Greetings and welcome again to the 2010-2011 school year at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. I hope you share my sense of enthusiasm and optimism over the opening days of school and for the future of St. Andrew’s School.

I am pleased you have taken the time to read this inaugural edition of THE NEWSLETTER. I am grateful to Rebecca Madura, our Communications Coordinator and Art Department Director, for overseeing its publication each week. In addition to the School website, consider this publication your source of information about important news and events at St. Andrew’s.

Throughout the course of the year, I will contribute regularly to THE NEWSLETTER, offering brief updates and perspectives from the Head of School Office. For more detailed subjects, you can expect to receive occasional e-mails from your child’s teachers and updates through the many classroom websites our faculty maintain. Staying connected to the School, through these communication channels, is one of the most important time investments you can make as a St. Andrew’s parent.

It has been a fabulous beginning to the 2010-2011 school year, and I want to thank our first-rate faculty and staff, including our six new colleagues, for opening the year with such success.

I hope to see many of you in the coming weeks—on campus, at the Newcomers’ Reception on September 8, and at Parents’ Night on September 23.

Thank you for your support of our school, and I look forward to a great year together.

Let me begin by welcoming you and all your children back for another exciting year at St. Andrews. I know I’ve returned well rested and hopeful for continued progress in Cardinals athletics. If these first few days are any indication, it is going to be a wonderful year.

With the departure of our former Art teacher Matt Shelton we lost not only a great teacher and a good friend, but also our soccer coach. I would like to extend an invitation to anyone within the St. Andrew’s family who has soccer experience or an enthusiasm for the sport to steer the ship this year. We do have options outside of the SAES family, but would like to fill the position internally if possible. Coaching soccer would require two practices a week (time and place decided by the coach) and attendance at games as well as working with myself to handle scheduling. The position does come with a stipend to sweeten the deal. The team was highly competitive last year and should be very good this year as well.

Cardinals Flag Football will be starting next Friday. Click here for more information from Coach Burns.

On Wednesday, September 8th, St. Andrew's 4th Grade Parent's will be hosting the Newcomer's Party, for all new families to St. Andrew's. Invitation to follow.

I will accept summer reading logs until Thursday, September 2nd. We will have the drawing for the ten Saints Superbowl Champs posters during morning exercises after the Labor Day holiday. If your child is not yet enrolled in the Library Birthday Club, please consider this $20.00 (per child) donation. Students have fun at the parties, and the library gets lots of new books!

Let me know if you have questions about summer reading or the Library Birthday Club. bmiranda@standrewsepiscopalschool.org

Thanks,
Betsy Miranda

The Kinderbears are off to a great start this year. We have welcomed five new Kinderbears, Larry Creswell, Michael Hyatt, Sofia Romaro, Emilie Petitbon, and Graham Davis. We put on the "Sorting Hat" and found out whether we were a Proud Polar Bear or a Great Grizzly Bear. We all love our class pet, Pepper. She is a Guinea Pig. We can't wait to take her home with us on weekends! We are planning our first field trip on September 9th to PETCO. We are learning about pets and their care. We are having a wonderful time at school. We are learning so many new things. We are very busy bears!

We are so excited about the beginning of school! A new group of "2nd Gators" has arrived and is settling in. We welcome our two new friends, McKenna Bommarito and William Gagnet. Our biggest news right now is that we received our personal laptops! We will use them a lot this year, and we can't wait to get started. We are also learning about logical thinking with our year-long game of the "Logical Journey of the Zoombinis." We use our Smart Board and work together on this journey. It's one of our favorite activities!

The year has started off with a bang in science so far... or shall we say a SPLAT! Our first experiment of the school year left a few good-humored student volunteers with a broken egg on their head as we discovered that developing a hypothesis can sometimes get messy.

Yet despite the efforts of our young scientists, I am happy to report that the science department has a clean and spacious new home upstairs in Kimball Hall. The relocation was admittedly a bit difficult, but

only because Milkshake (the class rat) slowed the process by trying to convince the contractors to install a deluxe cheese cooler!

Nonetheless, she and I are happy to have the lab its new space, and we are delighted to welcome the students to what is going to be a great year learning about our world. Furthermore, we invite all in the community to drop by the lab and watch as our young scientists

Again this year, the students will have the opportunity to attend Opera performances. As soon as a schedule becomes available, I will post it in the weekly newsletter.

Mrs. Lonadier will be offering Piano Lesson afterschool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Please call her for more information and registration. (504)456-6733

Volunteers Needed to Assist with Student Sensory Screening
on Wednesday, Sept. 8
Parent volunteers are requested to assist the staff of the New Orleans Speech & Hearing group to escort children in small groups to and from Sensory Screenings in Parish Hall. Ideally 2-3 parents are needed at all times throughout the day beginning at 8:15 a.m. You may sign up to assist in the morning, afternoon, or any block of time that you have available. To volunteer, please contact Emily Fleshman at ecf52999@yahoo.com.

Please vote today - and once per day - last week we were in 4th place -today we are in 2nd place and just need 1096 voted to take over. Help us to further Jericho Road's initiative! If you vote for Jericho Road, they can win an orchard!! Apparently North Carolina is voting as much as we are - we've increased our numbers by 1000 but so have they! So we have to double our efforts to take over. Voting ends August 31st. Ask you friends to vote, too! Many thanks!!!!
<http://www.communitiestakeroot.com

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LAGNIAPPE:

St. Andrew's welcomes new students and faculty....

Mrs. Hugg and Mrs. Monstead with the Pre-K Rainbow Fish

Mr. Sedgwick and Grayson join Fifth The new faces in the Fourth Grade are Mr. Graves, Grade Mrs. Scott, Annajé, Oliver, and Jonathan.

Ms. Lanier and Mrs. Thorne with new Third Graders Ms. Jaynes welcomes Bleykin and Nick

Jackson, Oliver, and Sterling to the Fifth Grade

Mrs. Madura rejoins the faculty as Mrs. Apffel and Mrs. Stier welcome new 2nd Gators

the Art Teacher McKenna and William

Mrs. Weiser and Miss Childress and new Kinderbears Sophia, Emily, Michael, Graham,

First Grade student, Josephine and Larry

The students raised the flag for the first time this school year...

Thanks to the Kinderbear Room Parents for helping to make the Annual Ice Cream Social a great success.