Director's Message

 Writing the last Awoko article of the school year is always a surreal experience. Did a whole school year really just fly by?? So much to reflect on but I*ll try to keep this one short *well sort of*.

I*ll start with a few highlights from the General Association meeting held in May 2009. School board elections for the 2009-2010 school year were held during this meeting. Congratulations to our new school board members:

**Ms. Yene Assegid re-elected
**Mrs. Suzanne Bode newly elected
**Mr. David Brooks newly elected

We appreciate your willingness to serve the school in this capacity. Thanks also to Ann Janneh for accepting our nomination letter for the board elections.

Staff: We have been fortunate enough to maintain a low turnover of staff at AISF. This is a remarkable achievement for an international school like ours. This has allowed us continuity in our overall school improvement and quality assurance in the classroom. We have always been proud of the high quality of our teaching staff. This year however, we will be losing one of our dedicated teachers Ms. Joy Spencer, who will be leaving us to return to the US. I would like to thank Joy for her contribution to AISF this year. I am finalizing recruitment of a certified teacher from the US to fill her position in September.

School Activities and Events: One thing we like to do at AISF is celebrate our students!! Performances and presentations are a big part of our school life. We have a lot of fun during our performances but it is also serious business as students oral speaking and presentation skills are continuously being developed and assessed as with our mid year musical program and MLK day celebration. Congratulations to our students for putting on a great end of year show on Thursday. Mrs. Johnson worked really hard with the students in preparation for this program. Thanks to all our parents for attending and showing support for the school and students.

Tuesday June 16, 2009 is named day of the African Child by the Organization of African Unity (OAU).It was on this day, in 1976, that thousands of black school children entered the streets of Soweto, South Africa, to demand their right to be taught in their own language and to protest the inferior quality of their education. Hundreds of students were shot down during the march. This led to a two-week revolt that caused hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. AISF would like to do it*s part to honor the spirit of the African child. We will do this by asking all students to dress in some kind of African attire on this day. Balanta Music Academy will also visit our school on Tuesday (June 16) at 2pm to put on a performance for the school. Ticket price for this show will be Le10,000 per student.

PTO: The PTO has been very visible this year. Mrs. Linda Fallah and Suzanne Bode stepped up (under pressure I should add) to lead the PTO this year. This collaboration of the leaders, the class reps and teachers led to some great events for our students namely the movie night which the students really enjoyed. We need to applaud the efforts of Linda Fallah and Zeina El Chenhi for their efforts in contacting sponsors for the sports tournament which the PTO would like to postpone until next school year. Suzanne Bode has been willing in many ways to give of her time and service to the school and we do appreciate it. We encourage all parents to stay involved.

Embassy support: The embassy has continued to be a source of continued support for the school. The donations from the embassy have been a tremendous help for the school. Donations of a generator, furniture as well as 10 computers/accessories have been received by the school this year. The US Ambassador continues to be a great patron of the school and we thank her for that. Support to the school has also come from the embassy in the form of health presentations for the students as well as regular testing of the school water. Facility, security and general services departments have also been of tremendous support to the school.

This past April I was invited to serve on an accreditation team in Casablanca. I worked with this team to evaluate an American International School in Morocco applying for accreditation. This was an invaluable experience and great timing as we are up for renewal of our 5 year accreditation in 2011. Next school year we will begin preparation for the renewal visit and completing the report that needs to be submitted.

As you can see the year 2008-2009 was such a rich year!!I had to leave so much out. We are very proud of the experiences we have provided for your children this year. We still have a lot of work to do yet...but we can definitely assure you of greater things to come at AISF.

I*d like to thank the parents for your support throughout the year and through the PTO. If you haven*t already, please find some way to get involved in the school. It adds so much to the spirit of the school when parents are involved. The school board has been great! These are all parents of the school who are not paid to do this *but serve so diligently. And to the dedicated staff we have here, thanks for being here everyday and for all the contributions you*ve made to the school and our students! You don*t usually get acknowledgement for most things you do, so a very big thanks from me to you. I look forward to a greater 2009 -2010 school year. See you September 1, 2009.