by Webmaster | Feb 12, 2014
Rainbow recently completed the first of three phases of our Rainbow Rising Capital Campaign. In Phase I, families and alumni worked together to raise over $200,000 toward a down payment to purchase three acres and several buildings adjacent to us at 60 State Street, formerly West Asheville Church of God. We only had three months to raise the money, and it was a huge success. On January 14, 2014, Rainbow completed the purchase, more than doubling the size of our property!
For next phase of the Rainbow Rising Capital Campaign, we need your help. Rainbow’s vision is to use the property to serve the wider Asheville Community. But first, we need to raise the next portion of funds to develop the new spaces.
Some of the highlights include:
- About half of Rainbow’s Haywood Road frontage will be converted from a parking lot to a park for residents and visitors to use as a resting spot and place to interact with students through student-installed interactive informational displays.
- The expansion will dramatically increase the school’s role as a neighborhood resource, with space for new classes and events for the wider community to join existing meditation classes, a mother-daughter group, parenting classes and the weekly services of the Church of the Garden.
- The new 300 seat Performance Hall will be available for local non-profits to use for fundraisers, plays, performances, and so on.
- Installation of permaculture gardens, and changing the old parking lot to limit heat-gain and water run-off pollution in order to protect the French Broad River.
You can help by clicking on the “donate” button below or in the blue column to the right. Rainbow Community School is a non-profit organization, and all donations are tax deductible.
Indeed, so many exciting things are happening, and the future of Rainbow is bright. The school definitely wants to have a bigger role in the Asheville community and one way to do that is with this expansion.
Read more about the Asheville Citizen Times article in Sunday’s paper, published in November, 2013.
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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
by Webmaster | Dec 1, 2013 | News
The church property is in the background
Bill Sanders / wsanders@citizen-times.com
We’re getting the word out about our wish to expand Rainbow’s campus with the Capital Campaign. If you haven’t heard, we’re having a HUGE fundraiser on Saturday, December 7th called Rainbow Rising!
Our director, Renee Owen, had an interview with Asheville Citizen Times about Rainbow’s goal to acquire the property next to the school.
Some of the highlights included:
- About half of Rainbow’s Haywood Road frontage will be converted from a parking lot to a park for residents and visitors to use as a resting spot and place to interact with students through student-installed interactive informational displays.
- The expansion will dramatically increase the school’s role as a neighborhood resource, with space for new classes and events to join existing meditation classes, a mother-daughter group, parenting classes and the weekly services of the Church of the Garden.
Indeed, so many exciting things are happening, and the future of Rainbow is bright. The school definitely wants to have a bigger role in the Asheville community and one way to do that is with this expansion.
This opportunity is such an illustration of synchronicity.
Last year at this time, plans were in the works to build on the existing campus and staff and students were already bursting at the seams. Faculty circle is held in various classrooms, other classrooms serve as multipurpose rooms – such as the art room serving as an after-school space and the Spanish classroom doubling as a math classroom.
When Rainbow learned that the adjacent Church of God congregation had plans to move, and the fact that it is next door to the Rainbow campus, the Community knew it had to act. It’s one of those opportunities that was just too good to pass up.
Read more about the Asheville Citizen Times article in Sunday’s paper.
by Renee Owen | Dec 29, 2009
Rainbow Community School is proud to offer a private, independent and alternative educational program for preschool through middle school-aged children that draws from the best in current educational thinking and…
by Renee Owen | Feb 15, 2018 | Blogs, CEO's Kaleidoscope, Director's Blog, Home Page News, Publications
February 2018 Kaleidoscope
This is the time of year to find cheer. As I write this, it is dark and rainy outside. I’ve been inside for a long while with the flu, and I’m really looking forward to getting back to our beloved school and seeing bright and shiny faces again. We have had many students and teachers out this flu season, and I hope your family has either avoided it or come back onto the healthy side of life.
Health and Safety
I would like to give a shout out to Jessy Tickle, our administrative assistant in the office who also acts as our health and safety coordinator. It is Jessy who sends out information about what illnesses need to be on our radar and suggestions about what to do. She makes sure that our staff gets all required first aid and CPR training. She keeps first aid kits well-stocked. She also diligently keeps track of the latest research regarding health and safety and makes sure we are following protocol. She is very good at applying ointment, gauze, and planting gentle kisses on those cuts and bruises. She is our protector and nurturer. Thank you, Jessy.
A Special Announcement
[bctt tweet=”“Keeping the main thing the main thing.” ” username=” @rainbowcomsch”]
A lot of you have probably heard this simple mantra that Howard Hanger has made famous around Asheville. The most important thing at Rainbow Community School is the learning experience of your child. That’s what we are here for! With all the things that go on at Rainbow, such as the Rainbow Institute, the More than Mindfulness conference, our equity goals, and parent education, there is nothing more important to us than what goes on in the classroom.
