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- Country Day School Guanacaste
An American School Serving the International Community
Day School Grades pK-12. Boarding Grades 8-12.
Director's Corner
I'm looking out at blue and sunny skies outside again today, very nice. I'm told that we're ...read more
- Country Day School Guanacaste
An American School Serving the International Community
Day School Grades pK-12. Boarding Grades 8-12.
Director's Corner
I'm looking out at blue and sunny skies outside again today, very nice. I'm told that we're getting an early preview of how God paints the skies in November. I hope so.
There is still no word from our basketball teams about how the tournament is going, but our hopes are with them. We just want them to have fun and return home safely. If they also win some games, that's just cherries on top.
Remember that next week I will be gone to San Jose from Tuesday afternoon trough Friday for the AASCA/Tri-Association Teachers and Administrators Conference. It is a chance for me to meet with other directors to brag about what a great school CDS Guanacaste is, and also make connections with directors of other international schools in order to arrange future cooperative efforts. I have asked Mr. Bragg to handle any disciplinary issues while I am gone.
Have a great weekend spending time with your families!
Time for Report Cards and Conferences
Next week marks the end of the first quarter when report cards will be completed. We will send those out at the end of the week, or they will be available on line. We have converted to Ed-Line and that makes us a greener school as we won't be printing and using paper for the upper school report cards unless a parent requests a paper copy. Some lower elementary grades will continue to get paper report cards because we know how they love to bring them home to show you and you all love to hang them up on the refrigerator.
Also, teachers will be available for parent teacher conferenceson October 21st and 22nd. Note: those days will be minum days that will let out after lunch. That is 11:30 for the elementary and 12:30 for high school. If you wish to have a conference with a teacher you must call the front office to make an appointment. That includes specials teachers as well. If a teacher schedules a conference with you please respect the time that has been set becasue there will be other parents waiting to meet with the teacher also. If one meeting is late then all of the rest will also be late.Thank you.
I also know that some of you come to school everyday and talk with your childrens' teachers regularly, thus you might not feel it necessary to come in for a conference. This is also fine.
Day of Culture celebration
Our day of culture celebrat in the elementary went very well today. Julieta puit on a great program and i especially loved all of the different foods that came in along with the great costumes. Thank you Julieta and all of the other teachers that helped organize it.
Grade 2 Reaches Out
In Grade 2 in Social Studies we are learning about being good citizens. Last week on Friday, Grade 2 decided to be citizens in action as we went around our school community and collected garbage. We learned that helping out in our community benefits all of us! We are continuing with being good citizens in action by raising food donations for a less fortunate visually impaired couple that lives in 27 de Abril. Please help us out and support our efforts! Any non perishable food, tetra-pak juices or milk or detergent and toiletries will be accepted in the Grade 2 classroom until Monday, October 27th. We will update you after that on our progress.
Thank you for helping us to help others
Turtles Everywhere!
Students from the high school took a trip to Ostional to see the return of the turtles to lay their eggs. I hear it was spectacular and Dan and Kim Baldwin saw to it that everything was perfect. Articles from th students will be included in next week's News!
Upcoming Events
October 2008
Tuesday and Wednesday October 21/22
Minimum Days for Parent Teacher conferences
Don't forget to visit the school calendar regularly!
Picture of the week
There was a brief moment when it didn't rain this week, so we decided to take a school picture in case no one believed us!
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Electronic Devices at School
The faculty of CDS elementary school have a new policy on electronic devices (IPODs, Gameboys, mp3 players, etc). Please read below the following points in regards to allowing your child to bring these devices to school:
Parents that allow their child to bring an electronic device to CDS do so at their own risk. No electronic devices are permitted during school hours, including lunchtime and breaks/recess. Anyone who is caught during school hours using their electronic device will have their device confiscated by a teacher. The device will remain in the classroom of the homeroom teacher and will only be returned to the student's parent. Devices that are lost, misplaced, broken and/or stolen are not the responsibility of CDS. Students may bring electronic devices to school for the sole purpose of use on the bus after school. Same rules apply to the student as above if the student is caught using it during school hours. The elementary school faculty believe that children should engage in meaningful play and social interaction with other students during their free time while in school. Electronic devices are expensive and a big responsibility for a child to take care of. Please keep this in mind if you are allowing your child to take their electronic device to school to use after school hours.
