Beginning of School Overview

Dear Families of the Primary Class,

Greetings! A new school year is quickly approaching and we wanted to write a letter to both welcome and prepare you for the coming year. We are so excited to see returning families and welcome our new families into the Trillium community!
Thank you for taking the time to read through some important information that will help you, your child and us have an amazing year

The Primary Team
This year Brian is excited to welcome Lyndsey (former Intermediate advisor) and Aron to the primary team. Aron comes to us from Tumbleweed Infant House, a constructivist and emergent curricula-based school in SE Portland, and brings amazing energy, creativity and knowledge to our team. Together we have a shared commitment to innovative teaching and learning, specializing in integration, emergent curriculum and young literacy! We love working as a team to provide your child with the best personal education we can, and we thank you in advance for partnering with us in your child's education.
Your child's advisor is your main contact at school. You can expect regular communication via email and blog posts. Please subscribe to your advisor's blog to keep up to date on the latest information and to see our learning adventures in action! Blogs may also be accessed through the Trillium website. If you do not have regular Internet access at home, please let your advisor know.
If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, please first contact us. We are very open to conversations. For more in-depth conversations we prefer setting up a time to talk in person. Please save the at-home calls for urgent matters ONLY before 8 pm.

Advisor Visits
This year introductory visits with your child's advisor may take place over the course of the fall. The goal of these visits is to begin or to rekindle student-advisor-family relationships. We are prioritizing home visits for students who are transitioning from Kindergarten or are new to Trillium. We will be scheduling visits as soon as possible, but many may not happen before the school year starts and will take place throughout September. Returning students are also invited to schedule an optional visit throughout the fall.

Schedule (Monday-Thursday)
This year brings some changes to our routine; besides two new advisors, you will notice that recess and lunch will be from 10:55-11:45 for the entire lower school. All students will eat in the multi-purpose room. We will continue to have a snack break and recess at another point in the day. Students will continue to have art class with Joy and music class with Heidi once a week, and will also participate in Service Learning experiences with our new Service Learning Coordinator, Em. Fridays continue to be a half day for students, with a 12:00pm dismissal, and all other days are 8:30 am to 3:00 pm.
Here is an overview of the flow of a typical day for the beginning of the year; things change as the year progresses since the collective needs, interests and passions of the students guide our work.

8:30 Class begins – Please be on time – may include: Check in, Morning Meeting, calendar, Literacy and math games, choice activities, morning challenges and announcements.
9:00-10:00 Reader's Workshop
10:00-10:55 Math
10:55-11:20 Recess
11:20-11:45 Lunch
11:45-12:45 Writer's Workshop/ Art
12:45-1:30 Literacy/Choice Explorations/PE/Snack
1:30-1:50 Afternoon Recess
1:50-2:50 Theme Exploration/ Music

2:50 – 3:00 Clean up and dismissal, Please be on time!*
*If you have not picked up your child by 3:15 pm, he/she will be escorted to After-Care and you will be charged hourly.


Friday Schedule
8:30 Class begins – Please be on time – may include: Check in, Morning Meeting, calendar, Literacy and math games, choice activities, morning challenges and announcements.
9:15-9:45 Class meeting- may include: Games, Proposals, Discussions, Problem Solving
9:45-10:15 Sharing
10:15-10:25 Snack
10:25-10:50 Recess
10:50-11:50 Literacy/Choice Exploration/Theme
11:50-12:00 Clean up
12:00 Dismissal - Please be on time*

Supplies
We are including a supply fee of $25 for your child’s class supplies. You do not need to bring in any classroom supplies. If you have yet to pay, please see Reis, our new business manager, in the front office! We may ask for special items to be brought during projects, but they should be things you find around the house. 

