享。

这个学期的另外两个重要活动需要大家关注：
1．      讲故事比赛
一年一度的大家讲故事比赛定于11月9日在华社隆重召开。讲故事比赛报名截止日期为10月26日，请抓紧时间报名。如果你想参加评委团，请联系孙校长（xufeng.sun@gmail.com）。

2．      第十六届世界华人学生作文大赛
第十六届世界华人学生作文大赛截稿日为12月31日, 所有参赛习作必须在12月8日前由各班老师统一交给参赛组织者任小波老师。根据以往经验，各位任课老师可以有针对性的利用平时的作业鼓励学生写作发挥，聚沙成塔。希望年底我们有一大批高质量的文章参赛。

上个月华社季刊约稿，自由发挥，没有审稿人，当然也没有稿费。拙文一片附上，敬请指正。
谢谢大家关注，周末愉快！

陈峰
中文学校校长2014-2015

Dear Chinese School Families,

It seems to be a long week as we are going through the change of seasons. Last week many of you attended the seminar given by Dr. Yuming Si, author of “Holistic Education”. I was deeply moved by his passion in Chinese language and culture education. One of the analogies I recall in his talk is that our kids are like fishes born and growing up in the vast sea. Having them to learn Chinese in America is to ask them to learn how to swim in a river. (I guess We need to add a bit of “salt” to the water.) I hope you also learnt a few things new and inspirational. These seminars are not meant to provide a ready solution to our problems. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, they provide a platform so we can start to understand, discuss, exchange ideas. A few parents have approached me after the seminar with good suggestions on how we can improve our language education. I’d really like to hear more feedback and thoughts from you.

Two things in the coming weeks need your attention:

1.      Chinese Story Telling Contest at CCC
The annual Chinese Story Telling Contest for the school year of 2014-2015 will be held on Sunday, November 9th, at the CCC building (1:00PM – 4:00PM). The deadline for registration is coming Sunday, October 26th. We are still looking for parents to sit in the judge team. If you like to get involved, please contact Vice Principal Xufeng Sun (xufeng.sun@gmail.com).

2.      Composition competition
The 16th International Chinese Essay contest has been announced last month and the deadline internally is Dec. 8th to submit compositions to Teacher Xiaobo Ren. Every language teacher is encouraged to utilize their weekly writing assignment and have their students participate in this competition. We usually see parent involvement is helpful and promoting a good outcome.

See you on Sunday.

Feng Chen
Principal
CCC Chinese School 2014-2015

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中文学校每周简讯 - 10月13日 10/25/2014 - 2:49pm

中文学校的各位家长、老师，你们好，

希望大家都渡过了一个安静、愉快的周末。我得非常感谢朋友们在微信上的分享（不是给微信做广告），让我足不出户，就可以欣赏到各处五彩斑斓的湖光山色。上个星期日我们请来了Randy Cale心理学博士给我们上一堂"如何为人父母"的讲座，希望大家都有所心得。如果你想更多的了解Dr. Cale的理念，请访问http://terrificparenting.com/. 这个星期我们还会举行一次讲座，是针对中文学习的，请看以下通知。

1．    讲座"如何提高华裔青少年的中文学习兴趣及效果"
宾州费城的姒玉明老师接受校方邀请于10月19日在Albany访问。星期天上午在华社举办讲座和语言课老师交流如何做教案、课堂设计，作为本学年的第一次教师培训。下午姒玉明老师在学校给家长开一次讲座、交流中文教学的一些体会心得，希望促进孩子们的学习兴趣。姒玉明老师长期执教中文，并且自己编著、出版一套中文教材"整全的教育",具体请参见http://www.holisticedu.us/index.html。对我们来说这是非常难得的一次学习机会，希望大家踊跃参与。同时希望大家注意一些事项如下：
-讲座期间进出大礼堂请从二楼后门
-礼堂外面的家长请保持走廊安静，避免打扰讲座
1:15PM    讲座开始
2:30PM    问答时间
3PM    结束

