by Jessy Tickle | Aug 10, 2015 | Director's Blog, Home Page News, News
July 27, 2015
Dear Rainbow Parent,
Welcome to the 2015-2016 school year. At our graduation celebration in June, I asked everyone to reflect on the question “Where are you now?” Of course, this can be looked at through many domains. As a parent, where are you now? Parenting can be the most rewarding and challenging quest of all – providing unlimited learning opportunities. Where are you now, and how is being at Rainbow Community School an extension of your parenting?
Where are we now as a community school? After working so hard for so many years, everything we have been working for is coming to fruition. We are at a place of ripening, and we all get to share in the fruit of our labor. Here are some of the things we have to be grateful for and to enjoy:
Our new and beautiful facilities. We begin the 2015-16 school year with our new campus renovated and open, including the new courtyard and athletic field. This year’s facility project will be designing and fundraising for the outdoor classroom area on the new campus. Stay posted for more information and ways to get involved in this fun, enriching project.
Our community. After growing steadily for several years, we have completed our intentional growth, with about 200 students enrolled for this year. Now we have the opportunity to focus on broadening our population. The board and faculty are making diversity and inclusion the highest priority for the near future. Our children are fortunate to be in a caring, safe, and creative community.
Our accomplishments. We have received multiple awards, including being honored as a national Ashoka Changemaker School and a National Green School. As a national leader in holistic and innovative education, we are being asked to share our holistic programming with other schools and organizations. We hope to positively impact the direction of education on a large scale.
There are a few changes this year I want you to know about:
New Administrative Roles: As our administrative team grows to include more part-time, specialized positions, our roles are shifting. Sandra McCassim is stepping up to the role of Director of Operations. Sandra is now the top manager at the school. A simple way to explain the difference between what Sandra and I do is: I lead; Sandra manages. The difference between leadership and management may seem subtle, and of course, there is a lot of cross-over. I encourage you to read the “Meet the Administrative Team” flier for more explanation.
The New Middle School Program: Our new campus is ready to serve up to 60 middle school students. When I first came to Rainbow, there were 14 students in 6th-8th grade, so the middle school program and curriculum has been through more changes than any other sector of the school. If you have attended graduation and witnessed the profound speeches these young people make, you understand how rigorous and impactful the middle school program is. With the new size of the program and new facilities, middle school students will have a menu of new electives to choose from this year – everything from 3D printing to drama to facilities management. The core of the program will remain the same, which is character building through intimate relationships.
What’s ahead, and what is here and now.
We have a visionary board, faculty, and volunteer base that is working to take us into the future. We plan to positively impact Asheville, as a community. Each year, it will become more evident how much we are integrating with the community at large by hosting events in our community center/auditorium, by providing service and philanthropy, by giving students and parents opportunities to connect, and more.
The future we are all most enthusiastic about is that of each individual child. But for now, let’s circle back around to the present. Where is your child now? Enjoy these last days of summer. Enjoy your child’s ability to completely immerse her or himself in the present moment. Savor each moment, as there will never be another moment exactly like it again. You will be amazed by how much your child will have learned and changed in a mere ten months when we gather again for our graduation celebration.
I look forward to this year of gratitude.
In peace,
Renee Owen
Executive Director
by Webmaster | Aug 6, 2014 | Alumni News & Accolades, Director's Blog, Home Page News, News
August 6, 2014
Dear Rainbow Parents,
This is my favorite communication of the year – the letter welcoming you to the upcoming school year! As an educator, I can tell you that the beginning of the school year is as full of excitement and anticipation for the staff as it is for the students. Every year brings so much promise.
Ashoka Changemaker School
Last year’s welcome letter predicted that Rainbow Community School was entering a new era. Indeed, it was a banner year. We earned multiple local, state, and national awards, the most notable at the state level being the first Green School of Excellence in North Carolina, and at the national level becoming an Ashoka Changemaker School.
As a result of our Changemaker status, we are being asked to present at national conferences and to write for important educational blogs, such as Edutopia. Rainbow is being recognized as the cutting-edge leader in education that we are. Of course, the biggest, most dramatic change over the last year was doubling the size of our campus!
In one year we shifted from being a small school with unpredictable enrollment, to being near capacity for enrollment and having the ability to powerfully affect the future for our children, our community, and for education on a broader scale. It truly is the beginning of a new era.
We have accomplished something rare for a non-profit organization by going through tremendous change, yet coming through it with more stability than ever before. Pat yourselves on the back for being a part of it and making it happen!