What to bring (and what to leave at home!)
*Extra clothes in a Marked Zip-loc bag (Mark with child’s name on clothes)
*Any completed forms and fees that have yet to be turned into the front office
(forms can be printed from website if you missed the Open House events)
*Leak proof water bottle
*Treasure bag-
We will be starting off the year with an activity called “Treasure Bag”. Students, please bring a bag with three items that are special to YOU. These can be natural treasures, photos, toys, drawings, or any item that can tell the class about what you treasure about yourself, your family and your world. Be ready to share about the items you bring!
Optional items:
Indoor shoes/slippers
Old paint shirt for classroom art use

As you may know, our classrooms are small and we decide as a class what supplies are needed. Therefore, please keep backpacks at home unless they are really needed to transport something. Remember, students do not need to bring basic school supplies; however, they may bring a favorite book, a sketchbook, or a favorite pencil, pen or pencil box.

Theme
Our beginning theme this year is an exploration and inquiry into ourselves, our families, and our role in our community. We will be exploring identity and community through field trips, literacy and math investigations, map and genealogy studies, and oral histories. We will keep you updated as field trips are scheduled, as we will be in need of drivers and chaperones!

Snack
We encourage you to pack a healthful snack for your child each day. Please make it something nutritious and fast to eat with no preparation needed. We will not provide class snacks.

Conflict Resolution

We use peer mediation as a form of nonviolent conflict resolution at Trillium. We want to give students the tools to solve their own problems. They do so with the support of their teacher and other staff. Please familiarize yourself and your child with our constitution and our bill of rights and responsibilities. This serves as a foundation for our mediation process and how we frame our responsibilities as members of the community. These documents are available on the Trillium website. Mediations are not punitive, but rather a way to fully understand and solve issues, as well as reflect and make behavioral changes necessary for successful learning and friendships.

If the same behavior keeps occurring over and over, then the issue can be taken to Judicial Committee. This is a group of students who ask questions and help to come up with solutions to the ongoing issue. It is much like a multi-mediator mediation. Once again, the goal is to solve issues nonviolently and in a way that works for all members involved. If you have questions about this process, please ask. Please support your child in developing nonviolent conflict resolution skills. 

Activity Fee
There is an activity fee that is all-inclusive this year. It covers all field trips, our spring campout at Cape Lookout on May 17-18, and additional supplies for class activities. The cost is $125.00. These fees make field trips possible. Additional siblings or family members that attend must be paid for separately and in advance. We should not have to ask for any additional money for our class this year. Please make the arrangements for payment or work out a payment schedule with Reis in the front office.
If you qualify for free and reduced lunch you can receive a scholarship from TFT by filling out the scholarship request form in the front office.
You must fill out the scholarship form however. TFT cannot access free and reduced lunch information so you must request the scholarship. 

TFT
TFT or Together For Trillium is a parent organization that supports the school. It sponsors Trillium in Bloom, classroom activities and various social activities to enrich the Trillium community. Please consider participating in their monthly meetings, and or attending the community events!

SleepUnder
We have a SleepUnder on October 6th, beginning at 6:00pm with a pizza dinner, fun activities and games to be enjoyed by all. Parents are invited to come and play and stay if they want or leave their children in our care for the evening. Children should be picked up by 8:30pm to go home to sleep and return for a group breakfast with us the next morning. It will be a lot of safe fun and community building for all! 

Campout
We will be having a primary campout on May 17th & 18th. We will go to Cape Lookout State Park on the Oregon Coast, 12 miles southwest of Tillamook. We leave in the morning of May 17th and return on the 18th at about 3:00pm. One parent is strongly encouraged to come, as this is a community activity and a chance to meet with fellow parents and welcome new families to Trillium. All three primary classes will share 12 yurts. Each yurt sleeps a maximum of 8 people. Three tent sites are also reserved. If you are planning to bring a whole family you will need to make your own campsite reservations since we will not have room for everyone’s entire family. The cost of the campout and food is included in your child’s activity fee for your child; any additional family members attending will need to pay an additional fee of $25.00 or $10.00 for those 4 or younger. 

Sharing
Students will have the opportunity to share from their lives outside of school frequently in reader's and writer's workshop, theme explorations and a weekly sharing time. In order to make sharing an interesting and valuable part of our day, each class will have a sharing schedule that will be posted in the class. Sharing is not a time to share toys one may own. DO NOT SEND TOYS. We will have a schedule with a theme for sharing. Please make sure the item or story they share is related to the topic for the week. Check newsletters, and blog entries or calendars for the current themes.

