May 19, 2021
Dear SAIS Family,
It is hard to believe that there are less than four weeks left of the school year! These weeks are incredibly full, with the Exhibition of Learning, the Into the Woods drama club performance, school concert, graduation ceremonies, and more.
Parent Involvement at SAIS
The role that parents play in their children’s lives, both inside and outside of school, is absolutely critical to their growth, learning, and development. The love that you give your children, the interest that you show in their lives and thoughts, are as important—are actually more important—than meeting their basic needs. Much appreciation to all of you for your hard work raising the beautiful human beings that you send to SAIS every day!
I also want to appreciate all of the ways in which you have supported your children at SAIS, by joining us at our first Breakfast and Books, attending your child’s Student-Led Conference, coming to our parent classes, joining in the Terry Fox Run, attending our Exhibitions of Learning, and participating in other activities as well.
Some of you go above and beyond and volunteer your time and efforts to helping SAIS become a better and better school. I’d like to particularly acknowledge our room parents for taking extra leadership, communicating with other parents, meeting every month, and giving the leadership team feedback and ideas for how to improve our school program.
This past month, two parents contributed to SAIS as guest teachers: Emma from KB and Gaya from KB and ELE1. Emma led a class on how to make and work with royal icing with our 6-9th graders, and Gaya helped our 4/5th Grade Native Speaker Chinese class prepare their drama project. We hope to have many more parents come to SAIS as guest teachers and experts in the future—much appreciation to Emma and Gaya for getting it started! We will also be asking our parents to consider having a SAIS student intern in your place of business as we continue to grow our high school.
Academic Trips at SAIS
Of the many new things that I introduced to SAIS, such as weekly community meetings, student-led conferences, additional presentations of learning and other deeper learning practices, one of the things of which I am most proud is our grade level trips. In spite of all the complications caused by Covid, over the past two weeks, we were able to run our second year of trips for our upper elementary and secondary students. On May 5-7th, our 4th and 5th graders went to Xichong, with Ms. Ellie and Mr. Matt as chaperones, and with Indier as a partner. Students hiked, went tide-pooling, and learned to surf, while also building relationships with one another, and developing independence and resilience through leaving their families and homes.
Our middle and high school students went to Xi’an and Gansu Province for eight days from May 7th-14th, accompanied by Ms. Dawn, Mr. Omar, and Mr. Mark and with trip leaders from Rustic Pathways. Our students had unforgettable experiences seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors, Zhangye Geological Park, and exploring the Gobi Desert. They rode the ancient city wall of Xi’an by bike, and participated in a service project to slow the growth of the desert. Some of the history and science lessons they’ve had in SAIS classrooms came alive through this trip, and while they were learning, they were also building new and deeper friendships with each other.
We look forward to many more of these types of experiences for our older students in the years to come.
Hope to see everyone in the coming weeks at SAIS at one or more of our upcoming events!
Warmly,
Laura
Dr. Laura Flaxman, EdLD
Upcoming Dates
- Friday, May 21st 9-11:30: House Field Day
- Saturday, May 22nd 9:30-12:30: Maker Pop-Up
- Friday, May 28th 2:30-3:30: Music Concert
- Thursday, June 3rd : EOL 5-7
- Saturday, June 5th 8:30-3:30: Final Rehearsal for Into the Woods
- Tuesday, June 8th 5:30 pm: Into the Woods Performance
- Thursday, June 10th: Last Day of School and Kindergarten, 5th, and 8th Grade Graduations
- 9:00 am: Kindergarten
- 10: am: 5th and 8th Grades
