February 8, 2001
Volume 11, No. 2
A regular Summit Board meeting was held on February 5 in the Summit library, with all Board members and a number of guests attending. The Board approved a request from Steve Goldhaber to purchase a new textbook for the Advanced Programming class. Summit's new night custodian, Raul Serga Martinez, starts on February 6. A bubble scanner has been ordered and is expected to arrive at any time. An additional phone line with long-distance calling blocked will be installed soon and will be available for necessary student phone calls. Discussions with BVSD about terms of Summit's charter renewal continue, with a new Summit counterproposal submitted today. The BVSD board vote on the renewal is expected February 13. Teacher and administrator evaluations will be completed by early March. Summit's annual report is due to BVSD by March 1, so assignments were made for reviewing and updating sections of last year's report. Ron Goldfarb has volunteered to coordinate compilation of the 2001 Report. Ms. Grove is working with Tricia Olson, who does class scheduling, to develop a form requesting all information needed from teachers to make scheduling decisions more accurate and timely. Elections for new board members will be held in April, with a Candidates' Forum the week of March 19. Chris Howard announced her resignation from the Board effective June 1, or sooner if a replacement Board member is nominated to complete her term. There are 213 first choice applications to Summit for 2001-2002 and BVSD has allowed Summit to admit additional new students up to a maximum enrollment of 300 students. A new volunteer system is being planned for staffing the library, to allow parent volunteers and carefully selected 8th grade students to keep the library open from 7:30 AM- 4:00 PM.
The next Summit Board meeting will be held on Monday, February 19 in the Summit library at 7:00 PM. Any and all members of our Summit community are invited to attend. Other future meetings will be on March 5 and March 19.
Parent/Teacher Conferences will be on Thursday, February 15 from 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM and from 6:30 PM until 8:30 PM, and on Friday, February 16 from 8:00 AM until 11:30 AM and 12:15 PM until 4:00 PM.
The Summit Student Council is sponsoring this fun event after school on Wednesday, February 14 from 3:15 to 5 PM. There will be a live DJ as well as pizza, soda and treats from the school store. Admission is only $2. Don't miss it!
Friday, March 9 will be a Summit teacher workday. There will be NO SCHOOL for students on that day. Please plan accordingly.
Summit students will take the CSAP tests on February 20, 21, 22 and 23. Please note this as you schedule appointments or make other plans for your students. You can see what the standards are for each subject area for each grade level by going to the CDE website at: http://www.cde.state.co.us/index_stnd.htm
Hear ye! Hear ye! Now is the time to step forward to express your interest in running for the Summit Board of Directors! Our volunteer Board has broad responsibility for all issues involving Summit. The Board relies on members' experience in many areas, including budgeting, communications, computer programming, hiring, scheduling, law, grant writing, and negotiations. We especially seek candidates with finance and operations expertise.
Candidates should be dedicated to Summit's educational philosophy and be willing to devote the time necessary to serve on the Board. If you have a strong interest in the continued success of Summit and would like to be involved in important decisions that affect the entire Summit community, please consider running for a seat on the Board. Remember, this is your child's school and serving on the Board provides you with the opportunity to make a real difference for all Summit students and staff.
This year there are four seats open for election. There will be a "meet the candidates" forum during the week of March 19 with ballots due back to Summit by April 6. Summit families and staff elect Board members to two-year terms. New Board terms begin on June 1, and newly elected members are expected to attend Board meetings starting in April.
Please contact Scott Smith (phone 303-499-1816; e-mail scott@massively-parallel.net) as soon as possible for complete candidate information and to receive a candidate questionnaire.
We extend a warm welcome to our new German teacher, Mr. Tony Striffler. Mr. Striffler earned a B.A. in German and Germanic Studies at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA. He also holds a master's degree in Theological Studies and an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. While in college, he spent a semester abroad studying in Germany and was elected to membership in Delta Phi Alpha, the German national honorary fraternity. Though not a native German speaker, he has strong family ties to Germany and looks forward to sharing his love of German language and culture with Summit students. When he's not teaching a German class, Mr. Striffler is sometimes found playing the viola with Select Strings!