If you have any questions about this policy please do not hesitate to make an appointment with your child's homeroom teacher to discuss this further.
Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Langosta Car Wash and Cleanup Up
Check your email for the flier for the carwash tomorrow at the Surf Club Sports Bar in Langosta. It will be fun and all for a great cause!
www.cdsgte.com | info@cdsgte.com
Tel: 2654-5042 | Fax: 2654-5044 | Brasilito, Guanacaste | Costa Rica
- Country Day School Guanacaste
Weekly News
October 3, 2008
Director's Corner
October showers bring?
I know April showers bring May flowers, but what do Costa Rica's October showers bring besides floods? It seems as though the rumors I ...read more
- Country Day School Guanacaste
Weekly News
October 3, 2008
Director's Corner
October showers bring?
I know April showers bring May flowers, but what do Costa Rica's October showers bring besides floods? It seems as though the rumors I heard about October being the beginning of rainy season were not just rumors. During Wednesday afternoon's downpour I was tempted to untie my boat from the trailer in case I needed to ferry students back home myself. I like riding my bicycle around campus to visit classes, but taking a boat around isn't what I thought I'd be doing. Well, we all know the damage and inconvenience that the first big rain causes, but I thought our community handled it all pretty smoothly. Phone calls were made, (yes, Katia does now have a phone tree for each area, Flamingo, Portrero, Conchal, Tamarindo, and Playa Grande. If you don't have your copy already please ask Katia for yours.), busses organized, extra teacher support on busses arranged, and we had our first shuttle service to the new Brasilito footbridge where we met parents stood on the other side, waiting for their children. Other than the heavy rains and how quickly rivers can rise to flood stage, I was happily surprised by how patient and calm everyone handled the mini crisis and treated it as a mere inconvenience. In the midst of the mud and traffic and confusion, smiles and nice prevailed. No complaints and rudeness, just thank you's, warm handshakes, and see you tomorrows! I know there will be many more days that don't go according to plan, even weeks the will take on a path of their own choosing, because that's simply the nature of where we've all chosen to live; but if our community continues to cooperate as we have this week, I won't mind at all.
Pirate Basketball, just go already!
The good news is that the girls' and boys' basketball teams will head off to Panama next week to play in the AASCA basketball tournament. The bad news is that after all of the fundraising events (Spaghetti/Fashion Night, 3 on 3 B-Ball Tourney, sponsors, bake sales, car washes, Maid/Bachelor for a Day, etc.), organizing plane tickets, transportation to and from San Jose, transportation and hotel in Panama, AND THEN finding out everyone was going to need a Yellow Fever vaccination along with proof of vaccination and passport copies to a government office in Santa Cruz (all to be done in seven days!), I don't know if we'll ever get our boosters or coaches to have anything to do with sending another team to another tournament anywhere! No, in the short time I've known this group I already can tell they're crazy enough to do it again. They're a pretty amazing bunch and we're lucky to have them at CDSG. The basketball players are the luckiest ones and we need to be sure they know it and show it. We're having spirit weekend now. Kids are wearing their school colors (red, black, and gray) today, their favorite sports teams on Monday, and then it's all pirate gear on Tuesday, along with a pep rally, of course. You're welcome to join in of course! Go Pirates! Go Boosters!
Day of Culture celebration
Next Friday we are planning a celebration of our school cultures in honor of Day of Cultures. Ms. Julieta and Mrs. Riascos are starting the planning today, so I will have much more news about it next week as the day approaches. All I know at this point is that our celebration will include students bringing in a favorite food and wearing the traditional clothing of their home countries. We like to take every opportunity to celebrate the rich and diverse cultures represented at Country Day School. We have students from all over the world studying and playing together and it's a wonderful opportunity for us to share our heritage with one another. Please join us in celebrating next Friday.
