Oregon Department of Education Survey

Please note that the last day to fill out the Charter School Survey is Friday May 15, 2009.

 

This is a survey is required for all charter schools in Oregon.

 

If you have not already please go to:

 

www.ode.state.or.us/surveys/

 

- select Parent survey 2008/2009

- then select the appropriate Arthur Academy

 

The survey takes about 10 minutes, and students are also welcome to take this survey. Thanks for your participation!

Save the Date...for a Sandy School

A new public charter school in the Oregon Trail District in underway! We are in beginning stages of parent interest and support.

All Arthur Academy Parents are encouraged to come and share with parents in the Sandy area on the success and benefits of having a student in the Arthur Academy system. We would love for you to save the dates below.

Parent Interest Meetings start at 6:00 PM

April 2 - Parent Interest Meeting
April 13 - School Board presentation
May 7 - Parent Interest Meeting
June 4 - Parent Interest Meeting

The Parent Interest meetings will be held in Sandy at The Community/Senior Center at
38720 Cascadia Village Drive, Sandy, Oregon, 97055.

Promotional Post Cards for these meeting is available at RAA or DDAA office.

Share the news with friends who might be interested who live in the area.

RAA Day at Papa's Pizza

PIZZA DAY at PAPA'S PIZZA PARLOR GRESHAM FOR REYNOLDS ARTHUR ACADEMY Bring this flier into Papa's Pizza on March 11th and the fund will receive 50% of the value of the food you purchase! Buy a pizza, buffet, salad, soup, breadsticks, appetizer or sandwich and Papa's will donate 50% of your order back to the organization! Please come into Papa's and help us out! With your support on March 11, 2009 we can have a really successful fundraiser! Attached flier can be printed and brought in with you on March 11, all family and friends welcome to help raise money for RAA. A hard copy flier will be send home with all students on Monday and extra fliers can by picked up by the RAAPO bulletin board. For more information contact Dani Stern 503-328-9364 or dani@simplystern.com

Practice for State Testing

Just thought I would share a few online sites that I think will be helpful.
- Sherri Burks, 3rd Grade Teacher at Reynolds Arthur Academy

This test is extremely intense. Here are a few practice sites - I think they will help with the OAKs State Test.

http://www.skonline.org/website/mathonline/3rd/3rdweek1.htm - this is a great site - I just discovered. I really like it. It has practice problems for upper grades.

http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/testing/samples/2007_08/asmtmasamptst0408engg3.pdf - this is actual tests from previous years.

http://www.studyisland.com/demoAsk.cfm?myState=OR - this one is an actual test you can purchase for practice and tutoring - but it does offer some free practice ?'s.

Spring Forward

Don't forget THIS Sunday, March 8th is the start of Daylight Savings Time. That means one less hour of sleep on Saturday night!

Here's a link to a fun Blog for Moms with tips on how to help your child adjust.

MLI Board Meeting Tommorrow!!

Notice of Board Meeting
Mastery Learning Institute [Arthur Academy]
Board of Directors

Date and Time:
Thursday, February 19, 2009, 6:30 PM

Location:
The administrative headquarters of Mastery Learning Institute
13717 SE Division St., Portland, Oregon

Current Board Members:

Dr. Caleb Burns, calebb@teleport.com
Charles Arthur, arthurac@appleisp.net
Dr. Bonnie Grossen, bgrossen@verizon.net
Robert Snee, bsnee@integra.net
Russell Hanf, russell@rhlawoffice.com

Oregon Trail/Sandy Arthur Academy

Hey Everyone. I just wanted to let you all know that we are starting the application process for the Oregon Trail School District in Sandy. We will hold a parents meeting for anyone interested at the Sandy Community Center on March 4th at 7pm in the cafeiteria. There are a lot of families out there wanting what we already have so this is great news! I just wanted a little help getting the word out so if you know anyone in the Sandy, Damacus, Estacada, or Boring areas that will have a child in K-2 in the fall of 2009 that would be interested in our great school please pass on my e-mail address and I can get them more information. Thanks...Dayna Brown BrownLDS8@Yahoo.com

No School - Monday, Feb. 16th

February 16th is President's Day. There will not be school for any of the schools.

For those of you that are crafty and would like ideas for some President's Day crafts/activities/printouts, check out this site:

Kaboose.com

Reynolds Parent Meeting Minutes

Thank you and Kudos to April Curtis ... Reynolds Arthur Academy Parent Organization's Secretary.

Good job on all your work in getting information out to parents! Here is a link to the January Meeting Minutes.

Also if you have never seen the RAAPO website, follow this link!! Way to go Reynolds Parents!

(And if there are any other secretaries, who would like to pass along their info/meeting minutes, we'd be happy to post it!)

