Director's Message

We are already off to a running start in 2009!! So much is going on around us.The world stood still last week as we watched the first African American President of the United States being sworn into office. The ultimate honor of Martin Luther King's dream! We honored Martin Luther King last Friday at AISF, with a great celebration of his life and work. Students shared his message of peace, equality, respect, etc, through poems, song, dance, plays and speeches. It was a special day for everyone. A great turn out of parents!!!

Thanks to all parents who participated in our first PTO meeting of 2009. We were on a mission to select two parents to co chair the PTO this year. Mrs. Suzanne Bode and Mrs. Linda Fallah were nominated to take on these roles. Plans are underway for the first PTO event of the school year-A movie night under the stars-February 6, 2009. The US Embassy will provide the big screen and projector, and parents will be called upon to organize the event. Mrs. Frances Fortune has volunteered to coordinate the planning committee for this event. We look forward to the parents teaming up to make this event a success. The next PTO meeting is set for Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 6pm.

We would like to welcome four new families to the AISF family this new year. The Dean family joining the 4th grade from the US, the Soufan family joining 3rd grade, coming in from Dubai, the Brandl Astner family in Kindergarten from Austria, and the Mohammed family from the US joining us in Preschool. We also sadly say good bye to the Owusu-Ansah family, who will be leaving us at the end of this quarter after so many years of great memories at AISF.

Round table discussions also took place this week. This is always a great time to meet with your child*s teacher and other parents to discuss issues concerning the class like curriculum, routines, trips, homework, discipline, etc. Parent voice is valued at AISF so always feel free to share your ideas and suggestions with us-we do listen!

We completed our Mock ERB writing test on Friday January 23, 2009. Students took the test over two days. The ERB (Educational Resource Bureau) Writing Assessment Program (WrAP) is administered to our 3rd -8th grade students at AISF every year in May.

The WrAP is a diagnostic tool that helps identify the strengths and weaknesses in our writing program. This test is marked externally in the US and the results posted in June. Students are tested at three levels: Elementary (grades 3-4) Narrative writing; Intermediate (grades 5-6) Informative/Descriptive writing; Middle (grades 7-8) Expository writing.
The ERB Mock Writing test the school administered, will familiarize students with the test as well as provide opportunities for individual students to work on areas of weakness identified by the practice test before the official ERB test in May 2009. Returning students will receive their scores from the ERB test May 2008 with their next report card.

Second term fees for the 2008-2009 school year are now due. Please ensure payment has been made by February 14, 2009 to avoid late charges.

The second quarter ends January 30 2008 and report cards will be going home Friday February 6, 2009. We have come to the mid point in the school year. Parents are encouraged to meet with teachers now if there are any pressing concerns about your child's progress.

I hope by now everyone's paid a visit to our new and much improved school website www.aisfreetown.org. A big hand to Ms. Edna Thomas who designed and created this great space for us on the web!! It is a great place to find up to date information about upcoming school events, news, reminders and the monthly calendar of events. Even the Awoko newsletter is posted on the site!!! We are joining the global fight and hoping to go green this year and reduce the number of paper notices going home to parents. Our goal is to eventually provide all notices to parents via the website, SMS and through email. Don't miss out on what's going on at AISF!! Check out Ms. Edna's article in this issue to get more details about using and getting around the new site.

Looking forward to strengthening our partnership and best to all for 2009!!

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