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Kazakhstan International School Newsletter

all the news that you can use…

March, 2009

Content:


SPECIAL SCHOOL DATES IN MARCH:

  • March 9th -International Women’s Day (public holiday)
  • March 20th -Nauryz Celebration (half day of school, Parent-Teacher Conferences after lunch)
  • March 23rd-27th -Spring Break

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A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR:

What a difficult situation that all of us are facing as we continue to be bounced to and fro with the world-wide economic downturn. This has led to the devaluation of the Kazakh currency, the tenge, and has created serious problems for the school, its staff, and for all of our families.

Without the devaluation, we projected that we would have ended the year with a zero (0) balance. With the devaluation we project that we will end the year with a $250,000 deficit. To cover the deficit we could raise school feels by 30%, but we have decided to raise the tuition fees by 15% and reduce our expenses by 15%, thus sharing the pain created by the devaluation with our parents and staff.

Some parents are very displeased by our decision. We can understand your displeasure. We too are not pleased to have to raise our fees mid-year, yet we must if we are to keep the school open and viable economically for the coming year.

One of our parents, an educator and a trained economist, Dana Stevens, a Ph.D. American trained educator from Stanford University, reviewed our budget and projected loss due to the devaluation and recommended that we raise the tuition fee by 25% and then give parents who had difficulty paying the increase discounts.

We considered his recommendation and decided that this would be unfair to the parents even if they could afford to pay such a large increase. We will do our best to work with parents who cannot afford the increase. Please schedule a time to meet with me to discuss your situation if you feel you cannot afford the 15% increase.

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FEES FOR THE 2009-2010 SCHOOL YEAR:

We are currently working on the budget for the 2009-2010 school year and will have the first draft of the proposed budget for consideration by our KIS Advisory Board at their April meeting. Let me invite parents who would like to work with us in building the budget to send me an e-mail at pjspottswood@kisnet.org. We want to involve a representative group of parents so that they can be sure that the budget that we propose will cover the essential costs of providing a first quality international education without wasteful spending on non-priority issues. I have asked Mr. Dana Stevens, Vice Rector of KIMEP, to Chair the parents group in these discussions.

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KEEPING 2009-2010 FEES LOW

Our commitment to every parent is to keep our fees as low as we can to make an international education affordable for parents who pay for their children’s education out of their own pockets. At the same time we are having to increase our costs as we recruit first class teachers from abroad to strengthen our teaching faculty as we continue our growth towards Council of International School (CIS) and International Baccalaureate (IB) accreditation. But you can help us keep your fees as low as they can be by doing the following things:

  1. Pay for the 2009-2010 school year before July 15th, 2009 and get the 2008-2009 school fee rate;
  2. Every child you “recruit” to come to KIS will reduce your school fee by 5%;
  3. If KIS reaches 95% capacity overall in enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year we will decrease every child’s school fee by 5%.
  4. If you pre-pay for half a year at a time at the beginning of each semester you will receive a 5% discount.

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OUTSTANDING RECRUITS FOR 2009-2010:

Starting with our new principal, Mrs. Kay, Ph.D. (in educational psychology with many, many years leading international schools in Europe and Asia), we have dramatically increased the number of native English speaking faculty coming to KIS this coming year. We have recruited experienced teachers that will provide the very best education for your children. I have asked Mrs. Kimberley to put short biographies of our new teachers in this newsletter so that you can see that we are taking a step up in our faculty for this coming year.

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PRINCIPAL’S CORNER:

I want to thank all of you for making me feel so welcome. Your warm wishes are greatly appreciated. I have enjoyed hearing from some of you. Thank you for taking the time. If International Day is an example of how the PTA works then WOW, what a fantastic time. It was really fun getting to meet so many of you and tasting such delicious food. I would seriously like to be adopted by whoever made those brownies. Thank you Tara and Catherine for planning such a wonderful event. And thanks to all of you for providing such a multicultural banquet.

Some updates:
Confirmed teaching staff for 2009-2010: We have secured our Grade 4, 5, and 6 teachers. All are native speakers of English and are experienced qualified teachers. We are in the recruiting process with five more native speakers who are also experienced qualified teachers.

Snacks: Please remember that the 10:00 am morning break will no longer have snacks provided for the Reception to Grade 6 children. Please provide a healthy snack for your child. The ?fternoon break?no longer exists however, there will be a 5 minute interval between the 7th and 8th period. If you think your child will require a small snack please send it with them.

