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3/15 - District Choral Festival
3/22 - ADL Parent Meeting
3/23 - AW Teacher Lunch
Innovation Grants Award Recipients
Thank you to all the community businesses who donated to the silent auction, and to the parents who supported it by making purchases. These dollars will go directly to teachers for the following innovative projects:
- Jill Eltanal for the expansion of a library of books that support and reflect the inclusion of students with speech and language disorders. They help to open discussions about appreciating people’s different strengths and what makes everyone unique.
- Amy Chun & Pete Brennan for interactive Dance Mats, including a guide to performing dance routines. The Dance Mats have more than just dancing capability. The mat comes equipped for interactive exercise-focused video games, yoga, stretching, and individual exercises where the mat is a guide to proper technique.
- Caroline Henson & Olivia Kamysz will install a sensory wall at Avoca West for students to use when they need support with self-regulation.
- The 4th-grade team of Amy Anshell, Emily Bierbower, Jenna Freeman, & Janis Michael will purchase Multiplication Slam machines which promote different ways to engage with math facts.
- Kelli Lane will implement a new coding curriculum with robots and purchase wireless mics. Our students make incredible film projects and give outstanding recorded presentations. So often their work is almost lost because of the sound quality. These wireless mics will pick up audio at a higher quality and with more freedom than a wired mic.
We will share photos and updates of all these amazing projects in use.
Teacher Appreciation Lunches - Spring Conferences
The PTC is providing lunch for teachers and staff on Wednesday, March 23 during conference week. If you would like to bring items to contribute, please see the sign ups below:
Avoca West Sign Up Genius
Marie Murphy Sign Up Genius
Amazon Smile
A number of people over the years have asked us about Amazon Smile and now we are officially a part of it. This means you can choose for a portion (0.5%) of everything you buy on Amazon to go to the Avoca PTC instead of Amazon. It costs you absolutely nothing and helps our schools. Depending on how much money is raised by this (which could be substantial if every Amazon ordering family does it), it would allow the PTC to either give a gift to the schools, donate to the Viking Fund, or something else on which the PTC can vote at a later time.
- Sign up via a web browser (not the app). Log in to your account and go to smile.amazon.com
- To choose your charity, type in and select "Avoca 37" in the search bar
- Each time you shop on Amazon via a web browser, always go to smile.amazon.com. If you go to Amazon.com, all the money goes to Amazon. If you shop in the app, you still have to first choose your Amazon Smile charity in a web browser.
- After you have chosen Avoca 37, you can then enable Amazon Smile in the app by following the instructions.
The Vision - Winter 2021 Edition
Last week, the latest edition of The Vision community newsletter was mailed to every district household. You can view it here. Here are highlights:
- The Board reviewed results from a District Survey of hundreds of stakeholders (click here for that survey report)
- The Board reviewed our consultants' Global Findings Report identifying strengths and areas of improvement for the District (click here for that report)
- The Board reviewed an analysis of the District's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) completed by the Strategic Planning Committee
- A DRAFT Portrait of a Graduate was sent to stakeholders for feedback. That survey can be found by clicking here and will close on Thursday, March 17.
 Avoca Different Learners: Bridging to Sixth and Ninth Graders
Please join Avoca Diverse Learners for our “Bridging to 6th and 9th Grades” Meeting (Zoom) on Tuesday, March 22 from 7:45-8:45 p.m. A Zoom link will be emailed to parents on the ADL mailing list. If you would like to join the list or simply attend this meeting, please contact parent leaders for the link: Louise Dechovitz, [email protected] or Helen Lucaitis, 312-550-2077 by text.
Topic: What to expect when students with needs move in the 6th and 9th grades. Director of Student Services Kristen Moore will speak about the structure of support for students with IEPs and 504s as they move from Avoca West to Marie Murphy and from Marie Murphy to New Trier. To learn more about ADL, visit their webpage here.
Avoca Preschool Enrollment
Preschool Enrollment for the next school year is still open. If you are interested, complete the 22-23 Preschool Enrollment form here and return it to Dawn Scaramuzza in the Student Services office, along with a $100 non-refundable application fee.
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