by Susie Fahrer | Feb 21, 2022 | Blogs, CEO's Kaleidoscope, Director's Blog, Home Page News, News, Publications
The return to school in 2022 unfolded at a brisk pace reinforced by pandemic stress, student narratives and conferences, re-enrollment planning, and more. My recent conversations with staff, parents, and students have shared a theme of “emotional erosion” describing the continued mental health impacts of pandemic living. This fragility reminds us all to tread gently, offering ourselves and others grace as we strive for coherence and harmony in our daily experience. Additionally, there seems to be a collective anticipation of spring gifting renewal and new life. In this moment, I invite you to focus on the return of light spiritually and emotionally for ourselves, our children, and our school.
This month’s Kaleidoscope focuses on time where we look back at our past, pause for our present, and vision our future. Intentionally contemplating our time together can help us slow down and counterbalance the urge to simply “push ahead,” reminding us that we always have the power to reframe our perspective from a mindset of doing to being.
Looking Back At Our Past:
It is hard to believe I am nearing the end of a second year as the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School. While the pandemic has certainly impacted our shared experience over the past 2 years, I am so proud of the many accomplishments we have achieved together within and beyond COVID. Our 2020-21 Annual Report is a capstone document that highlights several of these celebrations. I hope you will take the time to read it and recognize the collaborative efforts it showcases. This document is a testament to our holistic approach and community mindset that is at the very heart of our mission and vision.
Pausing For Our Present:
As noted above this present moment has many of us feeling full. I can’t help but return to our theme for this year; Collective Enrichment and Continual Evolution, for an opportune frame. Recently, the teachers completed Learner Profiles, offering a beautiful and holistic view of each child’s educational journey. This artifact is a great example of the rich curriculum and individualized approach at Rainbow, and it is also a tool for capturing a child’s evolution over time. Hopefully, the conferences provided ample time for each family to digest these narratives and look ahead to goals for your child in the remaining months of school.
Similarly, our institution has been designing opportunities for enriched conversation and collective wisdom to source our individual and organizational evolution. Our Primary Division continues to implement Fundations, and recently gathered for a formal training and reflection opportunity. Upper grades teachers took this time to dive deep into the data provided by our standardized testing. Additionally, teachers gathered earlier this month for a fire circle with feedback and fellowship. This listening session resulted in adapting our Wednesday training schedule to offer more breath and space for organic and relevant meetings to take place, bringing a little of spring’s renewal to our professional development calendar.
If we truly center ourselves in this present moment, it feels critical to also discuss COVID. Governor Cooper recently endorsed returning to a more typical school experience. The school toolkit is evolving, and the Safety team will be meeting this Friday (2/25/22) to outline Rainbow’s next steps in alignment with this updated guidance. Throughout this journey, we have been asked by many families how they can support community wellness. It is clear that everyone continues to take steps to monitor physical health and keep students home when ill. We are grateful for this partnership. It feels equally important to commit to a healthy dialogue around COVID. Vaccination status, infection level, and mask choices, are just a few of the potentially divisive topics surrounding this pandemic. We are all susceptible, including our children, to the polarizing impacts of debate versus dialogue. At Rainbow, we have the power and ability to center our humanness and model conscious communication. The teachers and staff are committed to this practice daily, as we facilitate healthy processing of pandemic impacts with our children.
Visioning Our Future:
Visioning further ahead brings a sense of joy and play as we consider all the possibilities yet to manifest. Rainbow Summer Camps are soon to be released to the public, and the line up is exciting! From crafting to adventuring to ESL, there is sure to be a week of exploration your child can’t resist. Reach out to our Camp Director, Susan Waddell with questions.
The much awaited 2022-23 School Calendar outlines our instructional flow for next year. This calendar has been reviewed by the administration, faculty, parent council, and board in an effort to create a rhythm that supports optimal learning for our children and a balanced experience for our stakeholders.
Looking forward, there is so much to be inspired by. I am hopeful that we will find time to commune together and be nurtured by the beauty and breath of spring.
Yours In Taking Time,
Susie Fahrer
Executive Director
by Susie Fahrer | Nov 1, 2021 | Blogs, CEO's Kaleidoscope
October 2021 Kaleidoscope
The turn of the seasons is in full swing. The morning greets us with crisp autumn air and the afternoon sun provides a welcome warm up for outdoor activities. This time of year is filled with breathtaking beauty. A final burst of bounty before the stillness of winter. The natural flow of the seasons, each having its own turn in time, can be symbolic of our own rhythms for health and wellness.
This month’s Kaleidoscope* brings Rainbow’s focus on Health and Wellness to the forefront. In doing so, we provide an opportunity for reflection, contemplation, and progression.