After School Program: We have suspended the Math, ESL and Homework club until after the school holiday to make some adjustments

Meet Me Meetings: I have set up the following meeting with parents for each grade. Each session will begin at 6pm This is your opportunity to let me know what you like and what you feel like we need to do to improve. Please do your best to come. Thanks.
Parents of Grade DatePlace
1 Tuesday March 10Grade 1 classroom
2 Wednesday March 11Grade 2 classroom
3 Thursday March 12Grade 3 classroom
4 Friday March 13Grade 4 classroom
5 and 6 Monday March 16Grade 5 classroom
Reception Tuesday March 17 Reception 2 Classroom
Pre-K Wednesday March 18Pre-K Class
You can contact me at mrskay@kisnet.org Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.

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NOTES FROM THE PRE-SCHOOL DIRECTOR:

I want to thank you parents for supporting our preschool. We are almost full thanks to your telling other parents about us. The management team is looking at possibly opening another class should the current intake flow continues.

Our preschool is currently waiting for the shipment of the Montessori materials from Indonesia. These will make a big difference to our preschool. I know that many of you are looking forward this.

Teachers who are completing their international diplomas are about two thirds of the way through their training. I want to thank our teachers who have put the effort to turn in their assignments.

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PRE-SCHOOL TO OPEN DOWNTOWN BRANCH AT EDELWEISS:

I had a meeting with Mr. Ibrahim Celik, Project Manager for the Edelweiss Development of the A Development Corporation this past week. He has informed me that their building at Edelweiss that will house our pre-school will be completed before June, 2009. We can anticipate beginning our pre-school there in July, 2009.

Mr. Celik informs me that he has many parents who will be living in the development that are interested in placing their children in our pre-school. We want to accommodate them but also want to prioritize our parents who live in that neighborhood and want to put their children in pre-school at that location. If you are interested in placing your child at the Edelweiss location, please let our registrar, Mrs. Faina know.

We will provide space for 60 pre-school children at that site. KIS will continue to provide a pre-school at its current campus but will only have room for 20 preschool students there.

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KIS TO PROVIDE SUMMER CAMP:

Many parents do not leave Almaty during the summer months as they continue their work. They have asked if we can provide a summer camp program for their children.

Mr. Vernon, Mrs. Kay and Mrs. Annie have had experience running summer camp programs for preschool and elementary school age children and have accepted the challenge to develop a fun-filled summer camp program for your children and their friends this summer.

The summer school program will run from July 6th through August 21st.

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INTENSIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUMMER SCHOOL (IELSS):

KIS will continue to provide its IELSS program this summer. The camp will run from July 1st through July 31st. The program will run concurrently with our summer camp program for our students and their friends. If your child needs additional help in mastering the English language, you may want to consider placing him in this program for the month of July.

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PTA Corner:

Tara and I want to thank all the parents, teachers, and staff who made our International Day such a success. We raised 25,000 KZT which we will use for a project as decided by the PTA at a later date. I also want to thank KIMEP and our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Dana Stevens, for letting us use their beautiful facility.

There has been some concern among parents recently that has been expressed in e-mails that have been “flying” around Almaty. Tara has collected these concerns and addressed them with Mr. Phil and our new principal, Mrs. Kay. Based on their conversations, the following process has been developed to address your concerns.

  1. Mrs. Kay will meet with parents from each class over the next several weeks (the schedule is included in this newsletter) to address concerns related to specific classes;
  2. The PTA will sponsor a “Meet the Director and Principal” meeting after Spring Break to address school-wide issues. We are thinking about the second week in April.
  3. Mrs. Kay encouraged parents to address their concerns first with their child’s teacher, and then, if that does not resolve the issue, to bring it to her attention. Administrative issues are best addressed at any time with our Director, Mr. Phil.
  4. Finally, Mr. Phil and the Senior Management Team of KIS are in the process of building the budget for the 2009-2010 school year. He has invited Mr. Dana Stevens to head a small group of parents to provide their input into the budgeting process. If you want to be a part of that group, please let either Mr. Phil or Mr. Dana know. Thank you.