Birthdays
We would love to celebrate your child’s birthday in class. Students with summer birthdays can celebrate their birthday on their half birthday or at another time that we can arrange during the year. Please let us know in advance if you are planning on bringing a snack that we can all share in the afternoon. Snacks should be healthy and not sugar laden. Advance notice is necessary so we can address food allergies.

Communication
All newsletters and important class and school information will be distributed through three avenues: the home files located in/outside each classroom, through electronic emails, and on our blog at the addresses listed at the end of this newsletter or through the main Trillium Website. Please check your file daily to keep up with all of the new and exciting activities in the primary classes and at Trillium. Talk to your child’s teacher if your family needs more than one home file. Make sure we have the correct email, home address and phone information for your family. The Trillium News is another avenue for all-school information, as well as the information board postings in the common area!

Recess and Park Activities
We would love to be able to go outside daily throughout the year to play and work! Please send your child to school with appropriate outerwear/raingear for the beautiful wet Oregon days.

Volunteers
We are looking forward to a year of partnering with all of the adults in the lives of our students. We hope to be able to learn from your experience with your child so that together we can make his/her experience at Trillium a great one. We have a wide range of opportunities to volunteer in and out of the classroom. Please contact your child’s advisor to help or talk to the classroom liaison (TFT will help us find a willing candidate for the liaison position) to help. Each class needs volunteers for ongoing projects:


Reading Group Facilitators – Help work with small groups of students in reading groups with guided, leveled oral reading and word work.
Documentarians – Helps document student learning and assist in recording student's great ideas by writing, recording and photography.
Portfolio Assistant – Scans and assists in getting high quality work into electronic portfolio system.
Theme Exploration Assistant – Helps advisor acquire necessary supplies and books for integrated theme study. Helps advisor with whole group, small group and individual inquiries in science, social studies, and literacy by assisting with preparations, set-up and small group management.
Before School, Lunch and Recess Duty Helpers – Help assure safety of children during these times and supervise games.
Copy/Cut Expert- Help advisor make necessary copies, construct small books, and cut out needed manipulatives or tools. This can be a before and after-school job, as well as much of it can be done at home while watching a movie or drinking a glass of wine!
Expert Visitors- Share an interest or passion with our students as a guest expert. Perhaps you have talents and expertise that aligns with a current theme of study and you have the time to share those talents with us, please contact your child's advisor to set up a meaningful learning experience with the kids that the two of us can collaborate on!

Please contact your child’s teacher if you would be willing to work on one of these projects. Your help is incredibly appreciated!
Trillium and PPS have a policy to help ensure the safety of our children and community. If you are planning to help in any way that gives you access to other people’s children we are required to complete a criminal background check. Those forms are available through the school.
When we go on field trips and you choose to chaperone, remember you are there to help and it is okay to reinforce positive behaviors of children as well as remind them of appropriate limits. Check with any of us if you have questions. Remember that if you volunteer to chaperone we are expecting that you make that your priority and that you take care of all children in your charge just as carefully as you would your own. 
While we generally have an open door policy when it comes to parent involvement in the classroom, we are requesting that for the first two weeks of school parent volunteer time be limited to work outside the classroom. We would like for the first two weeks of school to give the students an opportunity to form a tight-knit community with one another and allow us to form our own relationships with the children. We are excited to welcome parents in the classroom beginning in our third full week of school, on September 26th. 

Contact Information
Lyndsey, Brian, and Aron can be contacted by telephone or email for questions and concerns. Since drop-off and pick-up time are usually busy, please feel free to call or set up an appointment if you need a longer time to chat.

Aron Steinke 360.903.4618 email:aron@trilliumcharterschool.org
Blog: 

Brian Porter 541.941.0515 email: brian@trilliumcharterschool.org
Blog: http:// brianskids.blogspot.com 

Lyndsey Arnold 541-515.5437 email:lyndsey@trilliumcharterschool.org
Blog: http://lyndseyarnold.wordpress.com/

All the best,
Aron, Brian, and Lyndsey