Holistic Approach
Rainbow’s holistic approach to learning is at the heart of student wellness, especially as we learn to negotiate the evolving impacts of pandemic education. Our student’s social and emotional needs are nurtured through strategies like providing adequate time for transitions, breaks, and play. Leading with a lens on holistic wellness helps to counterbalance the cultural narrative that schools must “make up for lost time.” Instead, Rainbow is taking the time to attune with our students, and build a responsive and responsible approach focused on growth. This helps us calibrate our learning environment with the children’s current needs preserving their sacred relationship with life long learning.
- Gathering benchmarks and data is another way that we are building an approach that is responsive and relevant. Teachers will be releasing progress reports to families in November with Parent Teacher Conferences (November 22-23rd) serving as a tool for individualized discussion and follow up.
- Our Wednesday training schedule is a critical resource enabling time to focus on best practices in the classroom. On Wednesday afternoons, teachers collaborate and innovate, cultivating a dynamic experience for our students.
- A Rainbow education inspires students to achieve in the present, and prepares them for life long learning. Our engaging Middle School program features rich and meaningful course work, diverse elective experiences, outstanding educators, and a finely crafted curriculum fostering adolescent thriving. Come learn more and hear from our insightful alumni about the transition from Omega Middle School to their High School of choice. This is one of the most powerful ways to understand the value of completing the Rainbow journey through 8th grade. Join us on November 9th from 6:30-8:00pm. RSVP to the event here.
Social and Emotional Domains
The social and emotional domains are integrated in every classroom, and we have a fantastic team of counselors to support the teachers, students, and families when the need for more personal care is present.
- The counseling team includes Will Ray, Mark Ackerman, and Jamie Rischitelli. They have coordinated their schedules so that we always have a counselor on campus. The Counseling Program is available for general support in the classrooms, and can provide more personalized sessions for students and families as needed.
- Additionally, we are launching Affinity Groups for our BIPOC students in November. Several emails have been shared about the details of this initiative. Most importantly, it furthers our investment in cultivating a diverse community that also experiences a culture of belonging and connection.
- In the spirit of inclusion and wellness, Rainbow is in the process of establishing a Pronoun policy. This is currently being reviewed through various Dynamic Governance circles and will be shared with the community as soon as it is finalized. This policy brings visibility and transparency to establishing a culture of safety, sincerity, and allyship.
Culture of Engagement
A culture of engagement creates a community that is connected, collaborative, and compassionate. Since the launch of the school year, there have been several highlights within our community exemplifying this value.
- The Rainbow Community School Board put together a video explaining their role in the long term success of our school. The Board is an outstanding group of volunteers that guides the school’s future planning in partnership with the Executive Director. They are an integral part of our governance model and a resounding source of support to Administrative leadership.
- Additionally, our Parent council is a governing circle whose primary function is to help community relationships flourish. From teacher lunches to initiating class gatherings, their impact is powerful and appreciated. The meetings are open and anyone is welcome.
- Joining a circle is another way to invest in Rainbow. Our circle meetings are published in Rainbow Reminders, and are open for anyone to join.
- In the spirit of celebrating community engagement, we are planning to reinvigorate a tracking system for volunteer hours. This will help support efforts directed at outside funding and grant opportunities. More details will be shared in an upcoming Rainbow Reminders.
Health and Safety
Along with emotional wellbeing, our physical safety is a top priority at Rainbow. This includes continued reflection on our Covid Mitigations aligning ourselves with best practices and relevant data.
- Our pool testing program has been running for the past two weeks. The students and teachers have quickly adapted to this routine and we move efficiently through the process. So far, the pool reports have been negative. We will only send out notification and next steps if a positive pool is received.
- At the start of school, our mitigation strategies were built in alignment with CDC guidance. Additionally, the context of high infection rates, a fully in person model that included our largest cohorts since the beginning of the pandemic (Preschool, K-2, 3-5, and 6-8), and the return of the Rainbow’s End program informed a structured and cautious launch. Despite these significant changes, we have experienced great success to date. As a result, we are reviewing our mitigation guidelines to consider shifting our masking protocols outdoors and exploring more long term adaptations, as vaccination becomes an option for more of our student body.
- To help us explore the landscape as it relates to Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School, we are asking that all families complete THIS SURVEY.
Please have your information completed by November 2, 2021.
Yours In Partnership and Gratitude,
Susie Fahrer
Executive Director
*Communication is central to the success of our community. In collaboration with weekly publications like Rainbow Reminders and regular classroom newsletters, Kaleidoscope captures the bigger picture of what is happening on campus and exciting news for Rainbow’s future.
by Cynthia Calhoun | Jan 28, 2020 | Blogs, Home Page News
Fourth graders figure out their favorite Greek deity
We headed over to 4th grade recently where our students were immersed in the world of ancient Greece. They learned about mythology and creative arts. Their teacher, Kurt, said they really loved learning about the Greek gods and doing hands-on activities related to their learning.