If you have any additional questions or concerns you can contact me, Catherine at silkroadians@gmail.com or Tara (Bond) at tara@bondfamily.eu If you have a question that you need to address to our principal Mrs. Kay you can contact her at mrskay@kisnet.org. You can address our Director, Mr. Phil at pjspottswood@kisnet.org .

Finally, you can keep track of PTA efforts through the meeting minutes posted on KIS Google docs account. You will be able to see our PTA meeting minutes and student attendances sheet. We can maximize this page to upload all PTA news, share directory and other documents too. For example, our Director is working on a 1-3-5 year strategic plan for K.I.S. We have placed a draft of this plan on this site for you to review and give him feedback. Please take a look at it. Do let other parents aware of this site too. Thanks.

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PARENT ACCESS TO INFORMATION ON GOOGLE.COM:

Dear Parents, we have created a portal at docs.google.com for the PTA. Here are the steps to use to access the information.

  1. log in to : docs.google.com
  2. key in user name: kis.pta
  3. Use the password: kisparent

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NETBOOK LEARNING PROGRAM:

This is part of our plan to expand our 21st Century component of our International Baccalaureate Curriculum at our school for the year 2009-10. The school will include the price of a netbook and the associated software into the price of tuition for all of our students grades 4-6. Parents will get their investment back by being able to take the netbook with them when their child leaves the school. Here are the details of the netbook computer:

Asus Eee PC 904HA 8.9" Netbook
Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM,
160GB SATA HDD, 8.9" Display, 1024x600 Resolution,
Built-in 802.11b/g, Built-in 1.3MP Webcam,
6-cell Battery, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Price $319.99, (not inclusive of power adapter, shipping cost from USA and MS Office 2007 software)

Your child will use the Netbook for the year 2009- 2010 as follows:

  1. Connect to KIS Server resources (Individual Education Program):
    • Singapore English, Russian and Kazakh Language Courseware
    • Sky Cambridge Science & Math Courseware
    • E-Library Learning Aids Project
    • Student Network file sharing
  2. As the companion with our state of the art Computer Science Kits:
    • Primary year Science Program Software (Individual Computers needed)
    • Each student will have access to his/her own Science Kit.
  3. Classroom Activities that involve the use of a personal computer include the connect ing with online learning communities and research and inquiry activities.

Do you have some thoughts on this issue? Give our Director, Phil Spottswood a call (8-7272-250- 030) or drop him an e-mail (pjspottswood@kisnet.org) and let him know what you think. Thanks.

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MORE NEWS FROM OUT I.T. DEPARTMENT:

Our school has taken another big step in integrating technology into our classrooms by subscribing to Atomic Learning, an online resource for software training. We are dedicated to providing the highest quality technology training resources available. We encourage all of our teachers to use it as a resource for teaching, integrate it into their classroom routines, and encourage our students to use it too.

Our subscription to Atomic Learning includes:

  • 24 hours a day, 7 days a week access
  • Closed captioning on thousands of tutorials
  • Curriculum resources:
    • Lesson Accelerators
    • Teacher2Teacher lesson plans
    • Workshops
    • Assessment tools
  • Atomic learning’s Weekly Tech Tips and e-newsletter
  • Online training sessions on Atomic Learning

The school IT department also facilitates teachers IT learning. In the near future they will be receiving training in Web 2.0, Blogging, Wikis, Moodle CMS, the “Flat Classroom” project, Storyboard telling, and many more 21st century education tools that we can use because we have “Smart classrooms”

Parents, want to learn more about how you can help your child develop these 21st century skills? Stop by my office or drop Deric Law an e-mail (dcglaw@kisnet.org) and let’s discuss these exciting new learning opportunities.

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UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS TOWARDS OUR INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE (IB) ACCREDITATION:

This year has been an exciting year for KIS as we started the implementation of the IB PYP (International Baccalaureate Primary Year Program). This program focuses on the development of the whole child; addressing social, physical, emotional and cultural needs. The PYP strives to help children develop an international perspective – to become aware of and sensitive to the points of view of people from other countries and other cultures. To implement the IB PYP we have had to adopt a new pedagogy that will help us provide the best education possible for your children. Here are the updates about IB PYP in KIS.

