by Webmaster | Jan 5, 2015 | CEO's Kaleidoscope, Director's Blog, Publications
“The only way to stop the juggernaut is to stop running, and start thinking of time as music that we don’t want to stop the flow of, or a gift with which we have been graced.” Phil Cousineau, Once and Future Myths.”
Happy New Year!
I love how we have a New Year in the middle of the school year! It is such a gift to be able to press the reset button and re-establish rhythms, goals, and routines.
My New Year’s resolution? To be more present and in flow with time. Like the quote above, I am searching for the balancing point between keeping the rush of the outer world flowing (rather than drowning in it), while surfing my inner world.
Instead of seeing time as a scarcity, time is a gift, if we look at it that way. As always, being in a place of gratitude is the best attitude. Doreen Dvorscak, the kindergarten assistant, has a mantra, “I have all the time in the world!”
Favorite Time of the Year
For many teachers at Rainbow, the next couple months are their favorite time of the year. Why? Because your children tend to return from winter break very focused. I think it has something to do with the magic of time – over break grown-ups almost always jump off the juggernaut and spend quality time together as a family.
It also has to do with winter, a time when our souls turn inward. Your children may learn more in the next couple months than the whole rest of the school year. At their student-led conference in March, you will see the results of their progress and be amazed by their epiphanies.
New Rhythm
A New Time: The rhythm of the whole school will be different over these coming winter months. We all worked very hard to complete the capital campaign in December so that we can move on from the hub-bub of fundraising and into a more contemplative time. In case you didn’t see it, here is the GOOD NEWS I sent out on December 19:
“What an amazing community! This last week was a landslide of donations. At this point, virtually everyone has given to the combined campaign. Even MORE families participated than last year!!!! Some classes have 100% participation, and school-wide participation is about 90%. Together, you raised close to $130,000, and still more is coming in. While that is a little short of the goal, with participation so incredibly high, we know that all of you did your best. The board and the fundraising committee are amazed and humbled.
Therefore, the board announced last night that we will go ahead and break ground. They decided to limit the project to just what is absolutely needed to open the new classrooms, and the rest of the project can be cut out or put off. We are also getting some incredible in-kind donations that will greatly cut costs. In addition, since family participation is so high, we think we will be able to leverage that to bring in some more grant funds. Plus, some donations are still rolling in. It’s going to work!
You will learn more about all this later, but for now, I just wanted thank all of you for being such a beautiful community, and send you off into the holiday break knowing this good news.
Peace, love, light, and gratitude.”
Next Steps
So, What’s Next? Indeed, contractor, Chris Fox, turned in the request for permit on December 22.
In order to have the necessary classrooms ready for next school year, we have to break ground as soon as the city approves our permit. We still have to raise some funds to fund the construction.
Fundraiser, Sara Stender, will be working on attaining some grant funding for the next few months, in-kind donations toward the construction, as well as gaining more business sponsors.
Of course, if you never got around to donating to the campaign, and you don’t want to be left out, you can always make your donation. Several people have even made second donations to help fill the funding gap. Again, the participation behind this campaign is delightful! Thank you everyone!
Volunteer Hours
Volunteer Hours Used Creatively
I want to give a special shout-out to Geneva Novik, mom of Sasha, in first grade. Geneva used her volunteer hours to produce the campaign video that we showed at the winter program.
This was a huge project, and Geneva poured her heart and creative talent into it. What a great idea she had! By the way, If you have a special talent or skill that you think can be utilized to help Rainbow, you can always pitch an idea, like Geneva did, as a way to use your volunteer hours. I love great ideas!
Student Talent Show
Speaking of talent… did you know the student talent show is in February? It’s my favorite event of the year – always a testimony to our creative and supportive community. That will be Friday, February 20.
Hobey Ford Show
Then, Rainbow is hosting a very special creative show – nationally renowned, Hobey Ford, will bring his puppets on Saturday, February 28. When Hobey performs at Diana Wortham Theatre it is to a sell-out crowd, and The Diana Wortham Theatre has twice as many seats as our Rainbow Community Auditorium, so you will want to purchase tickets early. They are in the office, Malaprops Bookstore downtown, or you can get them online here.
Important Experiences
Get Ready to Talk with Your Child
For students in the fourth through eighth grade; the next few months bring some important experiences. The annual ski trip is January 23. For many students this will be their first time on skis or a snowboard – a time to expand their boundaries.
Also, over the next few weeks, older students will be starting or continuing their sex education, and students in 6th and 7th grade will engage in substance prevention education. We will provide plenty of guidelines for parents about how to have these frank and open conversations at home.
