The Bottom Line

For upcoming events click here: http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/lacs/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=29

May 8, 7pm, at the ICSD Administration Building (700 Lake St)

Board members need to hear from YOU about the 2012/13 budget! Please encourage people to attend and voice their concerns. We would love to have representatives from every school. Feedback may also be submitted via email at iwant2hearu@icsd.k12.ny.us though speaking (briefly) at this budget hearing is an important part of the process. Your voice can make a difference!

Wednesday, May 9, 7:00-8:45 pm

Topic: Drugs and Alcohol

Thursday, May 10, 6-8pm, at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC)

Hosted by Village at Ithaca. Refreshments and childcare provided.

4 candidates are running for 3 open seats.

For more information, visit http://www.villageatithaca.org/.

This coming up week is the last week to order a yearbook.  They are $10 each.

Last year there were some sad faces when we quickly ran out of the few extras that we ordered.  Please remind your students to bring in their $10 if they would like to be sure to purchase a yearbook!  and purchase it from Sarahjane at lunch or during committee time on T or W in the front hall.

Delightful memories!

Parent/Caregivers and LACS staff

Please take a few minutes to complete a survey by the Parent/Caregiver Group.  The Parent/Caregiver Group is trying to plan its work for the coming years and needs to know what you want from this group.  The survey is only 7 questions long.

Here’s the link:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H3ZVMBC

On Wednesday, May 2nd, LACS students will have many unique opportunities to learn and participate in activities around health and wellness.  There will be film screenings with discussion, workshops with guests from the Advocacy Center and Ithaca Health Alliance, opportunities to work on the Youth Farm, in the LACS garden or kitchen, and exercises including meditation, yoga, and tai chi.  The events have been organized by high school students who will lead workshops of their own.  It will be a day of fun and learning for everyone.

Special thanks to Katie Church, Ira Rabois, Debbie Cowell-Mandl, Marcy Little, Dan Flerlage, Ann Piombino, Lyn Staak, Anna Bender, Anthony Fazio, Andrea Levine, Noa Wesley, Laura Muzzy, Julia de Aragon, Rane Bullion, and Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer, for making this infusion day possible!

FAMILY GROUP LEADERS:  We will put schedules in your mailboxes by Friday morning.  Students will need to select their workshops by Monday.  If at all possible, please get their selections back to Laura or Noa on Friday so we will have the weekend to sort out who goes where and get back to you about it.  Obviously some students will be absent Friday and there may not be enough time in family group, so send schedules home with those who are present and give them to absentees on Monday.

Sunday, May 6, 1:00-6:00 pm

At Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS) 111 Chestnut Street, Ithaca outdoor amphitheater if sun/ inside theater if rain.

Musicians Richie Stearns, Sim Redmond, Kevin Kinsella, Cielle Layton and Dan Hill of the Cayuga Nation/Heron Clan.

To support the Freedom School on the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation in its mission to sustain the Mohawk language and culture.

Suggested donation of $8

There will be frybread and information on Native issues.

Each year students from the LACS Community Service class travel to the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation for a week in the spring to volunteer for various service projects at the Freedom School and engage in a cross cultural exchange. Donations will be used to cover the cost of building materials. The Akwesasne Mohawk Nation is located on the St. Lawrence River east of Massena, N.Y.

Earth-Connected Education and the film Mother Nature’s Child

Wednesday, April 18, 7:00-8:30 pm

Mother Nature’s Child explores nature’s powerful role in children’s health and development through the experience of toddlers, children in middle childhood and adolescents. The film marks a moment in time when a living generation can still recall childhoods of free play outdoors; this will not be true for most children growing up today. The effects of “nature deficit disorder” are now being noted across the country in epidemics of child obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

Mother Nature’s Child asks the questions: Why do children need unstructured time outside? What is the place of risk-taking in healthy child development? How is play a form of learning? Why are teachers resistant to taking students outside? How can city kids connect with nature? What does it mean to educate the ‘whole’ child?

The LACS Garden Senior Team is looking for volunteers to help out with the new LACS Garden! This year we want to really get things rolling in the garden so we want volunteers ready to help build a trellis, shovel manure and mulch, build raised beds, put in the concrete slab for the plaza where we will eventually put a mosaic, and other such fun garden things! We’re specifically looking for people with trucks who are willing to transport manure and mulch. And people with carpentry skills to help us build raised beds and the trellis.    The funding is made possible from an IPEI grant.

When are these work parties, you may be wondering?

• Sunday, April 22nd from 10AM to 4PM
• Sunday, April 29th from 10AM to 4PM
• Saturday May 12th from 10AM to 4PM

All work parties are AT THE SCHOOL, come to the front and look for signs to point you in the right direction.

Come for a little or come for a lot! Bring your sunhat and your gardening tools and get ready to get your hands dirty!

Feel free to bring helpers from within the school community or from the wider community!

Contact Debbie for more information and to let us know if you can come with a truck or carpentry skill:

Debbie: 277-5967 or dcowell@icsd.k12.ny.us or LACS:274-2183