Newsletter – January 21, 2010

Rainy Week @ School

What a week!  We managed to have the entire week as a rainy day schedule.  It is great to have the rain as a change of pace, but when it is all at once, it does get old and the days get arithmetically longer when the children have to stay indoors the whole day.  Actually, I guess I want to congratulate our kids for keeping together as best they could, and really they did quite well.  I can only imagine that the teachers nerves were tested with all that energy and no real place to let it go.  But alas, this too will pass and we should appreciate the change of pace to our usually very typical LA weather.

Meetings, Meetings

We did continue with a busy week.  We had our Friends of Marquez/PTA meetings, the Governing Board meeting, the evening with Paul Revere and then our Prospective Parent Orientation as well.  We all want to thank the 2nd and 3rd grade parents that organized a fantastic luncheon for the staff.  Please know that it was greatly appreciated.  Thank you so much everyone.

GATE Information

Next week we will have our first of two annual gifted and talented parent meetings.  This meeting will focus on the identification process and the various classifications of giftedness designated by the Los Angeles Unified School District.  Generally any identification is not completed until at least the end of second grade.  So, this meeting would be for those parents in 2nd-5th grade that are curious about the identification and for those parents that have signed paperwork this year that is now in the hands of the district – we can help you decipher what they are looking for.  This GATE meeting will take place Wednesday, January 27 at 6:30-7:30 pm in the auditorium.  The next Friends/PTA and governing board meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 18 at 2:00 pm.

Art Faire

Please note that the Art Faire has been rescheduled for Wednesday, February 24 at 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm.  This is a voluntary faire, when parents will get a formal invitation to come and see their child’s artwork presented in a professional manner along with the other participants.  Not all children will be completing works of art, but anyone that wants to is invited to participate and arrangements have been made at school for them to receive art instruction and time is provided for them to work on their creation.

Staples Center Visit

In just a few weeks, Marquez will have a great day out when we visit the Staples Center to cheer on our LA Kings when they take on the Detroit Red Wings!!  This is the first time where we have ventured into organized athletics in order to raise much needed cash and to our amazement, this Marquez community really seems to embrace this idea.  Because of the outstanding support for the hockey game, we can look for dodgers games, galaxy games, the circus and possibly walking with dinosaurs could be upcoming events that might open up to Marquez.

Upcoming Events News

This past week you should have also received a packet regarding the silent auction mardi gras.  You might have wondered whether or not your child took a field trip to New Orleans seeing that they all came home dressed with the colorful beads so reminiscent of the mardi gras.  This year’s event is scheduled for April 17 at the BelAir Bay Club.  It is now time for all of us to solicit donations.  Ask everywhere that you patronize whether or not they might consider a donation of a service of product to the auction.  You will find a donation form in the packet you received.  There will also be some additional forms to be found in the office and check the website for additional forms you might need, including those for the read-a-thon.  Remember that next week is the last week of read a thon.  Make sure that your child turns in their log next Friday to their classroom teacher.  We are out of pennies as well and need children to bring in the pennies that represent how many books they read.  Currently, we are only 600 books short of our goal of 10,000.  Everybody just needs to read one more book and we have reached our goal.  Here are the grade level leaders to date:  Kinder – Room 1 – Ms. Sosson/Ms. Buckner; 1st grade – room 9 – Ms. Lew; 2nd grade – room 8- Ms. Connor;3rd grade – room 35 – Ms. Farrell; 4th grade – room 29 – Ms. Palo; 5th grade – room 27 -Ms. Smith.  Thanks to all the room liaisons and to Cynthia Kannerfor helping out with this grand endeavor.

As always, you can reach me at phollis@lausd.net