Thinking About Next Year
Now that the push for the capital campaign is over, I begin looking ahead toward next year. This week, I will be drafting the 2015-16 budget, and shortly after that the board will be approving the tuition rates for next year.
Admissions director, lovely Sheila Mraz, will be asking for your intentions for next year, and in February your contract to secure a spot for the following year will be due.
Stay Cozy. Just as the seeds beneath the ground are resting and soaking up as much earth energy as possible right now, we need to also. It is definitely a time to be grounded. Let’s savor every moment we have. Spring will be here before we know it.
by Webmaster | Nov 8, 2014 | CEO's Kaleidoscope, Director's Blog, Publications
Kaleidoscope: The Many Colorful Things Happening at Rainbow –
From the Executive Director
Why does our sign still say Rainbow Mountain Children’s School?
Maybe we are just too nostalgic to change it?
Actually, it is a series of unfortunate events behind a long journey which began many months ago, but our sign maker has returned from his back injury and we might actually have our new sign by December – fingers crossed.
Where Will all the Students Go?
We have 5,500 square feet of space in the lower level of the new Community Building that is unusable until we can bring it up to code and configure it into full-size classrooms.
This involves major construction, including removing structural walls and creating handicap access.
This space needs to be completed as soon as possible in order to have enough space for all of your children for the 2015-16 school year!
For example, next year, the Omega 7th and 8th grade will be an estimated 40 students as the current 6th and 7th grade students matriculate up.
Omega only has one classroom now, so they will need another room in order to have enough space for 40 kids. This is one reason we are in a crunch to finish that space. It is silly to have all the space sitting there, unusable, when we don’t have enough classrooms for all your children.
Our contractor says we need to begin construction in January in order to have the space ready for students in August. The permit for the next phase of construction is already being submitted to the City of Asheville.
The Deadline
By December 19, we need to have $150,000 pledged toward the construction project to know that we can begin construction in January and be able to fund the project.
Have you pledged yet?
Fortunately, we don’t literally need cash in hand when we break ground in January, but we do need enough money pledged by then.
(You can pay a pledge later or over a period of months.)
This year’s campaign is every bit as important as last year.
Thank you for investing in Rainbow’s facilities which will serve your children and so many others for years to come. It is exciting to see the pledges rolling in. It’s incredible how it really does take everyone doing what they can – no more, no less — to make the goal.
For those of you who have already made your pledge, thank you so much!
Not only have you gotten this campaign rolling, but every time someone donates early in the campaign, it means we can spend less money and effort on fundraising and more money and resources on education. The earlier people donate, the better it is for our whole community. Thank you!
Coming Down from the Summit
I found the Parent Summit to be an exciting event.
The board is filtering through pages and pages of notes and documentations from the Summit.
Thank you to the many volunteers who helped make the event happen and/or volunteered to organize notes afterward.
As a result we have a ton of suggestions and ideas.
The board’s job is now to find the common themes in those ideas to help steer the overall direction of the school, and then to turn the management-level ideas over to the various circles which would potentially implement them.
Our Faculty: Life-long Learners
During the faculty work day in October, all faculty members visited another school of their choice.
Although the main goal was for them to observe other teachers, a side benefit is that they act as ambassadors for Rainbow.
You may want to ask your child’s teacher which school they visited and what that experience was like.
Coming soon!
The office is working on completing the 2013-14 Annual Report by Thanksgiving. Look for it!
Wanted: Community Coordinator
We are looking for someone who will write a newsletter highlighting Asheville community events/classes/activities that Rainbow families may be interested in.
Looking for an interesting way to use your volunteer hours?
Contact Kate in the office if you want to know more. This is a fun job for the right person. Most of the work can be done off campus.
EPIC Faculty Training
The teachers are receiving a rich menu of training on Systems Thinking, Engineering, and the Maker Movement this year.
The last two trainings were called Engineering is Elementary.
Before that Tom Heck presented “Making, and Making a Difference.” Tom runs the EPICS program (Engineering Projects in Communities and Schools) at Purdue University. He will be consulting with our teachers throughout the year, helping them integrate robotics, engineering, and tinkering into their units of study.
The Many Adventures of Reneé – Changing the Odds
I attended the Changing the Odds conference, October 9 and 10, in Dallas to help at the table with Ashoka Changemaker schools.
There were 10 other Changemaker schools there, and it was really wonderful forging relationships with other change leaders and teachers. I got to meet some of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell and Tony Wagner.
The Changing the Odds conference focus was largely on the importance of social/emotional learning, especially empathy and compassion.