A Comment...

A reader wrote in asking to be able to see the comments on the main page. As stated earlier, the blog's current setup does not allow for this. In an effort to generate discussion, the following comment was pulled from a previous post for you to see:

I am so thankful to Mr. Arthur for what he has done for my children and other children alike. I don't know where our children would be if he hadn't started these wonderful schools.

But as most of you have said it isn't fair how he is treating his staff and teachers. If we don't have these quality teachers and staff we don't have a quality school. Mr. Arthur is and ever will be a wonderful educator. He is not a businessman. Unfortunately, when you have employees, (aka staff & teachers), you must run your school as a business.

Why is Mr. Arthur on his own board? It may not be illegal but it is unethical.

If we as parents do not stand up for our teachers who will. We must stand together with our teachers and tell him their needs and see that they get fullfilled. Yes these wonderful schools were brought to us by a wonderful man, but public schools do not belong to anyone but the public. And these are public charter schools. They belong to us!

Thank you to all of the parents, like this one, who have taken the time to leave your thoughts and opinions. If you haven't left a comment before and would like to, see the next post for instructions on how to have your voice heard.

Leaving Comments...

The post on the Portland/DD Manager has generated many comments. It would be worth your time to check them out. Click here to read the comments. In general, there are 2 ways to view comments:

1. Click on the Title of the post. This redirects you to a page dedicated to that post and all of the subsequent comments.
2. Click on Comments, that appears below the post.

If you would like to leave a comment of your own, fill out the form at the bottom the comments.

Thank you to the parent who sent an email to arthuracademycorner@gmail.com to ask to see the comments. Unfortunately, we are not seeing a way to have all the comments show on the main page. If you, or any reader, have suggestions, please let us know.

Portland and David Douglas Manager

One of the Parent Leaders wrote into the blog to let everyone know:

"Tina Long, the manager of the Portland and David Douglas Schools was let go as of Thursday the 28^th. If you would like to tell her goodbye please send her an email at t6long@gmail.com."

(As an administrative note...a few comments were left on other posts in regards to this topic. They have been moved to this post to keep on topic. Thank you for your comments...they are welcome!)

Reynolds Parent Meeting

Attention parents at the REYNOLDS School!!!!

Your parent organization will be having their monthly meeting:

Wednesday, January 28th
6:30 P.M.

Click here for an agenda. See you there!

Want More Arthur Academy Corner???

If you want to receive posts on a regular basis, click the SUBSCRIBE button to the side and it will be added to your reader.

If you do not have a reader and/or prefer to receive new posts by email, enter your address in the form window on the sidebar, and you are set to go!

WOW---you have to love modern technology...everything at your fingertips!

Meeting Reminder...

Just a reminder note to all the Parent Organization Leaders...

Arthur Academy Parent Organization Leaders' Meeting
Date: January, 29th 2009 (Thursday)
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Gresham Arthur Academy (Room 14 which is in the church basement.)
Mountain View Christian Church
1890 NE Cleveland
Gresham, OR 97030
RSVP: January 26th, 2009 to Tamie
Other: Dessert potluck. Bring your favorite dessert to share.
Questions: Contact Tamie Tlustos-Arnold @ president@gaapo.org or 503-317-8001

It would be very helpful if you could bring with you 6 copies of your parent organization’s bylaws, parent directory, latest newsletter, a list of your fundraisers, and any other information that you think might be useful.

On behalf of the Blog Readers, thank you Tamie for forwarding this on and organizing this! We appreciate all of the work you leaders do for our schools. It is exciting to see all of you get together and share ideas, info and support! You'll have to give the rest of us an update with how your meeting goes.

Calendar of Events

The Carnival comment brought up the issue of the different schools' activity schedule. It would be great to see the different activities/fundraisers/events/meetings/etc. going on at all of our schools. As administrator of this blog, I would love to have additions to the School Calendar posted on the sidebar.

If you know of an upcoming event and would like it published here, please send an email to arthuracademycorner@gmail.com.

Carnival Game Ideas

Reynolds Arthur Academy will be holding its annual Spring Carnival Fundraiser in May. One of the parents left a comment asking if there were any great ideas for carnival games.

Last years big hit was a Dunk Tank, with teachers and staff receiving the brunt of student's throwing arms. Other games included:

• Walking the Plank
• Face Painting
• Floating Ducks
• Basketball Shoot
• Spin the Wheel
• Fishing for Prizes
• A Jail
• Miniature Golf

So...two questions. One, are any of the other schools having carnivals this year? And can anyone think of more game ideas?

Links and Resources

Don't forget to look at the sidebar to the right...

Here you will find valuable links to documents and files important to our school. The goal is to have any information pertinent to all parents and staff. If you notice something missing, or would like to add one, send an email to arthuracademycorner@gmail.com.