That’s one of the reasons we are going to a two-division-head structure next year. Only a handful of years ago, Sandra and I had about half as many students and families that we cared for, and much fewer staff. As we’ve grown, we recognize that it has been more difficult to forge relationships with all 220 students and their families to the degree that we prefer for Rainbow. Next year, each division will be about the size Rainbow used to be — approximately 110 students.
The head of school position will still preside over the whole school, but Susie Fahrer will become the division head for intermediate/middle school grades, and Sandra McCassim will be the division head for the preschool/primary grades. We hope this will make for seamless, open-hearted communication between parents and administration. All of us who work here are life-long learners and the organization itself is a learning organism committed to constant improvement.
A Very Special Guest
Lisa Miller, author of The Spiritual Child, is doing a two-day visit to Rainbow Community School on Tuesday, March 6 and Wednesday, March 7. She is observing our school and 11 other schools around the country that she considers to be excellent examples of schools that nurture the spiritual development of children.
If you haven’t read Lisa’s book, I consider it a must read for Rainbow parents. It’s inspiring and easy to digest. Lisa is the head of clinical psychology at Columbia University Teachers College, and she has conducted and compiled decades of research on spiritual development in children and teens. Her research at Rainbow will work towards developing resources for educators from a wide demographic on nurturing spiritual development in the classroom.
We have some copies here in the office if you’d like to purchase one at a great discount, or you can even borrow one!
The Annual Ski Trip
Yes, it’s been a very cold and snowy winter. That means great snowboarding and skiing! Every year the 4th -8th grade goes skiing at nearby Cataloochee. It’s a big family event with parents, students, siblings, and teachers all hitting the slopes, and nurturers keeping the hot chocolate warm in the chalet. This trip had the best conditions possible in North Carolina, and a lot of kiddos took lessons and had a great time learning how to snowboard or ski for the first time. In the long tradition of Rainbow ski trips – this one definitely goes down in history as the best ski trip EVER!
Contracts
A couple weeks ago Sheila Mraz, our admissions director, and I sent out information about re-enrolling for the 2018-19 school year. All currently enrolled rising 1st through 8th grade students are guaranteed a spot as long as you return your contract in time. Also, siblings of currently enrolled children are given any spots before anyone from outside the school. There are times that we have had multiple siblings apply for one spot, but that is rare. We always have some spots open up, and typically, every class enrolls a couple new students each year.
Tuition Assistance
Do you need tuition assistance? This year we had 46 students receiving various levels of assistance. The VET (Voluntary Equitable Tuition) program, the annual campaign, and operating expenses all help pay for this program. For several years we greatly increased the number of tuition assistance awards we gave out and the size of those awards. This helped make Rainbow more economically and racially diverse. We won’t be actively growing the program anymore, so we don’t plan to increase the number and size of awards. However, we will be maintaining the program, so that Rainbow families who need help can get it. If you are one of the people who contributes to VET or the annual campaign, thank you for keeping this important program alive. If you are one of the people who benefit from it, we are so glad that you are here!
The Omega Dance
Everybody dance, now! I have to tell you that if you never chaperone an Omega middle school dance, you are missing out. I chaperoned the Omega dance on February 2, and it was so much fun! If you think of a middle school dance as a bunch of kids awkwardly standing around the edges with a few girls dancing every once in awhile, you have not been to an Omega dance.
Everyone dances, and everyone is included! Acting silly is expected! In Omega you can totally be yourself and act as silly, or as cool, as you want. And the teachers dance with the kids – the kids actually like it! I am so proud to be head of a school with such wonderful middle school kids – their experience is so completely different from the middle school experience I had. After the dance the kids were asking me when the next dance is. It’s not scheduled yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
Substance Abuse Prevention
Last week I started teaching my substance abuse prevention class to 6th grade. I have so much fun teaching this class every year! I know it doesn’t sound like a fun subject, but it’s the kids that make it fun.
Sixth graders are old enough that they certainly have heard about drugs and alcohol, but they don’t know much about the facts or the reality of what temptations may come their way. Typically, they’ve heard a lot of myths. The main point of the class is to help inform students to think about this before they are confronted with these things, so they know how to react and how to stay healthy, while still being true to themselves.
Office Hours
Please come visit me! I now have open office hours every Wednesday from 9am to 10am.
An Open Invitation
We’re in the heart of the school year when teachers can really study a unit in depth with their classes. Students, in turn, create profound work and portfolios. The upcoming Science Fair is evidence of this, adding to the incredible body of work students have already accomplished over the course of the school year. There’s so much learning and collaboration, along with personal growth that characterize where we are at this point in the school year. All parents are welcome to observe any class to see the amazing things Rainbow educators do with students each day. In particular, I recommend visiting and observing the middle school. All you have to do is schedule an observation time through Kate in the office. We welcome you!