The school that hosted the conference is called the Momentous Institute, a private school funded by the Salesmanship Club of Dallas, which raises $7 million a year by hosting a PGA golf tournament.
The Momentous Institute is their sole recipient of these funds. So this private school has a dream budget that provides free tuition to many kids who would otherwise attend public school. Momentous has as many therapists as teachers on their staff!
They invest in best practices and have the money to collect and analyze a lot of data. Momentous has really great research that ties social emotional learning (SEL) to academic success.
SEL is becoming accepted as the most important aspect of education.
Forbes predicts empathy as the #1 desired quality for careers by 2020. I am posting some of my favorite quotes and thoughts from the conference on my blog, which can be accessed here.
Mind and Life Institute
Last week I traveled to Boston for the Mind and Life Institute’s International Symposium on Contemplative Education.
Three hundred and sixty doctoral and post-doctoral papers were presented at this conference on effects of contemplative practices in education and life! Just a few years ago contemplative education was extremely rare, and now the field is exploding!
I worked with 30 educators from around the world on the topic of merging transformative education (education for social action) and contemplative education.
John Powell was a riveting speaker. Dr. Powell is a powerful social activist, particularly in the area of race and racism, and he is a contemplative meditator who spent a significant amount of time in India.
He spoke about how people can use meditation to tune out or to tune in. Clearly, we use contemplative practices at Rainbow with the intention of tuning people in– helping them to be more engaged.
A side note on the use of your hard-earned tuition funds: Rainbow spends as little as possible on all the travel I do.Ashoka paid for the Changing the Odds Conference expenses, and I am fortunate to have a family member who used to work for an airline, so I have extremely discounted standby airfare. Plus, I have friends in several cities to stay with, and when I don’t, I am as thrifty as possible. In Boston I stayed in a hostel dorm room.
Time to Slow Down
This has been the busiest fall at Rainbow I have ever experienced – one exciting event after another.
It’s time to slow down.
Winter is approaching, and the time of year when our bodies go inside for warmth is also when we warm our hearts and become more focused on our inner selves.
It is no coincidence that virtually every religion has a major holiday coming up – it’s a very spiritual time of year.
I hope you can soak up every minute of the upcoming Thanksgiving and winter breaks with gratitude and plenty of family time. Blessings.
by Webmaster | Jun 13, 2014 | Home Page News, News
The Glass Foundation is a private family foundation based out of Asheville, NC. They bestow grants based on Child Development, Environmental Education and Historic Preservation.
Rainbow Community School would like to express its sincerest gratitude for The Glass Foundation whose generous grant will allow our school to continue with Phase I of the new campus addition. We are growing ever more excited to be able to use this space for school and community needs.
The grant funds will be used to continue with construction over the summer that will result in a new Performance Hall for use by Rainbow but also the Asheville community!
The Rainbow Community Performance Hall will be open September 1st.
If you would like to use this space, we welcome inquiries. Please contact the school’s office or send email inquires to info@rainbowlearning.org.
by Renee Owen | Dec 24, 2013 | Director's Blog, News
We raised the $200,000 down payment to purchase the church!
We did it on time! Just as the Holiday Performance was about to begin, the final $6,000 was donated on the December 20th deadline!
We did it under budget. Thanks to so many great sponsors, volunteers, and a great staff, we spent less on the campaign than expected.
We did it as a community! By the end, almost 100% of parents had donated, as well as many grandparents, business owners, community members, all staff members, and children — many, many children brought in coins, birthday money, or their savings!
Today, we received the loan commitment letter from the Bank of North Carolina. All that remains are the results from some environmental tests, and if those are clean, we will close in January!
Thank you EVERYONE — This has been an amazing community experience!
by Webmaster | Dec 8, 2013 | News
Our campaign was a HUGE success! We are just shy of our $200,000 goal to acquire the church property next to the school. Thank you to everyone who came to the event. There was music, food, fun, and games.
Our fundraiser yesterday raised $24,000, bringing us to $168,000 towards our $200,000 goal. For all who joined us, we are incredibly happy you came!
We want to extend a special thank you to our musicians, Greg Olson, Bobby Miller & the Virginia Daredevils, Adama Dembele & Friends for all of your musical entertainment. We had so many volunteers who contributed their many hours and talents to the event and we express our deepest gratitude. FUEL Food Truck and Catering, GQC Lebanese Street Food, Wicked Weed Brewing, & Bill Drew provided some delicious food and drink – it was all a success.
Thank you also to our Board of Directors, faculty, & staff – without everyone’s help, this whole event might not have been possible. The future of Rainbow is right now and we’re making it happen!
A special thank you to all the members of the Asheville Community who helped make this day possible.
