Head of School's Message
It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has. - Maria Montessori
Dear RMS Parents,
What an exciting time the beginning of the school year is! It was such a pleasure to see all the children greeting their peers, meeting their new friends, and staring in wonder at all the changes their environments have undergone over the summer. A new community is forming again in each environment, and even with our brief phase-in days, the profound work of the “meta-curriculum” has begun.
I came across the quote above, and thought it fitting for a “beginning of school year” message. As we, the “prepared adults” (parents and staff), work together to assist each child’s development in independence and self-mastery, it’s important to remind ourselves that we’re not perfect either, not by a long shot, and that mistakes will be made. And just as we work together to help each child, we need to help each other stay focused on the goal, and not get distracted or discouraged by our inevitable failings. After all, they are really opportunities to grow in humility, and thus holiness, and thus serve the child better.
New Later Pick-Up Service
We are pleased to offer a new service to parents beginning this school year. A Later Pick-up option is now available for the 3;00 pick up. This service allows you to pick up your child(ren) as late as 4:30 PM for a fee of $5.00 per child per day. To sign up in advance, please simply email the office the days you plan for your child to attend.
At 3:15 PM, all children still present will be moved to the Later Pick Up Service. When picking up, please sign them out with the adult in charge.
Digital Resources for 17-18
Carpool Map
We have updated the carpool map in the Parent Page of the website. This gives families a way to locate other families that live near them if they wish to carpool. Check it out here.
Online Calendar
The 2017-2018 RMS Academic Calendar is now available in digital form as a Google Calendar. The calendar can be viewed online in the Documents and Info section and can also be accessed through the link in the head of these Update emails.
You can also add this calendar to your digital device. Simply copy and paste this address into any calendar product that supports the iCal format.
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/rmsmail.org_a1dp6jua8ed94o0aq3tmfa18hg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Family SCRIP Contribution
You may have noticed a new charge in your 2017-2018 contract named “Family SCRIP Contribution”. This charge is due June, 2018, but in actuality, it is a charge designed to never be paid! Here’s a brief explanation.
As you all probably know, SCRIP is a way for families to fund raise for the school via the money they already spend on other things (clothes, groceries, gas, movie tickets, whatever). For example, if you buy $50 of movie tickets using SCRIP, you get $50 of movie tickets AND the school gets $4! So it’s a great way to use the dollars you spend elsewhere to help the school raise money and keep tuition as low as we can.
In regard to the new “Family SCRIP Contribution” charge, every month you’ll get a report of exactly how much your SCRIP purchases have contributed to the school, and before the charge comes due, all those contributions will be credited on your agreement. A mere $25 a month in contributions eliminates the charge altogether!
In addition this year, credits can be earned by attending Parent Nights! Each Parent Night you attend gets you up to $20 in credit toward this charge!
To get started earning credits, contact our SCRIP coordinator, Rosanne Garvey, at rosanne505@verizon.net or call her at 703-447-9229.
Sports Opportunities
RMS has partnered with our greater community to create opportunities for children at RMS to participate in sports teams.
Swim
Any student 7th grade or older at RMS is invited to join the RMS Swim team. They will be practicing and going to meets with the Seton Swim team. The fee is $150 per swimmer, $75 for siblings.
Seton purposely tries to keep their fees low so these fees don’t quite cover practice lane rental. The rest (meets, pizza, uniforms, swim bags, houses for states, buses to Richmond, officials training, coach and officials uniforms, computer and sound equipment, etc.) all come from donations. Parents will be asked to help where they can, at least committing to helping with timing at meets. They can also always use people who are willing to be trained as a stroke and turn judge.
Soccer
The Holy Family Academy soccer team has invited all RMS 6-8th Grade boys to join the Holy Family MS Boys soccer team. Here are some details from them about their season.
- The season runs from 8/21-late October.
- There will be two weeks of practices (at least) until games begin.
- Practices will be 2-3 times a week at HFA from 3:30-5:00. Once games begin, we will have 1-2 practices per week.
- We hope to play 10-12 games throughout the season. Most games start between 3:30-4:30, and all our games are on weekdays.
- The cost per player will be approximately $100
- Follow our game and practice schedule at hfaathletics.com
- To sign up, please reply to this message and I will add your family to our group email list.
- If you know of any homeschoolers that might be interested in joining our team, please urge them to contact me. Thanks!
- Feel free to ask any follow up question or sign up with Patrick Storey, AD Holy Family Academy at (703) 368-5679 (office)
Pizza Fridays
We are continuing Pizza Fridays this year! Since these first couple weeks are Phase-In, the first Pizza Friday will be September 15th. Below is the pizza form. We ask that you please hand these in with payment no later than the Wednesday before each Friday. If you have any questions, you may email Lianne Francis at lfrancis@rmsmail.org.