The Social Studies department thanks our Summit parents for all your help and sharing your talents in our classroom! Mrs. Kapsak's World History students have been studying ancient India and China! We thank all our parents, especially:
Congratulations to National Geographic Geo Bee school winner Devin Bartley and runner-up Kathy Baker.
Congratulations to Summit History Day winners who will represent our school at the District competition on April 4, 2001. Final papers are due March 21, 2001. These students should come to Room 110 on Mondays from 3:00 until 3:45 PM to prepare for the District competition.
Solo Exhibits: Caitlin Smith: Charles Hamilton Houston--The Man Who Killed Jim Crow; Daniel Beylkin: Radar: An Invention That Changed The World; Alexander Woods: The Hubble Space Telescope; Colin Peterson: The Heliocentric Theory; Andrew Jarmon: The Atomic Bomb
Group Exhibits: Emma Benjamin and Laura Tippit: Clara Barton; Ali Fuhrman and Erica Smith: Defeat & Glory: The Story of Women's Struggle To Find a Place In The Olympics; Dana Oppenheimer and Sarah Baxt: Jewish American Politics
Documentaries Solo: Josh Karpel: Toy Story: A Revolution of Computer Animation
Documentaries Group: Jasper Lipton and Drew Mohr: Comedy Through the Ages; Ali Reid and Lisa Brownstone: Jazz Changes Society Forever
Papers: Terence Cudney: See in the World Through Identification's Eyes; Carrie Davis: I am a Jelly Donut--The History of the Berlin Wall; Evan Eastburn: The Automobile;
Anna Heiderer: Sputnik; Justin Bridwell: The Graphic Calculator
In our ongoing effort to provide up-to-date technology for our teachers and staff, we ask you to consider donating excess computers to the school. Your donations must fulfill the following criteria:
Also, parents, please remember to let us know about any address and/or phone changes. We count on information from you to keep our records current!
Here is the perfect way to recognize and thank our terrific Summit teachers!
Each year, Amgen solicits nominations for its Amgen Award for Teacher Excellence, presented to two teachers from Boulder County and carrying an award of $10,000 per teacher. The award, sponsored by the Amgen Foundation, recognizes extraordinary teaching contributions and performance by inspirational and innovative educators. We encourage you and / or your student to think of one (or more) of our own outstanding teachers to nominate for this generous award, to acknowledge their hard work and the commitment that makes Summit so successful for our children. You may re-nominate a teacher if you submitted a nomination in a previous year.
Nominations can be made using Amgen's online form or by writing your own nomination letter and sending it to: Amgen Award for Teacher Excellence, Amgen Inc., Mailstop AC-5, 3200 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO 80301. The deadline for submitting Amgen award nominations is February 23, 2001. More information about the Amgen award and how to submit nominations is available on the Amgen Award for Teacher Excellence website at: http://wwwext.amgen.com/corporate/AmgenTeacher.html
Well, we stumped everyone with last week's trivia question. Can't you just imagine Ms. Blakemore as the: High-flying staff member once had a hot air ballooning license and flew balloons for many years? "Si", it was she. She probably taught Spanish up there, too! Well, let's try this one for this week:
Which teacher won blue ribbons in flower arranging and succulent growth?
Don't delay! We accept guesses from students and parents. So don't be shy. If you think you know the answer to the question, email your guess to tomwhiteoc@earthlink.net.
Congratulations to Summit students for excellent scores on the American Mathematics Competition!! Fifty-four Summit students took the American Mathematics Competition Test in November 2000. Ryan Hamerly was the top scorer for Summit, with a score of 20. Hannah Alpert, Elliot Paquette, and Aban Siraj won 2nd place awards, each with a score of 19. Hannah also won a Certificate of Merit for being a 6th grader with a score over 15. Henry Liu and Eric Pahlke won 3rd place awards, each with a score of 18. We are proud of our students and their fine achievements on this exam.