2．    讲故事比赛
一年一度的大家讲故事比赛定于11月9日在华社隆重召开。讲故事比赛报名截止日期为10月26日，细节见附件，请抓紧时间。如果你想参加评委团，请联系孙校长（xufeng.sun@gmail.com）。

3．    青少年义工团活动
上个星期六10月4日下午青少年义工团在Eddy Memorial Geriatric Center开展了本学年第一次义务活动。义工团的表演活动受到了老人们的热烈欢迎并邀请他们再次访问。详细请看Ryan和Jeffrey的报告。

这个星期的一周简讯到此。谢谢大家关注，周末愉快！

陈峰

中文学校校长2014-2015

 

Dear
Chinese School Families,

It has been a quiet and beautiful long weekend. Many of my friends took foliage scenic trip around the region and showed off their fall colors through WeChat, and I did not need to go outside to enjoy the breathtaking views of many places.

On Oct. 5th, we were fortunate to have Dr. Randy Cale give us a talk on parenting. I hope many of you have found it inspiriting. If you need further information, you can go to http://terrificparenting.com/
or follow up with Dr. Cale on Facebook or Twitter. This week we have another seminar specifically targeting language study. Please see details below.

1.    Seminar “how to encourage kids to learn Chinese at home”
This Sunday afternoon we will host Yuming Si, an experienced educator in Chinese language from Philadelphia, to give us a seminar on how to raise kid’s interests to learn Chinese at home. Yuming has been teaching Chinese since 2006 and started a Chinese school in Philadelphia in 2007. Since 2009, he has been editing a set of eight Chinese textbooks “Holistic Education” to address the needs of textbooks suitable for American born Chinese. You can find more information on http://www.holisticedu.us/index.html.
The seminar agenda is listed below.
To avoid disturbance to the speaker, I will need parents to go in and out the auditorium from the back door on second floor during the seminar. Parents sitting outside the auditorium should also try their best to lower their voice to keep the hallway quiet. All of audience would appreciate your cooperation.

Where: Auditorium (Please access through the back door on 2nd floor during seminar)
1:15PM    Seminar by Yuming Si
2:30PM    Q&A session
3PM Adjourn

2.    Chinese Story Telling Contest at CCC
The annual Chinese Story Telling Contest for the school year of 2014-2015 will be held on Sunday, November 9th, at the CCC building (1:00PM – 4:00PM). The deadline for registration is October 26. Please refer to attached announcement for details. We are looking for parents to participate in the judge team. If you like to get involved, please contact Vice Principal Xufeng Sun (xufeng.sun@gmail.com).

3.    Youth Team Activity
The youth team held its first volunteering activity at Eddy center in Troy. It was well received by the senior residents there. We should all be proud of them being able to share their time and care with others. We also thank the parents who encouraged their kids to volunteer and provided the transportation. Please see attached report from the presidents Ryan and Jeffrey. Stay tuned for next activity.

With that, I will wrap up this weekly update and see you on Sunday.

Feng Chen

Principal
CCC Chinese School 2014-2015

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中文学校每周简讯 - 10月3日 10/15/2014 - 12:35pm

中文学校的各位家长、老师，你们好，

学期进入第五周，大家都已经按部就班：有扎堆聊天的，有四处散步的，还有装模作样埋头用工的，当然也有不少聚在教室门口向室内探望的。这个星期我们会在大礼堂请Randy Cale心理学博士给我们上一堂“如何为人父母”的讲座，希望能把大家都吸引过来。附件有Randy Cale博士发表的一些相关文章，这些文章在他的网站（http://terrificparenting.com）上也有转载。请大家多多准备一些问题，越尖锐越有实际意义。除了讲座之外，还有其他一些校务需要大家注意。

1．      毕业以及奖学金
请毕业班的同学开始着手准备申请奖学金程序。今年学校从不多的项目基金里拨出1000元用于奖励在中文学校的优秀毕业生，以表彰他们多年在中文学校的学习，对社区的贡献，以及每个人所取得的优异成绩。申请程序可以在学校网站下载（http://www.albanychineseschool.org/Schoolhandbook/2014-2015/CS_Scholarship_2014-2015.pdf）。