College Fair in San Jose
Hello parents of 11th and 12th graders:
I thought I should send out a reminder about the college fair at our San Jose campus on October 13th (one week from Monday!). We are not providing any transportation but we are allowing students to miss school that day if they wish to attend the fair. It is an opportunity to meet the representatives/recruiters from many colleges in the U.S. and around the world. Even if your son/daughter doesn't think he/she is interested in any of the represented schools, it would still be a valuable experience to see and hear about what different schools have to offer. Who knows? Maybe he/she will find a school much closer to home (or much farther away J) than you had hoped. I really recommend that you go if you can. If you plan to go please let me know so I can notify the counselor in San Jose.
Closing Thoughts
And Remember what the great philosopher Dr. Seuss said:
"I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."
Have a great weekend!
Go Cubs! (too late maybe) Go Red Sox!
- August 22, 2008
Happy Friday to everyone!
We’ve had a great first week of school. In fact this completes week three for me and my family. Sarah, Jackson, Ella and I are extremely happy to be here. It has been a long time since we have found ...read more
- August 22, 2008
Happy Friday to everyone!
We’ve had a great first week of school. In fact this completes week three for me and my family. Sarah, Jackson, Ella and I are extremely happy to be here. It has been a long time since we have found ourselves in the midst of so many friendly and positive people. We have never felt so warmly welcomed into a community so quickly and by so many. Country Day School Guanacaste is a wonderful little school on an amazingly beautiful sprawling campus that allows its students not only the ability to take risks and grow academically, but it also provides incredible opportunities for social and physical growth due to our location and incredibly diverse population of international students and their families.
I have spent the first three weeks meeting and greeting new families and getting to know the teachers and other staff members at CDSG. It has been fun to see the excitement in the eyes and expressions of every new family that comes to meet me, tour the campus and register their children. They all seem so excited about the possibilities that this area and CDSG inspire. But I think that the best part for your kids, besides living in such a beautiful place, is coming to a school with such a great teaching staff. I have no doubt that from this is one of the best groups of teachers that I will have ever worked with. Already in the first classroom visits/observations I have been extremely impressed. After visiting the high school classes I wanted to be back in high school, but without the homework.
I plan to write you a weekly letter updating you on things happening at the school and probably some personal silliness and insights into what we do and where we plan to go as we think strategically about the future. As you may or may not know, I am the Director of Country Day Guanacaste. In the past Mr. Brown has had principals from the Escazu campus lead the school under the supervision of the Director of the Escazu campus. This is no longer the case. CDSG is now a separate school from the Escazu campus where Gloria Doll is the new Director. I will work closely with Mr. Brown while Mrs. Doll and I will continue to seek common experiences and activities whenever beneficial and/or convenient. This means that although we will still share a common mission, philosophy and vision, CDSG will have the opportunity to form our own strategic plans and shape a vision that might be more influenced by our geographic location and parent community. But we will always be guided by our theme that we are “An American School Serving the International Community”.
I hope you will find that I am an open communicator and someone always willing to listen and consider the input of the parent community. Your input is important and whenever a change is needed that also falls in line with our mission, vision and philosophy as an American school with American and international students, then change will be welcomed. In the mean time we will continuously reflect and assess our curriculum and program in general as a way of always seeking to improve and better meet the needs of our students. It is my job to support our teachers in order to provide our students with the best opportunities to learn and prepare for their futures, not only in education, but in life. Our school should be the most challenging and yet most nurturing and supportive learning environment in all of Central America. From what I have felt and witnessed in the first week, I have no reason to believe otherwise. This is going to be a great year and I’m really looking forward to meeting all of you.
Cheers,
Jeff Haun
- Friday, August 29, 2008
Renaissance Man Takes The Reins At CDS
By Ralph Nicholson
When Country Day School went looking for a new Director for their campus in Brasilito, Guanacaste, they unwittingly found a real renaissance man.