Contacting Alumni
With all this change, it is important now, more than ever, to be true to who we are. We will be contacting alumni families, both recent and from as far back as possible, to remind them that they are always welcome on campus and forever a part of the community.
We will strive to share our good fortune as much as possible by partnering with, and donating to, Children First/Communities in Schools, providing tutoring at Deaverview Housing Project, and by doing other valuable service work; plus we will begin providing auditorium space to the wider community at our new facility.
Speaking of the new facility, please see the update on the Rainbow Rising Capital Campaign. Thanks to your donation dollars, the donated time and expertise of Christopher Fox Builders and Rowhouse Architects, and Max Mraz’s (facility manager) coordination, the first phase of construction is 95% complete, under-budget, and ahead of schedule! (Yes, it has been a busy summer!)
We will have a certificate of occupancy before school begins for the auditorium and for the new Omega (7th/8th grade) space which will be on the new campus. What a huge transformation… and the biggest phase of construction is yet to come.
Parent Summit Night – Sept. 29
Please mark your calendar now for Monday evening, September 29. We are requesting that at least one parent from every family attend the Rainbow Parent Summit that night.
Typically, we schedule this required meeting for February, but this year we are moving it all the way up to September 29 because much of that night will be focused on creating a facilities plan for the future of Rainbow.
How Can Rainbow Fully Serve Your Family?
We will be going into the next phase of construction in January, and need your dreams, desires, and creative ideas before then – both regarding the future of our facilities, and also our program. How can Rainbow more fully serve your family? More information on this board-hosted event will be coming from board chair, Claudia Konijn.
Based on feedback from parents, the administration has grown so that we can better serve the school’s needs. Cynthia Calhoun, woman of many talents, will still be teaching Spanish 1/3 time, and for the other 2/3 she will be heading up community coordinating and communications, including social media, marketing, and running the website.
We have also been fortunate to hire Sara Stender for part-time development management for the fall fundraising campaign.
The faculty continues to grow and become even more dynamic with each year!
Biographies of new staff members can be seen on the Rainbow website. The teachers have been busy preparing their classrooms, updating curriculums, and attending summer trainings. The staff will spend the 10 days before school starts together, preparing ourselves in every domain, including spiritually.
Visible Thinking and Singapore Math
Throughout the year the staff engages in extensive training. This upcoming year, we continue to sharpen our skills in Harvard Graduate School’s Visible Thinking tools and Singapore Math.
The new staff training theme for the upcoming year is in the area of teaching kids how to have agency through engineering and systems thinking. You will receive much more information on this, but what we mean by the word agency in this context is having power and being able to make a difference.
Teachers will be learning about the maker movement and how kids can learn to engineer electronics, robotics, and to think in terms of systems and how best to affect change through innovation.
Susie’s fourth grade class will pilot this program this year. If your child isn’t in fourth grade, feel free to stop by her fourth grade classroom to see their “tinkering table” which is essentially a kid-friendly work bench and to ask Susie what “tinkering” has to do with giving kids power.
Student Support Services
Also new for the upcoming year, we have completely revamped the student support services program. Every student needing special support will be paired with an advocate who will help the student and the family with the support plan, communication, and advocating for each student’s needs.
An excellent student support program doesn’t just benefit students with special needs, but enhances the educational experience of all children by creating classrooms where all kids experience success. The student support team is now headed by Ali Banchiere. We have added a counselor to the team. Blake Smith, formerly counselor at Carolina Day School, will be working on a limited schedule to put together the initial pieces of a budding counseling program at Rainbow.
All of this and much more is carefully crafted to create an environment for your child(ren) to thrive at Rainbow in 2014/15 – a safe space where there are magical arms of a whole community enfolding them and all the resources necessary for children to take risks and try out their agency.
Of course, that looks quite different at different levels of development – from three year olds learning to zip their own coats, 3rd graders navigating their first social dramas, 6th graders experimenting with new personas, and Omegans peering into their soul and preparing themselves for high school and beyond. What will the future bring?
Thank you for joining Rainbow for this journey.
As executive director, I am honored, humbled, to be a part of such an awesome community and a vibrant future, as reflected in the eyes of your children.
Please – please – don’t assume I am too busy to have a conversation on the deck or to see you in my office. (Although we have grown so much – over 400 people including kids, parents, staff — you may need to remind me of your name!) One-on-one conversations are the best opportunities to connect and my favorite part of my job. I care, and I am here.
Let’s get ready for another great year.
Blessings on the journey,
Renee Owen
Executive Director
