"The Juneau Community Charter School (JCCS) will provide a balanced education using developmentally appropriate techniques that tap into the child's need to explore and create in all fields of learning.
Our strong connection with parent and community resources gives students
diverse perspectives and unique learning opportunities."
---Our Mission Statement

 

APC CORNER of the WEEK

By Melissa Goldstein

Happy February, Everyone!

It feels like Spring is in the air (though we aren’t quite there yet), and with Spring comes change. We have had many changes here at JCCS over the past few weeks, including incoming and outgoing members of our staff. We are all sorry to see Ildi leave us – the kids really connected well with her – but she was given an opportunity to further her career that she could not refuse.

On a brighter note, we have many new members of our teaching community to introduce. Many of you already know Brett Dillingham, who started in November as our Cultural Integration Specialist. Brett performs and teaches storytelling in Ireland, England, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Viet Nam, Costa Rica, Africa, Canada, Alaska and the Lower 48 states. In his workshops, Brett teaches storytelling and poetry as performance literacy, and we are fortunate to have him here to share his unique talents and knowledge with our students.

You have probably run into Aaron Elmore, the co-artistic director of Theatre in the Rough, sharing the excitement of puppetry. Puppetry is a new art form for most JCCS students, and they are very much engaged in the process. Aaron has been working with puppets as a craft and a performance form for more than a decade. He is a certified Parters In Education teaching artist and has enjoyed his two week residency here at JCCS very much. He was born in Sacramento, raised in Sonoma County, CA and has lived in Juneau, gratefully, for the past 18 years.

You may also see Grace Kloberdanz, an Americorps member serving as JCCS's Health & Technology Specialist, in your child’s classroom. She has been at JCCS for about two weeks, and to get acquainted with the school she has been assisting Aaron with his puppet making workshop. Her goal is to find healthy ways to integrate technology in the classroom, and she will be working with all the classes until the end of the year with different projects, including listening centers, keyboarding, blogging, and imovies.

We have two new Spanish Specialists at JCCS. Thursday was Cristina Glass’ 2nd day at JCCS. Cristina is a native spanish-speaker – she is from Panama – and she will be spending time in all four classrooms. Currently she is helping the 4/5 class prepare for the upcoming spanish restaurant, which will happen in the Spring. Our other Spanish Specialist is Dana White, who has lived in Juneau for the past eight years and is proud to call it home. Dana started teaching Spanish in the 2/3 classroom last week, and she will be teaching each Tuesday afternoon in that classroom.

 Welcome to all of the newest members of the JCCS family!

 

Please click on the newsletter link in the left menu bar on this page to read more or to look at past issues.