On paper, ...read more
- Friday, August 29, 2008
Renaissance Man Takes The Reins At CDS
By Ralph Nicholson
When Country Day School went looking for a new Director for their campus in Brasilito, Guanacaste, they unwittingly found a real renaissance man.
On paper, 47-year-old Jeff Haun was a teacher with more than 20 years’ experience, most recently as the Director of a small school in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In reality, Mr Haun is a school director, a teacher, a traveler, a baseball player, a painter and a cook, and this week he took over the reins of the eight-year-old, Guanacaste campus.
“What’s really important to me is building a community within the school, making teachers feel they are being supported, making parents feel like they are being listened to,” Mr Haun said of his new job this week.
“I like having a very positive atmosphere at school,” he added. “I like having the feeling that the kids like the school, the teachers seem happy, and the parents as well.”
The Hauns (his wife Sarah has also taken a position at CDS, as first-grade teacher) first came to Costa Rica as newlyweds and backpackers, honeymooning in the country for a month back in 1999.
Then the traveling began in earnest, first to Morocco in 2001 where the pair taught at a small school in Ifrane, a mountain town between Fez and Meknes, for four years. From there they swapped the Atlas Mountains for the northern climes of Lithuania, where for at least four months of the year they counted no more than six hours daylight.
In some respects Mr Haun was born to teach, he just didn’t realize it until his sophomore year.
He was in college on a baseball scholarship, helping out in his little brother’s third grade class, when the teacher pointed out his obvious skill. It was then he declared his major.
What followed was 15 years of special education, teaching emotionally-disturbed kids.
“It is a tough job if you don’t like it, but for some reason it was my niche, and it was never that difficult,” says Mr Haun.
“There were hard times and I saw people that tried to teach it but found it difficult and didn’t last very long. I don’t know, maybe it is just a personality quirk, where I just enjoyed it. I work well with those kinds of kids. I miss it a lot.”
It’s during those years he took up painting and cooking.
“I love to paint. I don’t sit and paint a picture of the house or the trees; I’m definitely more into the abstract.
“For the last 12 or 13 years it’s been important for me to get my studio place, some place that I can get messy. Art was something I really got into when I was teaching special education — I found it was a great release.
“And my hour in the kitchen when I got home. If I had room mates they all knew to leave me alone, I needed that quiet time at the end of the day.”
Country Day School, or CDS as it is more popularly known, boasts 130 students this year, including seven boarding students, taught by 22 teachers.
Three years ago it was granted official accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, considered one of most progressive of the six regional accrediting organizations in the US.
The re-accreditation process, which comes around every five years, is one reason Jeff Haun has his job. He went through the process in Lithuania, guiding the school through accreditation.
“They want to see that you are still doing what you said you could,” he says. “Because when you get accredited nobody gets the perfect gold star in every area, so there may be some ideas and things to work on.
“We will be setting goals and looking at what they call the self-study where you evaluate every aspect of your program, transportation, safety issues, etc...”
And since CDS is both a US college-preparatory school, as well as a business, Mr Haun will be trying to grow the business. While school leaders accept they can’t necessarily affect day-school enrolments, they do believe they can improve the boarding program, effectively bringing in more business.
This year the dormitory staff is all new, including the supervisor who worked with the new Director in Morocco.
In fact, Mr Haun says he has been given the freedom to move CDS in whatever direction, whatever personality the school needs to take on, as long as it keeps within the Country Day School philosophy.
“In some ways, yes, I am a traditionalist a little bit, just in my approach to things like basic skills,” he says. “But I also believe we need to take full advantage of this area, in any way that we can, getting out, incorporating the culture, include the landscape and the environment in what we do.
“They can go together, there is nothing that says you can’t have traditional learning; with the outdoors experience,” he adds.
“There is no doubt that experiential learning is deeper than traditional learning, but we are not going to be the rote learning, you go to the local schools that just don’t have the funding and they have to do that.
“Schools all over the world have that, but every time students from those types of schools walk through the doors of a school like this, it is like nothing they have ever seen.