2．      第十六届世界华人学生作文大赛
第十六届世界华人学生作文大赛截稿日为12月31日, 所有参赛习作必须在12月8日前由各班老师统一交给参赛组织者任小波老师。根据以往经验，各位任课老师可以有针对性的利用平时的作业鼓励学生写作发挥，聚沙成塔。希望年底我们有一大批高质量的文章参赛。

3．      讲故事比赛
一年一度的大家讲故事比赛定于11月9日在华社隆重召开。讲故事比赛一年比一年受欢迎，参赛学生不断增加。故事内容和表演形式也花样纷呈。具体的细节将由孙旭峰副校长宣布。如果你有什么建议或问题，请联系孙校长（xufeng.sun@gmail.com）。

4．      青少年义工团活动
星期六10/4下午1:50PM 到3PM青少年义工团将在Eddy Memorial Geriatric Center开始本学年第一次义务活动。活动主要有乐器表演，慰问老人。该敬老院去年在美国新闻与世界报道杂志的全美国16000所敬老院调查中被授予最高的五星级排名。整个纽约首府地区36家敬老院中仅4家获此殊荣。请大家对义工团的活动给予充分的支持，让我们的孩子们在活动中体验社会，在生活中成长。如果你有具体问题，请联系义工团主席Ryan Guo (rguo98@gmail.com) 和Jeffrey Shen (jeffshen321@yahoo.com)。

这个星期的一周简讯到此，谢谢大家关注。周末愉快！

陈峰
中文学校校长2014-2015

Dear Chinese School Families,

The school is moving forward at its full throttle. When I walked around the classrooms, the usual laughter was floating around and I can see most of you have settled except a few parents were still peeking through the windows into the classrooms and seemed to be anxiously interested in what was going on inside. For this coming Sunday, I hope the seminar event will attract all of you to the auditorium so we have a quiet hallway. As announced earlier this week, Dr. Randy Cale will talk about parenting, second language study, and homework in a general sense. He will share his best experience after many years of practice as physiologist. I will appreciate if you can read through the attached articles from him, and bring your own questions, concerns, or your thoughts to share with other parents. There are a few other highlights I want to share with you below.

1.      Scholarship and graduation
For those of you who plan to graduate in the spring of 2014, this is the time to apply for Chinese School scholarship. Application procedures can be found in 2014 handbook or can be downloaded at http://www.albanychineseschool.org/Schoolhandbook/2014-2015/CS_Scholarship_2014-2015.pdf. There is total $1000 allocated for the scholarship fund this year. It is meant to recognize outstanding graduate students of Chinese School for their continuous effort in Chinese language learning, participation in Chinese school, contribution to Chinese community, and academia achievement.

2.      Composition competition
The 16th International Chinese Essay contest has been announced in July with details attached. The deadline is Dec. 8th to submit compositions to Teacher Xiaobo Ren. Every language teacher is encouraged to utilize their weekly writing assignment and have their students participate in this competition. We usually see parent involvement is helpful and promoting a good outcome.

3.      Chinese Story Telling Contest at CCC
The annual Chinese Story Telling Contest for the school year of 2014-2015 will be held on Sunday, November 9th, at the CCC building (1:00PM – 4:00PM). Every year we have a lot of participation, various programs and stories. It is a great platform for your kids to showcase their staging performance and win from a large pool of prizes. Please contact Vice Principal Xufeng Sun (xufeng.sun@gmail.com) for more details.