Student Council is sponsoring a food drive to collect food for the Community Food Drive. The Community Food Drive was 20,000 lbs. short of their goal after their fall food drive. We would like to help them reach their goal and have a little fun while we're at it. There will be food drive boxes in all the first period (A Day) classes and the students will only put food in their first period class box. Each food item is worth a certain number of points. The point list will be posted on the boxes. At the end of the food drive, the class with the most points will be rewarded with School Store Certificates for each person in that class! The food drive started on Wednesday, January 24, and will end on Thursday, February 22.
Please help your students find and bring in nonperishable food for our food drive to make this a success for Summit and for Community Food Share! Your help is greatly appreciated. -- Summit Student Council
On Sunday, January 28, the last 24 boxes of food and clothing donated by Summit families and employees left Boulder for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. During winter break, Maggie Mesinger traveled to the reservation with a truckload of donations for individual families there. Families received coats, clothing, boxes of food, and other presents. Fancy dresses were a big hit with little girls, and Janet Christensen's homemade mittens, hats and vests were highly coveted. Athletic wear went over big with the kids at the local recreation center, and perfumes and lotions pleased many grandmas.
Summit folks donated so much that two trips were necessary, the most recent one a month after Christmas. A teacher from the Loneman School in Pine Ridge traveled to Boulder to pick up the remaining items. Included were bicycles, money orders for the heating needs of the elders, and two dozen boxes of additional clothing and food.
A huge THANK YOU to all of you who reached into your hearts and cleaned out your closets! So many benefited from your thoughtfulness.
Parents, when you are picking up your students, please park in parking places if you are going to be a few minutes. Parking on the sidewalk is hard on pedestrians. Also, please be very careful when you back up, as some of our students are not tall people and might not be clearly visible in your rear view mirror.
One of our Summit traditions is a party for graduating 8th graders on the night of graduation. This is not a Summit-sponsored function, but is organized by parents. If you are interested in helping with this extravaganza, there will be a planning meeting on Thursday, February 15, at 8:15 AM at Summit. If you are unable to attend this meeting but want to help, please call either Janet Christensen (303-499-5786) or Barbry Hogue (303-665-3798).
Thanks to all the fantastic volunteers who helped make the February 1 Science Fair such a success. The response to Pamela Phillips' phone calls was fantastic. It is a big job, but with the efforts of our wonderful volunteers the whole process flows smoothly. Special thanks to Cindy Smith for an outstanding job on the certificates presented to students. Also a big thank you to our wonderful Hospitality team of Roxy Walker and Laura Spalding and their volunteers - as usual a fantastic job with food and drink for the judges.
We hope many of you will join us for our library volunteer training session on Thursday, February 8 at 7 PM in - of course - the Summit library. Our goal is to staff the library with as many volunteers as possible in order to give our students every opportunity to use our growing library. If you are interested but cannot make the meeting please contact our librarian, Juilane McMurtrey.
A big thank you to Maribeth Schultz and Sally Scott for helping with food and beverages for Summit students who participated in the Fairview Choral Festival. They are always so willing to help, smiling all the way. Did you know that more than 180 Summit students are participating in our wonderful music programs? There is always room for more parent volunteers. If you would like to get involved, please call Joan Jacus at 303-499-3013.
Parents, students and staff have now completed annual satisfaction surveys. The AAA Committee and the Summit Board appreciate the time you have spent to provide us with your responses and candid comments. The AAA Committee now will analyze survey data, which will then be reported to the Summit Board and summarized for the 2001 Annual Report to the BVSD.
The Board carefully considers all of this input from our community as it evaluates faculty and staff, as well as wide-ranging aspects of Summit's curriculum and learning environment. The survey results are used to make relevant improvements to the school and to acknowledge jobs well done. Past survey results have influenced many issues, including elective choices, communication strategies, coordination between teachers regarding large projects and tests, articulation of curriculum and placement with high schools, and extracurricular activities options.
Prospective students and families interested in Summit are also invited to join a Summit tour at 8:10 AM on March 13, April 10, or May 8. Tours last approximately 45 minutes. At the end of each tour, there is time for questions and answers. Also, if you know of families that are interested in finding out more about Summit, have them call the office at 303-499-9511 to receive a brochure and other Summit information.
