June 5, 2009
Dear Parents,

I hope you had an opportunity to attend our first annual Dessert Theatre this past Wednesday. The performances were outstanding. I’m still amazed at how composed our young students are when performing/speaking in front of large audiences. Congratulations go out to Cassie Buckley, Ann French, Kate Conron, and Melissa Lawrence for doing all the planning and preparation for this event, as well as all our young performers! Plans are already underway for a bigger and better show next year!

Congratulations go out to Sarah Mahan, our new art teacher for the 2009-10 school year and Eric Diefenbacher for receiving a Chenango County Council of the Arts Grant for a project entitled “Science, Arts, and Digital Age Collide in Wildlife Photography.” This will be an interdisciplinary project involving digital photography, computers, music, and science. Great things continue to evolve at Holy Family School!

Summer vacation is just around the corner and you’ll probably be hearing “I’m bored” from your children. Well, at Holy Family School we have an alternative to relieve the boredom and provide family entertainment.
As part of our Science Initiative, we will be organizing several family science outings this summer. All students attending our Kids Zone will be attending these field trips, as well as any other students and parents who want to join in the fun and excitement these trips will offer. If your child does not attend Kids Zone, we are requesting parent chaperones for their children. Realizing parent work schedules are complicated, we are allowing one parent to be responsible for two families. You will provide your own transportation. We will leave together from school for each trip. More specific information will be forthcoming concerning these trips. At present, we are trying to schedule trips to Wolf Mountain for our 3-8 graders, Rogers Environmental Center for our PreK – 4th graders, as well as the zoo in Syracuse and the Museum of Earth in Ithaca for all grade levels. Please note that this list is only tentative at this time. We will pay for all student admissions to these field trips. Adults will be responsible for their own admission. I hope many parents will take this opportunity to spend a day with their children in the outdoors, learning about our environment. Tentatively, the trips are planned for each Friday in July, starting with July 10th.

God Bless,

Gene