Middle School Principal’s Letter
Thank you for taking the time to read this week’s version of the News and Views. We are three weeks away from the end of the semester, and I want you to know you have done a remarkable job being a parent during these challenging times.
A necessary component for parental success is influence. Your job is to become as influential as possible in the minds and lives of our children. Here are three ways parents can become more influential:
- Become great listeners and create a safe space for children.
- Demonstrate love, not a desire for control.
- Personalize relationships and approaches with each child.
As parents, we must listen to our students, especially those who are doing things that are not super comfortable for us. Children need us to be listeners, and they need us to be able to genuinely listen, not to be able to respond but to be able to hear. In other words, to be there for them.
Often, children who fall or fail felt that they couldn’t confide in adults when they were vulnerable. They didn’t feel their parents understood them. They didn’t feel they wanted to hear from them. They felt the adults in their lives tried to tell them differently.
The second way to become more influential is to demonstrate love rather than a desire for control. A teacher who helped kids who were a bit wayward and were having a hard time asked the boys, “what can a parent do to help his child fight the influences that you’re dealing with? What can I do to ensure that it won’t happen to own my kids?”
Tell your children all the time; how much you love them. Early and often.
Finally, everybody wants to be treated as an individual. Often, however, we have this tendency to use one approach for all of them. But our approach needs to be personalized, based on the unique needs of each child.
This week we started our pre-season training and had over one hundred athletes participating over two training days. The students were divided into pods of 7 to 8 students.
The grade six students have started their annual fundraiser to support purchasing essential items for the African Hope Learning Center. This year they are trying to raise enough funds to buy one gift bag for each student. Their goal is to raise LE 33,000. Each bag will contain food and hygiene supplies as well as something for the children to indulge in, to bring a smile to their faces. Students will be seeking sponsorship for the afternoon activities they are competing in. If no one approaches you to sponsor them and you would like to contribute, please give your son or daughter the funds in an envelope, and they will give it to their advisory teacher.
I want to remind you that the semester ends on December 17th. Therefore, we will be collecting all laptops starting on December 16th. If you are leaving early for the Winter Break, please turn your computer in before departure.
Thank you for your continuous support of the middle school.
In Partnership,
Courtney Bailey
Middle School Principal
Announcements
Moving on from CAC before the winter break?
To help us prepare your records in time for your departure, please use the link below to let us know if you are withdrawing from CAC this semester.
https://www.cacegypt.org/index.php/cac-withdrawal-request
A few days before your departure, a withdrawal form that includes several signatures must also be completed in order to clear any outstanding obligations, and turned in to the Admission/Registrar‘s Office to release records. Due to the current circumstances the Middle and High School withdrawal form is being prepared by the Counseling offices and shared with teachers and student online.
Please note that High School transcripts including this semester’s grades will not be available until January 17, 2021.
Registrar’s office
The Middle School Service Learning
Power of One students have been creating public awareness videos for various non-profit organizations and are happy to share them with the CAC community.
Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!
Grade 6 Annual Fundraiser (Nov.29 – Dec.10)
Since 2010, Grade 6 students have planned and prepared an annual fundraiser to support purchasing essential items for the children of the African Hope Learning Center (AHLC).
This year, they are trying to raise enough funds to purchase one gift bag for each student in AHLC. There are 330 students in AHLC and each bag costs LE 100, so their goal is to raise LE 33,000. Each bag will contain food and hygiene items and something for the children to indulge in, to bring a smile to their faces.
Click here to view a video to promote their drive. Video
Support the Grade 6 students and help them to reach their goal!
You can put your contribution in a sealed envelope labeled “African Hope” and put it in the donation box in front of the MS. (Please use recycled envelopes if you can).
To learn more about the African Hope Learning Center, please visit their website here.
PTO Satisfaction Survey
PTO Satisfaction Survey will only take a few minutes to fill out, and will help tremendously to steer our organization in the right direction. Please share this link with all parents, teaches and admin at CAC, and don’t forget to fill it out yourself: https://forms.gle/bwqyRBKjXum7dY616
FROM THE BOOSTER CLUB
THE BOOSTER CLUB is helping the campus get ready for the holidays and we need your help! In order to decorate our CAC Christmas tree we would like to ask each student to hand-decorate a face mask at home and bring it to school to hang on the tree in front of the security office. Feel free to get creative and have fun decorating either a cloth or disposable mask with paints, markers, fabric or anything that you’d like (please go to our facebook page to see some examples).
Students in Elementary will be taken to the tree at certain times to hang their masks, while MS/HS students may go during break times or at lunch. Let’s all work together to make our 2020 Christmas tree one to remember! We can’t wait to see what you all come up with. Have fun and HAPPY HOLIDAYS from the CAC BOOSTER CLUB!!
CAC Talks
Dear CAC Community,
Please join us for our December Series of CAC Talks led by our very own CAC parent of two boys, Laura Valdez Pagliaro, Ph.D., on Monday, December 7th at 6pm. She is an educator and writer whose academic research focuses on representations of cultural identity and masculinity in literature and popular culture.
Her interdisciplinary presentation, “Nurturing the Emotional Intelligence of Boys: What their Favorite Books, Movies & Video Games are Telling Us,” draws from influential research on childhood and adolescent social and emotional development, as well as literary, gender and popular culture studies. The aim of the presentation is to raise awareness of the narrow range of emotions boys are permitted, to consider the harmful impact denying boys permission to express emotion has on their self-esteem and relationships, and to better understand how inextricably knit their sense of privilege is to their sense of powerlessness. Though the focus will be on boys, the interactive discussion is relevant to parents and teachers of girls, as well as to MS/HS boys and girls, because the goal is to clear a path for our sons and daughters to be the fullest versions of themselves.
Zoom Link: https://fundforteachers.zoom.us/j/94027797629?pwd=ZHhZM0lsSEdpRUFsUjZOdndOSWdyQT09
Please send any questions you have for Dr. Laura Valdez Pagliaro ahead of time to cacpto@cacegypt.org. We hope you can join us!
In Partnership,
Our CAC PTO
Three Cheers
Three Cheers to Rhea, Carmen, and Ivana for putting up the Christmas tree and the decorations at the entrance.
Three Cheers to Ereeny for the organization of the MS Clothing Drive.
Three Cheers to Mr. McCuaig and Mr. Dzamashvili for the Strings, Band, and Choir performance during lunch and break time.
Three Cheers to all Grade six advisory teachers for supervising the lunchtime activities to raise money for the African Hope Learning Center.
Three Cheers to all sixth-graders for their efforts to raise funds for the African Hope Learning Center.