4.      Youth Team Event
This Saturday 10/4 from 1:50PM to 3PM the Youth team will be organizing a volunteering event at Eddy Memorial Geriatric Center in Troy. They plan to perform musical instrument, have a conversation with the senior residents, and hopefully fill the rooms with joy and laughter. Water will be provided.
Eddy Memorial Geriatric Center was awarded the best five-star rating in 2013 by U.S. News & World Report, in a review of 16,000 facilities nationwide. Only 4 nursing homes received this best rating out of 36 in Capital Region.
I’d love to see parents’ support behind Youth Team’s effort to promote the Chinese Community by bringing your kids to participate and volunteer in this event. Please feel free to contact Ryan Guo (rguo98@gmail.com) and Jeffrey Shen (jeffshen321@yahoo.com) for more details.

With that, I will wrap up this weekly update. Enjoy the weekend and see you on Sunday.

Feng Chen
Principal
CCC Chinese School 2014-2015

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中文学校每周简讯 - 9月26日 10/04/2014 - 10:38am

中文学校的家长们，你们好！

中文学校进入第四周，注册基本结束。上个星期课程结束后，我终于有时间把教学区大致走了一遍。不走不知道，一走吓一跳。上下两层楼共三十间教室加走廊，我一共捡了8张糖纸，5根棒棒糖柄，以及其他一些食物垃圾。当然还有一些我没有注意到的，或是已经被捡起来的。也就是说我们一再强调在教学区不准带食物和饮料的规定并没有得到很好的执行，这给学校的管理带来了很多隐患。上个星期，我已经收到Colonie学区的反馈意见，基本和我的观察一致，就是大问题没有，小问题一串。我请大家引起注意，从自己做起，带动身边的家长，共同维护学校的清洁卫生。

其他一些学校的工作和大家通报如下：

1．青少年义工团选举结果
华社青少年义工团上个星期天进行选举，共有43人参加，包括三对6名候选人。每对选举人向大家做了自我介绍以及工作设想，并且回答了来自听众以及我的问题。所有候选人都对过去一年的工作做了回顾，一致认为今后的工作还可以做的更多、更好。在“更多、更好”的大方向下，每个候选人的思路和具体想法各不相同：Bill和Michael侧重于如何帮助中文学校和华社作更多、更细致的工作；Ryan和Jeffrey想拓展义工的范围，发挥华裔青少年的长处，走出华人的社区，更多的为全社会服务; Aaron和Bryan注意到义工团参与度不高的问题，想努力提高大家的积极性，包括作学生家长的思想工作，鼓励大家参与，改变社会上存在的“华裔青少年只知道读书用功”的一些片面印象。他们每个人的想法都是自己努力思考的结果，对问题以及解决方案的阐述有条有理。最后的选举结果如下：
Ryan和Jeffrey，17票，当选主席。
Bill和Michael, 13票，当选副主席。
Aaron和Bryan, 11票，当选秘书。
还有两票弃权。选举的结果是相当的接近，没有一个人获得半数以上的票，说明他们的提议和想法都是大家所关心的。在这里我祝贺他们并希望这三对候选人在工作中互动互补，把青少年义工团的工作上升一个台阶。

２．2014-2015学年预算
上个周末在董刚主席的召集下，开了本学年第一次董事会，主要是商议本学年的财政预算。根据上个周末的统计，今年的收入约为11.5万美元。开支主要分为三大块：老师以及校务人员的工资和补贴为65%，学校的固定开支（租金，保险，财务审计等）为21%，其他各种项目（故事会，期末庆祝，老师培训等等）为14%。今年的收入和去年持平，头两项开支也大致相同。主要的区别在于本学年学校将增加在老师培训、教育性讲座两方面的力度，主要目的是为了提高师资力量和促进家长参与，激发孩子们学习中文的积极性，从而提高中文教育质量。因为我们收入和往年一样，在老师培训、讲座上加大投入必然会影响到其他一些项目，比如期末庆祝活动的资金就会受到影响。在这方面，家长会代表们足智多谋，一致认为困难是可以克服的。所以财政预算得到全体董事会会员赞同，全票通过。如果你想知道预算细节或有其他问题，请联系我或董刚主席。

