Happy end of the 2021-22 school year!
Two important reminders before leaving for summer break:
1. Please take a look at the lost and found!
2. If you have medication in the front office, Please come and get it!
.Hello from the Dean of Student Services.
Every school year, we draw an end. The doors close, the teachers scramble, students rejoice, and we stop temporarily. We finish not like a builder completing a house, but like an author who publishes a book. As Paul Valery said, “A work of art is truly never completed, but only abandoned.” Schools finish because it is time to let go. We have not “finished” the children. We have just completed a lap. We stop to catch our breath (momentarily).
It is the end, but also not the end. This school year lives on in mind and memory.
Madeline L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time) argued we carry our years with us. People can still access those years later because we carry our past with us cumulatively:
“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on…Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grown-up.”
For L’Engle, it is a good thing that the past sticks around. It allows humans to access it and stay fully alive.
William Faulkner noticed similar things: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
For school children, memories may last longer than academic knowledge. In middle age, we can’t remember certain ideas, but we can still call to mind our good teachers, or maybe special awards and projects, areas we struggled in, or at least the barbs and praises of other students. We remember what it meant to hurt and to hope. We remember feeling valuable and feeling like nothing.
Because what we carry are these things, ending a school year is a strange thing.
Like the ocean that both rises and falls, and the lungs that fill and empty, each year is a rhythm that helps us practice balance and being.
Ending a school year well requires good storytelling skills. Future memories and understandings will be shaped by how you and your children tell your story from this year. What you speak becomes more real and more present to you and others.
To stay generous in how we narrate the past requires care in the present. It requires staying curious about the world and others, and having the humility to say when we don’t understand things completely - which, if we are honest, is most of the time.
To be human is to walk around in mysteries.
Augustine discussed humans in this way. Long before Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” this father of philosophy wrote si fallor sum. “I’m mistaken, therefore I am.”
Parent, I’m glad that you make mistakes, as your children make mistakes, and my family and I make (endless) mistakes. I am glad we are learning, growing, flowering things.
Yes, in the middle of our mistakes, I do not feel very grateful for such mistakes. I do not like the discomfort and mess and pain. However, later, I do like that the mistakes my daughter and I made become bridges we walk across to see each other better. I like that our mistakes are our eyeglasses that let us see what is really happening with others more accurately.
If you are tired and struggling right now, for whatever reason, I wish for you the good fortune of being able to see more clearly. I wish for you the courage of good storytelling. Conversely, if you are on top of the world right now, I also wish for you the ability to see others clearly, and the skill to tell your story well.
I’m including some standard international learner profile words you can use to describe to yourself and your children the ways you saw yourself and others grow this year. (Growth in any of these areas is a major victory!)
Good luck storytellers. I hope you find the words that fit this year right for you, and you hold onto what is precious and keep it close for years to come.
See you again next year with our running shoes ready. Let’s take the next loop together with even more kindness, hope, and integrity.
Love,
Liz (not Danielle)
.General Information.
Summer School:
Summer School will be an enrichment program focused mainly on STEM projects, food science, gardening, and art. Students may sign up for one week only of their grade level options in order to allow more students the opportunity to participate. To sign up, please complete this form. A form is needed for each student interested in participating.
Instructors: Mrs. Sepulveda & Chef
Monday - Thursday 8am - noon
July 4th - 7th Session One K-2
Middle School - Leadership opportunities (7 students max)
July 11th - 14th Session Two K-2
Middle School - Leadership opportunities (7 students max)
July 18th - 21st Session One 3-5
July 25th - 28th Session Two 3-5
24 K-5 students per session
Middle school students may sign up to act in a leadership role, being partnered with a few students and sticking with them throughout the week’s session. This will allow them to model appropriate behavior, be an extra set of hands for instructors, and give the middle schoolers a chance to step up and lead when needed.
During the summer school session there will be built in times for recess, breaks, and snacks as needed.
.PCS Corner.
Happy last week of school from PCS! Three things to know or help with….
K-5 Field Day: Tomorrow. The school is still looking for volunteers for tomorrow’s K-5 field day if you can please sign up: https://signup.com/go/rGuBfYu
Save Your Bottles/Cans! There are blue bags in the tote by the front of the school, if you want to grab one for your bottles/cans this summer…or use one of your own bags and we can transfer to blue bags when school kicks off this fall. It’s an easy way to support CCCS. Thanks!
Stay in touch this summer. There are a few summer activities (e.g., community events), so please join PCS on Facebook to stay in touch: https://www.facebook.com/groups/coburgpcs
Last but certainly not least… THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS! This year PCS raised over $100K through numerous events, shared appreciation with our teachers/staff, connected with the larger Coburg community…all to support our student’s success. We can’t do this without volunteers. Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed. Have a great summer!
.Community Corner.
Coburg Days:
this year ( Previously Coburg Golden Years) will take place the weekend of July 22 & 23. This is going to be a fun community event throughout the City of Coburg and will be a yearly event from here on out that will always fall on the fourth weekend in July. We would love to spread the word and have everyone come to enjoy and also participate.
We will have three entertainment stages, a parade, activities for all ages, a teen garden, karaoke, bingo, kids carnival, cake-walk, vendors and more!
The parade theme is going to be “end of the Oregon Trail” which would include all things pioneer, cowboy and patriotic. We are encouraging all kinds of entries. Walking, riding your bike, pulling your pet in a decorated wagon, having a float, riding your tractor, horse etc. ALL ENTRIES ENCOURAGED. If you are interested in entering into the parade please email coburgdays@gmail.com or call Tena Wildfang at 503-932-2561. You can also reply to this email. I have attached the parade entry form as well as the parade information form.
Coburg Days Parade: Saturday July 23 from 11am-12pm. Staging begins at 10am.
Kids Carnival! Friday night July 22 from 3pm-7pm and again on Saturday July 23 from noon-7pm.
Teen Garden Dance Party! With DJ Jarod Saturday July 23 from 8-10pm. Entry is free and will also have a free photo booth
Karaoke! Saturday July 23 from 6-8pm in the carnival area
Extra support during the Summer:
If you are looking for reading support…(http://genesis.marisths.org/)
The Genesis Summer Reading Academy (at Marist) offers reading instruction to children identified as in need of reading interventions in Pre-Kindergarten through Fourth-Grade.
The academy is staffed by licensed teachers, graduate interns, and high school volunteers implementing an evidenced-based reading curriculum recommended by our partners from the University of Oregon’s College of Education.
Located at Marist Catholic High School, there is no cost to attend the Genesis Summer Reading Academy
If you are looking for math support… (https://www.mathismagic.info/gina-graham.html)
Math is Magic is a private math instruction school located in a beautifully restored, historic home near downtown Eugene.
MiM! offers private, shared and group instruction for students from elementary school through university level. Group classes are taught by the founder Gina, and most meet once a week to focus on specific math topics from arithmetic through calculus.
If you are looking for summer theater opportunities /;(https://www.ucyt.org/vlt174095.htm)
Upstart Crow is a non-profit youth performing arts organization. We provide a variety of theatre education and performance opportunities, including opportunities in theatre, dance and music, through theatre productions, classes, workshops, and summer camps.
4J School District has awarded UCYT a generous Summer Enrichment Program Grant to provide summer camp scholarships for 4J students entering grades K-8 in fall 2022.
Thank you to our June sponsor!
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