Nancy Mark

When you                            August 27, 2008
Enter this
Lively school
Consider yourself
One of the special
Members of a group who
Enjoy learning together!

Dear Parents:

Thank you for joining us for our Eleventh Year First Day!  It was wonderful to celebrate an exciting new school year with so many of you this morning at our First Day Breakfast and we hope you will join us at school whenever you can to take part in our school’s activities.

This fall each classroom teacher will be inviting you to a meeting with other parents so that you may learn about each classroom’s curriculum.  These meetings are scheduled for the evenings of Thursday, September 4 for grades K, 1, 2, & 3 and Tuesday, September 9 for grades  4, 5, & 6.
A more detailed invitation will be sent home with your child at a later date.  The kindergarten and grade one classrooms will meet on Sept. 4 at 6:30 p.m., grade two at 7:00 and grade three at 7:30.  The grade four meeting on Sept. 9 will be at 6:30 p.m. and grades five and six each at 7:00.  We hope that every parent will be able to attend these meetings.  We will provide child care for your school-age child in our library both evenings.  We also invite parents and students to our Goal Setting Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences on Thursday, September 25, 2008.  There will be no school on that day.  More information will be sent home as the date gets closer.  Prekindergarten  will hold their parent conferences on Thursday, September 25 and Friday, September 26.  Mrs. Waterhouse will be sending home a notice in early September.  Mettawee Community School will hold our Fall Open House on Tuesday, October 21 from 6:30-8:00 p.m.  Please save these dates!

Please return your information packets to school. There is a great deal of essential information included and we ask that you return it to us quickly.  We hope to see you all at our annual PTO Back-to-School Potluck Picnic from 5:30-7:00 on Thursday, August 28 (Tomorrow!). Hot dogs and drinks will be provided by the PTO.  Mettawee families and staff are asked to bring side dishes, salads, chips or desserts.  We request that all food be nut-free.  Food assignments are by students’ last names: A-K, desserts; L-Q, chips and R-Z, side dishes or salads.  If you haven’t already sent in your reply card, please send it in to school tomorrow.

We anticipate a successful school year and look forward to a wonderful beginning.  As our message states, we welcome you as special members of our group who enjoy working together.  We look forward to a promising new year!

Sincerely,

Nancy Mark
Principal

August 14, 2008

Dear Mettawee Parents,

The Mettawee Community School is excited to welcome students, parents, and staff to our 11th year!

Our first day of the new school year is Wednesday, August 27. We’ll begin our new year with a First Day Welcome for parents from 7:45–10:00 a.m. that morning. On our First Day parents are invited to accompany their child to the classroom and join “Welcome Back Morning Meetings,” then gather in the library for breakfast. We hope every parent can join us both on our First Day as well as every school day!  Please note our prekindergarten classes will begin on Wednesday, September 3.

We are pleased to welcome four new teachers to our school. Mrs. Janna Webb is our new physical education teacher. Mrs. Webb is a graduate of Castleton State College and has been the Ludlow School’s physical education teacher these past years. Ms. Lindsay Scarbro comes to us from the Savannah, Georgia Public Schools and will be our new Guidance Counselor. We are excited to also welcome the familiar faces of Ms. Elizabeth Perry, our new kindergarten teacher, formerly Mettawee long-term substitute and Ms. Dawn Pratt, who will be our new grade one looping teacher after having been a Castleton State College student teacher with Mrs. Brooke DeBonis.

Mrs. Webb is looking forward to this fall’s intramural soccer program. She will coach our fifth/sixth grade team. She invites parents to contact her if they would like to be a volunteer coach for the other age groups. Intramural soccer provides a meaningful opportunity for growth, learning, fun and sportsmanship. Our students in grades kindergarten through six have exhibited excellent teamwork and have learned essential skills in this program. We look forward to another rewarding year. Thank you to Mrs. Webb, and to our dedicated Mettawee Coaches.

Please check The Rutland Herald and The Lakes Region Free Press for bus routes and schedules.

Our PTO is sponsoring and All-School Family Potluck Picnic. We hope all our families will attend this fun event. More information about the picnic will be distributed by the PTO. Our picnic has become a delightful tradition where our families and staff share great food and conversation.

We are excited to begin another promising school year. We look forward to seeing you on our First Day, Wednesday, August 27th.

Sincerely,

Nancy M. Mark
Principal

Nancy M. Mark

Welcome to my BLOG:

I’m proud to serve as the principal of the Mettawee Community School. I moved to Vermont with my family over 25 years ago from Southern California and have been an elementary principal for the past twenty years. I was Principal of the Pawlet Schools for the 10 years prior to forming the Mettawee Community School with neighboring Rupert and have been Mettawee’s principal for the ten-year history of the union of Pawlet and Rupert, The Mettawee Community School. It has been an honor to be chosen to lead the new Mettawee Community School and to be able to help design our wonderful school building.

I love coming to school each day and treasure the special culture of our school where everyone is supported and encouraged to do their best, where parents, community members and teachers team together in support of our students and where respect and care prevail. Our school is committed to the philosophy and practices of the Responsive Classroom and we all benefit from traditions such as Morning Meetings, All-School Meeting, “Buddy Classes,” Multi-aged Advisories and a culture of positive, welcoming, warm relationships.This past summer our school presented our Mettawee beliefs and customs at the Responsive Classroom Schools Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. We felt honored to be invited!

We are equally committed to Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory and work hard to put Gardener’s provocative ideas into action. This is one of the reasons why our school is so strongly dedicated to programming in the arts. Our hallways are graced with beautiful examples of our students’ artwork and we love performing music at concerts and meetings. In addition all students in grades 1-6 have the opportunity to take violin lessons at no charge with generous sponsorship from a community benefactor. Each year we have a tradition of staging at least two very ambitious musical performances. Our holiday musical in December involves every single student in our prekindergaraten through sixth grade school. Last year we performed  the “Wizard of Oz” as a revival of the same play performed ten years ago. Previously we’ve done “Peter Pan,” “Oliver,” “Annie,” and many other large-cast classics. Towards the end of the school year, our sixth graders do a play themselves. Even though the class might have only 30 students, they still do an outstanding job presenting challenging material. Recent sixth grade plays have included two Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, “Pirates of Penzance” and “HMS Pinafore.”

Our teachers and staff are dedicated and devoted and have pledged themselves to continue to find ways to serve all our students. Through engagement with rigorous professional development such as The Vermont Math Partnership, The Vermont Reads Institute and The November Learning Building Learning Communities Conference, we work to ensure that we are helping each child reach his full potential.

As for me, I am a resident of Castleton, Vermont and have a B.A. in English Literature from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Education Administration from Castleton State College.

In the year 2000 our entire school community shared the excitement of my award as the Vermont Elementary School Principal of the Year. I have included the picture taken at the recognition ceremony at the Vermont State House surrounded by my husband, friends and colleagues.