Included in this week's message: Enrollment, Carpools, Robots, Playdates, and Award-Winning Poetry
Welcome to the first of the newsletters MPA will be sending out to keep parents informed over the summer. Hopefully these summer newsletters will provide all parents with the information they need to make the transition from summer to the school year smoothly and easily. We'd like to especially welcome all of our new MPA families - whether your child is entering Kindergarten or joining one of our older grades, we're glad to have you with us!
ENROLLMENT: Enrollment time is approaching fast - do you know where your forms are? Click here to find all the forms and documents which need to be completed for your student(s). These essential documents and forms must be returned to MPA in person. Only completed packets will be accepted, and your child(ren) will not be able to begin school if any of the necessary documents are missing. Paperwork and Fees must be turned in during any of the following times:
– Monday, July 23rd from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
– Tuesday, July 24th from 11:30 AM – 6:30 PM
– Wednesday, July 25th from 7:00 AM – 2:30 PM
Please bring all of the forms, required documents and the balance of the $500 activities and materials fee to the school’s office at 14440 Triskett Rd, Cleveland OH 44111. For most families, the $100 application fee you paid this past fall/winter counts toward the $500 fee, so the balance due in July will be $400. If you are unable to pay the balance of the $500 fee by this time, you must contact the Finance Department at finance@menloparkacademy.com to make alternative arrangements.
WITHDRAWLS: If you have received this message but know that your child will not be attending MPA for the 2012-2013 school year, please fill in the attached withdrawl form and return it to the school as soon as possible. We have waitlists for virtually every grade level, so we'd like to know as soon as possible if we're going to have any vacant seats for the waitlisted kids to fill.
TRANSPORTATION: Unfortunately, MPA is not able to organize carpools OR convince local school districts to provide busing for your child. For busing questions, please contact your local school district's transportation department, and they can explain how they make busing decisions. Keep in mind that many busing decisions are not made until later in the summer when all of the enrollment information for private and charter schools has arrived, so you may need to be patient while your local district's transportation department waits to receive the necessary information. In the meantime, some of our more far-flung families have been calling the school to ask about organizing carpools. While we can't organize the carpools for you (or release any personal information like phone numbers or email addresses of our families for the coming year), we have set up a site where you can share the information yourselves. Just visit MPA Carpool Connections for a place where you can enter as much or as little information as you're comfortable sharing, giving MPA families in your area a way to reach you to organize carpools.
SCHOOL SUPPLIES: The official list of school supplies required for students in each grade is attached to this message and posted online here. We will NOT be using the supply delivery service we offered last year (their order deadline was too early in the summer), so please make sure that you purchase the needed supplies for your child before the beginning of the school year. Have fun hitting all those "packs of crayons for $0.03" sales in the coming months!
CALENDAR: Check out the MPA website here to find links to the school calendar, supply list, enrollment packet, etc. Now would be a good time to bookmark this page for future reference ... you never know when you're going to need a copy of the dress code on short notice, after all!
ROBOTICS: If your child is interested in being on a First Lego Robotics team this fall, please join us for a meeting on July 10th at 7:00 pm at MPA. We will be talking about what FLL is and what we need to do in order to continue our participation. FLL is a unique and intense experience. We need dedicated parents to be coaches and mentors in order to offer the opportunity to our students again. If your child is interested in participating, but you can not make it to this meeting, let Carol Scheuer know by emailing her at cscheuer24@gmail.com. For more information about FLL, go to http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ .
VOLUNTEERING: If you're looking for a fun way to get in some volunteer hours outside of the normal work week, look no further! MPA has run a very successful concession stand at all Browns home games for several years now, and we're looking for volunteers to help out. Last year this fundraiser contributed more than $16,000 to the school, and the volunteers had a great time doing it. More information about this fundraiser can be found here. Our immediate need is for volunteers to work our concession stand at the Kenny Chesney/Tim McGraw concert on July 29th. Click here to volunteer for that event, or click here to sign up for the (required) training session on July 14th. Questions? Just click here to send an Email to our team leader, Chris Harrison.
PLAYDATES: Last summer the families of some of the incoming first graders got together at various playgrounds during the summer so the kids could stay in touch. Thanks again for organizing that, Julie Beach and Jessica Tonsing! The ladies are at it again, and this time they're inviting all the younger elementary school grades to come, including incoming kindergarteners. They've done a good job of varying the locations, dates and times to try and accommodate everyone's schedules. If you have any questions about these playdates, contact jessicatonsing@hotmail.com. The schedule includes the following dates:
- Tuesday, July 3rd @ 2pm- Brecksville Park (1 Community Drive in front of Rec Center off of Route 21 )
- Monday, July 16th @ 12pm- Memorial Park in Medina (421 E. Homestead St)
- Friday, July 27th @ 10am- Castle Town Playground in Strongsville (off Pearl by the rec center or accessed off of Route 82 behind library)
- Thursday, August 9th @ 4pm- North Royalton Memorial Park (14700 State Road behind library)
- Monday, August 20th @ 6pm- Middleburg Heights Park (15600 Bagley Road next to library)
AWARD: Congratulations to former 6th grader Ojas Nadkarni, who won a poetry contest held by the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District. He wrote the poem while at Mohican as a part of an integrated Language Arts/Science assignment. You can read about it here: http://cuyahogaswd.org/en-US/Contests-Special-Programs.aspx - to scroll down to near the bottom of the page, then click on the link and you can read his poem! Way to go, Ojas!
MEDIA: Don't forget, MPA has a page on Facebook - Like us now so you'll get all the updates and can connect with other MPA parents over the summer!
As always, if your student has any achievements, honors, or events you'd like to share with the MPA community, feel free to send them to Gretchen Woods at avonhokie@yahoo.com. We'll mention as many as we can in future newsletters - we're proud of our students, and we want the whole world to know it!