IB Learner Profile: KIS introduced the IB learner profile to our students, teachers and parents at the beginning of school year. The student profile is defined by a list of behaviors that the PYP intends to develop in all children in all school cultures. The PYP supports children to become:

  1. inquirers;
  2. thinkers;
  3. communicators;
  4. risk-takers;
  5. to be knowledgeable;
  6. principled;
  7. caring;
  8. open minded;
  9. well-balanced and reflective.
As KIS is committed to prepare students for 21st century careers and citizenship, IB learner profile will be at the heart of this common framework, to help to shape and build our students for the future.

Introduction to the Program of Inquiry: The PYP promotes inquiry as the primary pedagogical approach. At KIS each grade will teach 6 units of inquiry, one for each of the transdiciplinary themes that are to be covered in depth each year. Each transdiciplinary theme will be covered in a three – six week time frame. Students inquire into, and learn about, globally significant issues in the context of units of inquiry, each of which addresses a central idea relevant to a particular trans-disciplinary theme. Lines of inquiry are identified in order to explore the scope of the central idea for each unit. KIS is aware that all significant science and social studies education should take place within the program of inquiry. Parents may also approach our teachers to find out more about social studies & science strands for each unit of inquiry.

Assessment: The prime objective of assessment in the PYP is to provide feedback on the child’s learning process. They define assessment as the gathering and analysis of information about student performance. It identifies what students know, understand, can do and feel at the various stages in the learning process. KIS( this year) will assess our students with 2 main categories: Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment. Formative assessment occurs throughout a learning unit or process and it is also called assessment for learning; while summative assessment the assessment of learning takes place at the end of a learning unit or process. Parents may request from your child’s teacher(s) your child(ren)’s portfolio to see their learning process for each unit

The IB PYP process will need the whole school communities’ involvement: students, teachers, administrators, parents to make sure that we implement the program successfully. Do join us in this exciting journey!

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UPDATE ON OUR COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS (CIS) ACCREDITATION:

Good news! KIS has been accepted as a full member of the COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS. This means that our school has cleared the first stage of accreditation and have been certified by CIS as having a strong curriculum and imparting quality education in our school.

I want to thank the whole KIS community for their hard work and support; without your help this would have never been possible.

We need your continuous support to grow and effectively implement our year long “self study” process as we continue to strengthen the management and administration of our school.

The “Self study” process will help us evaluate our compliance in 7 areas that CIS has set standards: These seven areas are:

  • Philosophy and objectives
  • Staff
  • Curriculum
  • Governance and management
  • Student and community life
  • Student support services
  • Resources

We have committees working in each of these seven areas. These committees will have representation from the administration, the faculty, parents and interested community members. The committees evaluate our compliance with the CIS standards and make recommendations for school improvements where necessary. Mrs. Benu, our school CIS coordinator will work on those recommendations and prepare reports for CIS. Parents are encouraged to become actively involved in the self study process.

If you are interested in becoming involved please communicate with Mrs. Benu Sondhi (CIS Coordinator) bsondhi@kisnet.org. The faculty of KIS is working on these committees and they need your support and involvement.

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KIS PASSES LOCAL ACCREDITATION:

I am pleased to report that our school has passed its local accreditation review and is licensed for another 5 years by the Dept. of Education. We also have been approved to receive an “Education Center” license that legally allows us to provide education to your children in English. Both licenses should allow us to continue our presence here as an “international” school. We continue to work with the Ministry of Education and Science in Astana to get them to develop a licensing procedure for international schools defined as schools that: 1) teach in a non-national language; 2) use non-national curriculum; and 3) seek accreditation from internationally recognized accrediting bodies.

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PARKING PROBLEMS:

As most of you are aware, there is construction beginning just outside the gate of our school. The city government is going to be building a retirement home just in front of our school. There is going to be construction traffic at that site so we are going to have to change how we get our children to and from school safely. We are planning an evening meeting with the two school directors, parents, and other concerned citizens to discuss our options and find a solution that does not hinder our children from coming to school safely and conveniently. We will announce the date of that meeting in the next few weeks.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS:

One project that the KIS is very proud to be apart of, is the Special Olympics. This worthy charity helps the mentally challenged people to participate in sports.

Our first outing was to the Mega Center with the 3,4,5 and 6th grades for some ten pin bowling with the Kazakhstan Special Olympics Bowling Team.

All our children had a wonderful time, and enjoyed participating with these special athletes.

Thank you, to the Special Olympics for wonderful time that was enjoyed by all!

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