This is an exciting and practical class designed to help students in grades 6-12 learn study skills to be successful throughout their lives. Materials provide immediate help with learning styles, time management and organizational skills, note taking, test taking, and memory skills. Make a real difference in your learning! Parents are highly encouraged to attend (free) with students.
TIME: 7:00 - 8:30 pm, one night a week for five weeks
LOCATIONS: Fairview High School, 1515 Greenbriar, Boulder, or Centaurus High School, 10300 South Boulder Rd, Lafayette
COST: $125 per student (includes 5 weeks of class, one night a week, text, handouts, & parents are encouraged to attend free)
TO REGISTER: Call Gloria Frender 303-530-3195
The North Boulder Rec Center hosts Friday night Live, an open house from 7 to 10:30 PM for youth 9 to 14 years old. For more information, call the Rec Center at 303-413-7260 or go to http://www.fnl-nites.com.
Concordia Language Villages provide summer camp sessions in 12 world languages for students between the ages of 7 and 18, along with credit sessions both at the villages and abroad for high school and college students. Through the village experience, CLV's mission is to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in the global community.
Language opportunities range from Swedish and Norwegian to Japanese and Chinese, to Spanish and German -- and even English for students from abroad! Wendy Blakemore, one of our wonderful Spanish teachers, has taught at the Spanish village for two summers and each of her two children has attended CLV for several summers. She would be pleased to chat with anyone who thinks they might enjoy this world language camp experience. Contact her at school or at home (303- 530-7173).
Did you know that every time you buy food with grocery certificates, Summit receives 5% of that sale? Just how much money is that? Well, if your family spends $400 a month on grocery certificates, Summit would receive $20 a month. Multiply that by 12 (you can buy them in the summer, too) and that adds up to $240 a year. Now if just 100 families did this, we're talking about $24,000 additional each year! Wow! That's a lot of money!
However, to date we have only raised about $1,000. We're a little off the mark. But what a comeback story this could be! Stop by the Summit office today to purchase your grocery certificates. Or, if you can't make it to the office, call Joan Jacus at 303-499-3013. Joan will do whatever it takes (almost!) to get grocery certificates to you.
Parents of eighth graders, in November we asked your student to bring in a baby picture for the yearbook. Unfortunately, we didn't get an overwhelming response. So, we are now asking you to find a picture of your darling baby and send it in. If your student hasn't sent in a picture yet, we feel it's your right as parents to choose the picture you would like to see displayed in the yearbook!
Also, do you have a wild candid shot of a student or teacher that would bring humorous stories to their minds years from now when they open their Summit yearbooks? Please share that delightful moment by submitting a copy of the picture to our yearbook. Please place all snapshots in an envelope marked "YEARBOOK" and submit them to the office. The yearbook staff thanks you!
Design a class or school project for Earth Day 2001 that helps create a clean, healthy, prosperous future, and win a "Greenie." Check out last year's winning "Greenie" projects on the NCAR Green Pages at: http://www.ucar.edu/outreach/greenie. The deadline for entries is March 16. Call Linda Carbone at 303-497-11185 for more information.
The District has numerous part-time food service positions available. In fact, Summit needs a cashier during the lunch period, from 11:30 to 1:00, two days a week. It's like getting paid for helping out at school. In fact, it IS getting paid for helping out at school! All positions require that employees be able to lift 35 pounds unassisted, have a high school diploma or GED, enjoy children and be able to work quickly and efficiently. Cook helper and cashier positions start at $8.20/hour. Cook positions start at $8.86/hour. Positions over 20 hours/week receive full benefit package. Interested? Please fill out an application at the Boulder Valley School District, 6500 Arapahoe, or call 303-447-5042.
If you are not receiving your newsletter via e-mail and wish to, or if you would like the newsletter sent to a different or an additional electronic address, simply send a message to marthagorman@att.net. Electronic distribution is fast, easy and saves postage and trees. What a deal!
Upcoming deadlines for submissions to Summit News are February 19 and March 5. Articles may be sent to tomwhiteoc@earthlink.net, or left in the Summit News file in the Summit office.
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/univ_school/summit/
Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun.