Beginning of Year Letter

Dear Students and Families,
 
Happy shorter days of summer to you.  I hope this letter finds each of you in good spirits, enjoying time with family and friends and looking forward to the school year.  My summer has been a full one, spending time with my kids, gardening, and visiting family.

I am pleased and honored to serve as your Advisor.  For those of you new to high school at Trillium, I offer a special welcome.  I am here throughout your High School experience to offer support and guidance for all things academic.  As a group, advising embodies the heart of Trillium's democratic community - small, committed groups working through issues and ideas to nurture the growth of our school.  But, like all families, we will sometimes be at odds with one another!  The tools of peaceful conflict resolution, mediation, and one-on-one conferencing empower us to address problems, reflect on ourselves, deepen our understanding of each other, and develop our communication skills.   

We begin our school experience this year with the Annual Trillium Welcome Fair on Thursday, August 30th from 1pm – 7pm. Come fill out the needed paperwork for the new school year, meet teachers and Kieran Connoly, Executive Director, and connect with your school community. There will be presentations at 3pm and 6pm. If you are not able to attend the welcome fair, you can come to school to fill out paperwork, where packets will be available.

In the days following the Welcome Fair, we will host advisor-student-parent conferences to further discuss your academic path, review your transcript and assess your progress towards meeting graduation requirements.  We also discuss learning interests and goals and collaboratively sign-up for a Semester 1 schedule designed to best meet your needs, if we have not already done so at the Welcome Fair. 

I will be scheduling 30-minute classroom conferences from 9am to 4pm on Friday, August 31st and Monday, September 3rd.  You can sign up for a spot by entering your name in this Google document.  If you have any trouble doing so, please contact me so we can work out a time that best meets your needs.  

Please note that the first day of school is Wednesday, September 5th.  Class starts at 8:30am. 

I look forward to meeting with each of you soon to discuss all of the things that are going to make this year one of tremendous creativity, community, growth, and learning.  Enjoy the last days of summer! 

Peace.
Ken Gadbow
High School Advisor, Social Studies Teacher, and Senior Project Facilitator
Ken@TrilliumCharterSchool.org, 503-348-9849 (mobile)

This, and all future communications, are available on my blog (http://ken-trillium.blogspot.com/).