３．各班级家长代表
除去两个成人中文班，我们共有28个中文语言班。每个语言班，学校要求不论班级大小，必须推选一位家长代表，协助本班级老师工作，包括安排家长值日，作为家长会与家长之间的纽带，传递必需的信息等等。家长代表是学校管理当中核心的一部分，希望大家积极担任。作为家长代表，还可以免除学校PTA 值日。

本期简讯到此。谢谢大家关注，星期天见！

陈峰
中文学校校长2014-2015

Dear Chinese School Families,

The color of fall is unfolding before us. Every leaf is like a rose in the spring but differs in its own color. Many of you probably have started planning the annual foliage scenic trip. When you are out in such a trip, take the opportunity to teach your child what is “霜叶红于二月花”, and explain the scientific reasons behind it. Hopefully after the trip, you will become know-it-all daddy or mommy.

As the registration drew to an end this week, I finally had time to take a walk around the classrooms by end of the day and talked to the custodians who were cleaning up the rooms and hallways. During my walk-around, unfortunately, I was needed to pick up various garbage including candy wrappers, lollipop sticks, crackers etc. As we all have a
common understanding that food and beverage are not allowed in the classroom zone, it was not observed and followed strictly at least last Sunday. If I had to serve as the last guard, we have a broken system to keep the classroom zone clean, because I could not cover all the corners in five minutes. For the same amount of garbage I picked up, there were probably more left somewhere else. Only with help from each one of you,
especially parents on duty, either for school or classroom, we can accomplish the goal of keeping the rooms neat and clean. A simple remind to yourself or people around you will be a step forward. With that, I’d like to direct your attention to a few highlights of past and coming weeks:

1.      Youth Team Election Results
Total 37 youth members besides all 6 candidates participated in the Youth Team election last Sunday. Each running team had a few minutes to introduce themselves and presented their ideas of how to run the youth team this year. By end of their speech they addressed questions from the floor and me. All of them were well prepared so the competition was intense, which can be told by the vote counts below. In the end, the
members decided the team for this year with their votes as the following:
Ryan Guo and Jeffrey Shen       17 votes        Co-President
Bill Dong and Michael Huang     13 votes        Co-Vice President
Aaron Zhang and Bryan Zhou      11 votes        Co-Secretary
There were 2 invalid votes.

Please join me in congratulating them being elected to the leadership positions. Ryan Guo and the team have started to form the youth team community. Parents, please have your child forward contact information to Ryan Guo at rguo98@gmail.com at your earliest convenience. The first volunteering event planned is as soon as next week. Don’t miss the opportunity to work with your peers and help the needed.

2.      Budget Update
The school conducted first council meeting last Sunday mainly to discuss and vote for the 2014-2015 budget. Based on enrollment as of last Friday, the projected revenue is about $115K. The expenses include teachers and staff compensation (65%), fixed operational cost (21%) and program cost (14%). The revenue is almost flat compared to last year. Both teachers and staff compensation and fixed operational cost are stable. The only variable is in the program cost. As we plan to initiate and install new programs such as educational seminars and teacher’s training, inevitably we need to cut funding to other programs to balance the budget sheet. The school proposed to reduce year end celebration cost and the council members had a keen discussion as to how to minimize the impact while maintaining our traditions. PTA members made a commitment to keeping our tradition strong and the budget was approved unanimously in the end. We should all be grateful to PTA members who bridge many gaps when needed.

3.      Classroom Home Parent
By now every classroom should have identified a home parent no matter the size of the classes. Home parents serve a few critical functions and share the responsibilities with teachers for classroom maintenance such that the teachers can focus on teaching and education. All the home parents should send their contact information to PTA chair Jian Xu (jxuonline@gmail.com). If your classroom has not found a home parent, please consider volunteer this role. And you will be exempt from PTA duty assignment. As we encourage our children to participate in the Youth Volunteer Team, we can also act as a role model by participating in school duties.

Wish you all have a good weekend and see you on Sunday again.

Sincerely,

Feng Chen
Principal, Chinese School 2014-2015

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