Dear EVCS Family,

It’s an exciting time of year! The plants in our Tree of Knowing Garden have all woken up from their winter slumber and the Kindergartners and First Graders are busy planting spring vegetable crops. Our Second Graders are getting ready to go sailing in New York Harbor next week on the 19th Century schooner Pioneer, and our Fifth graders are getting ready for their overnight camping trip in the Catskills. And of course our parents are getting very psyched to party down this Saturday at our annual gala. It’s spring time at EVCS!

I’m very excited to tell you about a project our older students have been working on recently. Our Fourth and Fifth graders have been learning about the crisis unfolding in Syria. They learned a bit about the history of the crisis and the forces at play, but we have kept the majority of the focus away from the politics of the region, which are very complicated, and more on the plight of the many displaced citizens who are victims of the crisis. Our students have been struck by the abject human suffering and the numbers of people who have been affected, and have felt determined to do something that might help. You should expect awareness raising and fund raising efforts to come from these classes soon! And we have planned a very special event for the entire school community – a concert of traditional Syrian music performed by the New York Arabic Orchestra, right in our school auditorium. The concert will be on May 11th at 1:30 PM and all family members are invited!

I have great news to report! We recently found out that we received a grant from the DOE to have a fully funded Physical Education teacher at our school next year, and subsidized funding over the following few years. This means our children will have regular PE opportunities next year and beyond, which is something that we have been needing and wanting. Now we just need to hire an excellent PE teacher — if you have any leads please let me know.

That’s all for now. See you on Saturday!

Kind regards,

Bradley