Dear Parents:
Happy New Year! It was a great vacation, but it is nice to be back. We hope your vacation was enjoyable, too. On these cold mornings, it is important that your child has a healthy breakfast to get a good start to the day and a warm jacket to wear to school. While the building is nice and warm, it gets quite chilly when they go outside at recess time. The heavy rains during the holidays resulted in some blocked drains on the school roof. Unfortunately, this led to a sizable leak in the fourth grade classroom. Luckily, damage was minimal and can be easily repaired. Students have been temporarily evacuated to the Science Lab but should be able to return to their classroom tomorrow.
This past Sunday marked the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany is traditionally celebrated the 12th day after Christmas. The term epiphany means to show or to reveal. When the Wise Men, who brought the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus they were the first to acknowledge Jesus as King and so were the first to show or reveal Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. Today, the day is now observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by showing Jesus as the Savior of all people.
The Parents’ Club has their usual monthly meeting tomorrow night, Thursday, January 10th at 7:00 p.m. in Carroll Hall. See you there!
Next Monday, January 14th, Olive the storyteller will be here for the kindergarten
through third grade students. Come and enjoy some magical tales in Carroll Hall at 8:30 and 9:30.
Also on Monday the 14th, our 3rd graders have prepared a prayer service for 1:00 p.m. in the gym. All are welcome to attend.
The next Cioppino meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, January 15th. Anyone interested in helping with the event are invited to attend the meeting at 7:00 in Carroll Hall.
CIOPPINO: Speaking of Cioppino…Please mark your calendars for Saturday, February 23rd. Our annual Cioppino Feed is the major fundraiser of the year and your support is very much needed and appreciated. The evening includes appetizers, antipasto, salad, garlic bread, cioppino (or chicken if you prefer), dessert, balloon prizes and a fabulous auction. Babysitting is also available on site! Please consider getting a table together with some other parents from your class. We can guarantee a fun evening for all!
The committees in charge are busy looking for raffle and silent auction items to use as part of this event. Many such items are received through the generosity of our parent community. Do you have items at home that you cannot use? Are you always thrilled by all your Christmas gifts? Do you really need another chia pet? Well, one person’s garbage is another person’s treasure. Send us your unwanted/unneeded gifts. We’ll turn those lumps of coal into diamonds! The committee is now accepting donations of all kinds.
BRICK CAMPAIGN: Planning continues for the Creative Arts Center that we hope to build off the gym. Along with our architect, David Finn, we have met with sound and lighting companies and hope to have a better estimate of the actual costs shortly. While we are in the process of writing grants to raise the funds for this project we also need to have your support to enable this to become a reality in the next year or two. Have you bought a brick or a plaque yet? If not, please consider doing so at this time. We are sending home a flyer again today to help with the ordering process.
FIELD TRIPS: The fourth graders are receiving a permission slip today for their upcoming field trip the San Francisco Botanical Gardens on Wednesday, January 23rd. All 5th-8th graders are receiving a permission slip today to attend the Mercy S.F. Winter Dance Concert, on January 24th. Please pay attention to the due date, as late forms will not be accepted.
TUITION PAYMENTS: A reminder that the January payment is now due for those of you on the monthly tuition payment plan. Also, the quarterly payments are due no later than January 15th. If you have not yet paid your Capital Improvement fee of $350 per family, which was due last month, please submit it to the office as soon as possible. Extended Care billing notices for the month of December are in your envelopes today.
KINDERGARTEN APPLICATIONS: We will begin processing kindergarten applications and scheduling screening appointments by mid-January. If you currently have a child in Utopia or a sibling who wishes to apply for kindergarten and have not completed the application, please do so as soon as possible.
TEXT ALERT: As we did in December, we are going to send a text message to once again TEST our new alert system to the phone numbers we have on file. If you wish to add an additional cell phone number to receive this alert, please use the Contact Information Update Sheet on the Contact Us tab on our website by Friday, January 11th. We will conduct our next TEST text message next week.
JOANNE PANG FOUNDATION: In support of the Joanne Pang Foundation we will have a free dress fundraiser on this coming Friday, January 11th. Please read the enclosed flyer for further information on this important cause.
Thank you for all your ongoing generous support.
Sincerely,
Marie Fitzpatrick
Principal
