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September
2007
Dear Parents,
Welcome back to our returning families and a warm Marvin welcome
to families new to our Marvin community! As we begin our sixth
year together, may I brag and say that I am so fortunate to
be able to once again work with such loving and bright students,
outstanding, knowledgeable staff and a dedicated involved parent
community.
Those of you who have visited the school during the summer or
have had your child attend our summer school program deserve
our gratitude. We have been under construction and total disarray
for all the months since our children left in June. Actually,
we have had a "Face Lift" to our school in that we
have a whole new playground. The blacktop has been totally resurfaced
and is now in a stage of "curing" so that we may soon
paint the white lines which will allow children to resume the
use of games and physical education activities. Thank you to
the children who attended school, our dear office staff who
continued to serve our public, our teachers who continued to
teach in the heat and mess, our building services staff who
kept us as clean and safe as possible and to our parents who
were supportive and understanding during the worst stages of
our upheaval! Also a big welcome to our new Building Services
Supervisor, Keith Yeomans, who has been outstanding in this
process.
In addition to our black top, we
now have a front entrance to our school that meets the requirements
of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We may now be more responsive
to our Special Needs populations. Further improvements to our
entrance will be underway soon. Please remember that all of
us are planning for our grass field to be installed in the future.
The blacktop was a District Project because of the Health and
Safety needs of our school. The grass field is a dream project
that we will realize over time with all of us working together
as a community.
As we start our new school year
we have so many things to be proud of:
" Because of the number of
families on "Choice" (Families who have chosen Marvin
as their school of attendance for their children), we were able
to qualify for all of our teachers and have actually hired new
teachers: Mary Moran-Fuller, K/1 Lavonnya Fisher 1st, Oscar
Palestino 2nd, Phyllis Porter, 4th Lili Sadeghian, 5th and Ms.
Robyn Hancock, Science Teacher. We are most fortunate to have
these teachers join our staff as each of them is an experienced
and knowledgeable teacher who is already part of the Marvin
Teacher Family!
" We are proud to announce
that we have added more students to our Gifted and Talented
Program. Additionally we have enough children who have qualified
as Seminar Gifted and we have now been identified as an official
Seminar School. Parents whose children qualify for this program
no longer have to attend other schools to enroll their children
in seminar classes!
" A dream that has been realized
this year is a pre-kindergarten program which already has 18
students enrolled. There are not many schools in the district
who offer this wonderful opportunity to their families. This
program is designed to ensure that when children enter kindergarten
they will be very well prepared as the pre kinder is a rich
developmental program for students to progress at their readiness
level with all the skills and knowledge they will need to be
successful in Kindergarten and then First Grade!
As I sign off, I again wish to thank
each and every one of you who work with all of us here at Marvin.
We are fortunate to be able to live and work in such a beautiful
community. I am committed to providing all of our students,
staff and parents with the dedication it takes to ensure that
the school thrives and has the resources to accomplish our collective
goals.
As always, please know that I am
here to fully support you and your family. If you need information
about our school, your child's programs, or a school policy,
please do not hesitate to call me.
We are looking forward to seeing
you this Thursday, September 20th, for our Open House and Book
Fair!!. Please be sure to attend as you will receive a great
deal of information about our school and meet your child's teacher.
I am looking forward to seeing each and every one of you there!
With great anticipation for another
wonderful year,
E. Jay Derwae
Principal
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