Because of that, Kurt let them do a special activity that would further their learning with Greek mythology. They investigated their favorite god by reading a story, and created designs using paper shaped like pottery. These designs were based on what they knew about the deity they studied.
Hercules – probably the most famous Greek deity
They started off their lesson with a short video about Hercules. They talked about how the story of Hercules is from long ago when “chaos reigned.” Students realized there were many references to pottery and design, as well as other historical events.
Greek Pottery
Fourth graders had a chance to look at examples of ancient Greek pottery. They saw references to Achilles, a centaur, minotaur, war and peace, Hercules and more. Once they had a chance to look at different examples, their teacher explained that stories they were about to read would also inform the designs they’d create on their pottery.
Stories about Greek gods
Each student paired up with another and chose their favorite Greek deity to study. They were allowed to read the story to each other, silently, or alternate between silent reading and reading aloud as they liked. Once finished, each student created their paper pottery. Essentially, they created a stencil using one piece of paper, cut it out, and finally glued it onto paper with a brown background.
After students finished gluing their stenciled piece onto the background, they could begin drawing designs. They worked with pencils and black markers. Some designs were quite eloquent and detailed. One requirement was to reference the story they read within their pottery design.
These pottery designs complemented the rest of their unit on Greek mythology. Intricate and detailed, each pottery piece reflected each student’s drawing style. As students concluded the unit, they did further research on their chosen Greek god. This research led to a one-page report, which they later presented to their class.
This one lesson touched on several different domains: the social and emotional, in which students were able to collaborate with one another, and worked together to complete their stories and pottery projects. They engaged in the mental domain in researching more about Greek deities. They were able to use the creative domain with their pottery designs and even touched on the spiritual domain with regard to Greek beliefs and mythology itself. All teachers at Rainbow create units that incorporate the seven different domains at least once.
by West | May 29, 2016 | News
Renee, West, several Omega students and other local educators, consultants and community members have been working hard since September to rethink and reinvent learning. The team has emerged with an innovative high school concept-the rEVOLution High model which was recently submitted to the XQ Super School Project. This XQ Super School Project is project is a $50 million campaign, funded by Laurene Powell Jobs and the XQ Institute, to reimagine and design the next public American high school. Recently the Mountain Express did a story on our XQ Superschool Team and its process. Check the article out here.
by Webmaster | Dec 11, 2014 | Home Page News, Student News & Accolades
The Legend of Chocolate
The third grade class just completed a unit on the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish. Their Spanish teacher, Cynthia, worked with West, their third grade teacher, to create a unit that would complement what the students were learning in their main classroom.
Students studied about how things work – machines, phones, etc. – in their main classroom lessons and in Spanish class, students learned about where chocolate came from.
At the end of the unit, third graders got a chance to see how chocolate is made, and how the machines work to make all that chocolate.
In their Spanish unit, students learned many new vocabulary words such as food (comida), drink (bebida), the Toltecs (los Toltecas), as well as many more vocabulary words.
They learned abut Quetzalcoatl, the god of Light and Tezcatlipoca, the god of darkness. Quetzalcoatl was the god to bring the food of the gods – chocolate – to the people, especially when they were so hungry. He taught them to farm, and how to turn cacao into a chocolate drink fit for the gods!
Third graders at the French Broad Chocolate Tasting Room
From there, they learned the mythical story about where chocolate originated. They learned the story in Spanish and even learned to recite it.
At the end of the unit, they took a field trip to the French Broad Chocolate Factory and had a tour of the Tasting Room. They listened to Evan, a Chocolatier, talk about cacao, where it comes from, how the Chocolatiers turn the cacao beans into chocolate and how they try to be as sustainable as possible in the process.
The crew at the French Broad Chocolate Factory led everyone into their “back rooms” where students could see all the machines at work. From rinsing, to sifting the cacao beans, to grinding them down into chocolate, they were able to see the entire process from start to finish.
Students sampled chocolate – the dark, unsweet kind directly derived from cacao – from different regions and it has a different taste from different regions!
Learning about chocolate and cacao
At the end of the presentation, the third graders performed the skit of the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish for the French Broad Chocolate Lounge Staff.
Did you know that the French Broad Chocolate Factory uses solar power to heat all its water? And that they make every attempt to source all their ingredients locally?
They also deal only with farms that use fair trade in their practices. In fact, the owners and employees make trips to cacao farms in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Peru and help harvest the cacao by hand.
They have developed mutually beneficial relationships with farmers in those countries.
Watching the grinding machine take off the outer shell of cacao.
Rainbow would like to extend a special thank you to the Chocolatiers – especially Evan – for a wonderful lesson on chocolate, sustainability, how things work, and the idea of being as responsible to the planet and to each other as possible!