“It’s not just teacher attitude and people wanting to get to know you as a person not just as a student, it’s not just the freedom to express yourself. We really believe in the philosophy that if you question, you are learning. You just don’t take your teacher as the ultimate authority; if you question them, you question them, and it is up to the teacher to prove it.
“You ask questions and you learn for yourself, it is trying to teach other cultures about that, that aren’t used to it, that we teach kids how to learn, how to find the information for themselves.
“They [the students] should go away from the American experience in education, knowing how to learn what ever it is they want to learn, or to find the information, and be excited about it. In any subject.”
Mr Haun says a good teacher knows to guide a student through the learning process, and is there to support them.
“The more a teacher lectures, the less learning is going on in that classroom.”
- CDS Guanacaste Weekly News #2
August 29, 2008
We had another great week. We even introduced a new school song titled: CDSG…The Place to Be! You can hear it every Friday at the elementary assembly. Feel free to come by and listen. Maybe you’ll want ...read more
- CDS Guanacaste Weekly News #2
August 29, 2008
We had another great week. We even introduced a new school song titled: CDSG…The Place to Be! You can hear it every Friday at the elementary assembly. Feel free to come by and listen. Maybe you’ll want to join us and sing along. The words are as follows:
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
We learn a lot, and have some fun
There’s something here for everyone
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
From different lands, we gather here
At Country Day, our school so dear
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
CDGS, the place to be
One,two, one, two three!
CDGS, the place to be!
The elementary had lots of fun today learning and singing the song at the end of the assembly.
August Elementary Students of the Month: We also had our first student of the month awards for each grade, and the Spanish classes as well. It is our way of rewarding students for being positive, contributing to classroom discussions, and completing academic assignments. We want to recognize what great kids we have here. Look for the pictures of the students holding their certificates to be displayed on a wall near the office by early next week. Be sure and let them know how proud you are of them.
Our
August Students of the Month
Congratulations!
Maria Fernanda Mas Pre K/K
Isabella Batasch Prepa/Gr. 1
Sabastian Zarate Gr. 2
Isabella Tinoco Gr. 3
Trey Green Gr. 4
Simone Augustine Gr. 5
Makena Green Gr. 6
Bryce Anderson Spanish
Maria Fernandez Spanish
Jon Lerch Spanish
After School Activities After school activities will start next week. Please plan your schedules accordingly.
Safety Reminder #1 All elementary students waiting for their parent/guardian to pick them up after school at 2:30 will be kept in the waiting area in front of the office until an adult comes to pick them up from there. This is an attempt to keep the children safer from running out in front of a car from behind the busses. Thank you for your cooperation and support of this minor change.
Safety Reminder #2 Patrick Brown has issued this safety reminder about the bridge you cross on the road into school: The small bridge that one crosses right after passing the Commercial Center can and has been over-run by water in the past.
What to Do:
If water is running over the bridge, do not attempt to cross it. When the water is this high, it is moving very fast, and even just a foot of it can push your car off the bridge. Yes, I know it’s a very short bridge, but please believe me, you do not want to try this. Also, pieces of trees, branches, etc get washed off the mountains and these could damage your car or harm you if you happen to cross at the wrong moment.
Wait until the water level has fallen, then cross.
You can park in the Commercial Center and use the internal footbridge to get across if you want to totally avoid being stranded here.
If the water is over the bridge during morning drop-off or afternoon pick-up: Buses and cars should wait until the level has fallen. If it is not raining hard (sometimes the rain stops, but it takes a while longer for the water level to fall), they can drop off/pick-up in the commercial center and people can walk across. If it is raining hard, people should wait.
We’ll keep an eye on it and I’ll send out a warning if the water has risen above the bridge. Usually, this only happens in October, but there is a hurricane (Gustav) that as you all know is dumping tons of rain on us.
Upper School Bonding Assembly: What this picture represents is the wacky things our upper school teachers are willing to do in the name of team building and bonding activities for their students. It was our annual class bonding assembly for the upper school students. Can you guess who this is?
Pointy Foilheaded Man Chases CDSG Students with Lethal Mop!
The activities took place Wednesday afternoon and were a great success and everyone had a great time.
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