Thanks!

We Made Other Blog Chatter!!

Below is a link to a blog written by the CRC American Schools Tour '08-'09. The Reynolds school made their list of 100 schools to visit. Thought you might like to see what they had to say. Here is a brief intro to what they are doing:

The principal objective of the Capital Research Center (CRC) American Schools Tour ’08-’09 is to observe firsthand the variety of America’s primary and secondary schools. Over the course of the school-year CRC EducationWatch Director Phil Brand is touring America by car, visiting a total of 100 schools, two in each of the 50 states. On this website he will present daily reports of his impressions of the schools he visits. At the end of the tour he will write a book on what he's learned about American schooling.

Education in America - American Schools Tour '08-'09

January MLI Board Meeting

Last night (January 15th) an MLI Board Meeting was held at David Douglas School. The Agenda to the meeting was placed on the school's website.

There were a number of parents and staff in attendance. The "unofficial" head count was over 45 people with parents from David Douglas, Reynolds, Portland and Gresham.

The evening started with an Executive Session. Then went into the introduction of guests and visitors. A few items of note:

• The board accepted the resignations of John Liljegren, Jerry Fladoos and Michael Harper.
• The board nominated and voted in 3 new board members: Bob Snee, Russell Hanf and Bonnie Grossen.
• Jen Card, parent and professional presented her application for nomination to the board. Her application was accepted and they will be interviewing her for the open position.
  
• Northwest Center for Educational Options presented their organization as a potential resource for the board.
• Results from the recent parent survey were passed out, while the staff survey is still in the process of being calculated.
• New Project Schools (Oregon City and Oregon Trail/Sandy) were discussed.
• Detailed Financial Reports were offered by Dennis Tiede.
• AA received the final $170,000 installment from the Charter School Growth Fund. This will conclude our relationship with this organization.
  
• A revised General Services Budget was presented but not voted on until further perusal.
• Various Public Comments were made, some in relation to the accuracy of the minutes from the previous meeting, some in relation to wanting to see a parent on the board, this blog was introduced, funds for students with special needs being added to the budget.

A link to the financials and the minutes will be provide when they are available

If you attended this meeting....please leave your thoughts and comments for others to see.
If you were not able to attend....please leave your questions.

- Please keep post subjects related to the board meeting. If you have other topics you would like discussed, you are welcome to send it into arthuracademycorner@gmail.com.

Calling All Parent Organizations

We are wanting to connect with the different Parent Organizations from every school.

Is there a representative from each of the Executive Committees that would like to become an author on this blog?

How great would it be to get an update sharing some of the great stuff the different organizations are up to!?!?

Upcoming meetings? Fundraisers? Activities?

Email arthuracademycorner@gmail.com today!!!!!

A Mom's Hope

Hello Fellow Arthur Academy Parents...

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Karen Wells and I have three children in that attend the Reynolds Arthur Academy. I will be one of the authors of this blog, but I am also charged with some of the administration details.

This blog developed recently in hopes of being able to have a generalized place to house information and communication in regards to Arthur Academy. I hope it can be used as a tool to help facilitate dissemination of information and encourage open communication between all of the Arthur Academy schools, parents and staff.

I would like to clearly state - (unless specifically noted) the views and opinions stated in this blog, do not express my opinion or that of any representative of Arthur Academy. If you have information you would like to add to the discussion, resources or announcements, please email the blog.

I am excited to increase the efficiency of parent/staff/administration connection!

Thank you,
Karen

Welcome!

Arthur Academy is such a great school...and what a great way to share all of the great things happening!

As the schools are growing and students are being added, the need for communication grows; as well as the need for connection. Blogs are an awesome way to do this!

The main authors are parents of students at Arthur Academy. The hope is to also have teachers, staff and administration also join in.

If you are the blogging type and would like to write a post, WONDERFUL! To contribute, send your post via email to the link on the sidebar and your post will be added. Or add comments to any of the existing blogs. You may identify yourself, or post anonymously.

Healthy discussion is welcome, yet this is NOT a place to circulate rumors or make slanderous remarks. Also vulgarity and profanity is not necessary. These types of posts and comments are subject to removal.

It is also necessary to note that this is not an "official" Arthur Academy site. Though trying our best to present accurate and thorough information, the views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily the views and opinions of Mastery Learning Institute and AA Administration. Click here to be directed to the official Arthur Academy website.

The goal is to be comprehensive and unbiased, and cover any issues, announcements and events related to our children and the school, helping to create a communication link between all of the campuses.

Thank you for your interest in this blog...and keep checking back or add it to your subscription list for more great stuff. And pass along this site to other parents...the more participation we have, the better it will become!