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Experiential Week, March 16–19

by Vicki Roscoe, head of the Lower School

This is our second year of combining Experiential Days in the Lower School, Breakaway in the Middle School, and Winterim in the Upper School into one Catlin Gabel Experiential Week. We are committed to this schedule for the following reasons.

• Backing it up to spring break means that students in grades 5-12 can be involved in national and international trips--missing fewer, if any classes. Flight costs are lower with departures the week before spring break.
   
• Better weather allows for more local experiential opportunities (Upper School Winterim used to be in February).
   
• Sets the stage for cross-age connections among divisions.
   
• Opens up student leadership opportunities (such as Upper School students helping lead groups for Lower and Middle School students).
   
• Good timing for students – there is a natural “pause” in studies during spring break already.

Will regular bus service be offered during these four days?
No. Our regular bus service will be suspended March 16–19 so that all of our school buses and drivers are available for trips. We know from experience that bus ridership on our regular routes falls off sharply during experiential learning periods.

I have kids in all three divisions -- what about paying for three offerings all at once?
If your children sign up for offerings that stretch your budget, the business office is happy to create a payment plan that works for you. Financial aid applications are provided with experiential course catalogs.

What about sports for my Upper School student?
Preseason practices for track and field, tennis, golf, and baseball are concurrent with Winterim. We expect students who have committed to spring athletics teams to sign up for experiential offerings in town. We make a special effort to offer interesting in-town options. Please note that there will be no conflict for Middle School athletes.

How can parents support this week of experiential learning?
We truly appreciate parent help. We ask for parent volunteers to assist with some courses. Additionally, in an effort to keep costs down, we look within our community for lodging possibilities in areas where we are planning experiential trips. If you can help in this capacity, your donation qualifies for a tax deduction. Thanks to the generosity of many parents, we have been able to cut costs significantly.

As a family, we were thinking of having our child miss the four days before spring break to take a two-week trip on our own—how will this work? Or could we leave a day or two early to extend our spring break?
Students are expected to participate in all four experiential days. Learning by doing is integral to a Catlin Gabel education. Experiential Days, Breakaway, and Winterim are core components of the curriculum and are a high point of the year for students.

Wouldn't this be a good time for me to take my Upper School student for a college visit?
Please see above. We ask that you not use these four days for college visits.

Will Before- and After-School Care still be available for students in preschool through grade 8?
Yes. Beginning School is still in session, so Extended Day Care will be uninterrupted. Many of the Lower School and Middle School offerings occur on campus and are held during regular school hours, so students can, as always, arrive as early as 7:15 a.m. and stay until 6 p.m. in After-School Care.

Congrats!

After a busy and productive day at the regional Chess for Success tournament, 3rd grader Avi Gupta and 5th grader Nikhil Murthy qualified for the state tournament in early March.

Michaela Bennink, Nic Bergen, Julien Leitner,  and Hayle Meyerhoff are recent 6th grade Poetry Box winners.

Seventh grader Claire Fitzgerald participated in the Beaverton Library book review challenge and won a gift certificate to Powell's.

Catlin Gabel’s Science Bowl team won second place in the BPA Regional Science Bowl. Our team of Yale Fan (captain, senior), Brynmor Chapman (senior), Benjamin Streb (senior), Vighnesh Shiv (junior), and Terrance Sun (freshman) lost a closely fought final to the winner, Sunset High School, which will go on to the National Science Bowl. The Catlin Gabel team beat out 59 other teams from all over Oregon and Washington and pushed Sunset to three games before conceding. In addition, Yale Fan was one of seven students (out of more than 250) to be honored as an "All Star" for answering the most questions during the first four rounds of the contest. Congratulations to the team from Sunset, and congratulations to all our team members for excellent game play and grace under pressure!

Junior Ko Ricker’s short story placed second in the Paul A. Witty Outstanding Literature Award competition sponsored by the International Reading Association.

Senior Olivia Siulagi won the Exquisite Prompt Writing Challenge (level IV division) for January. Her work will be published on the Reading Rockets website and at adlit.org. Senior Eddie Friedman won an honorable mention in the same contest. His work, too, will be published on the Reading Rockets website and at adlit.org. (Their winning pieces were not yet posted when this All-School News was published.)

Both the girls and boys varsity basketball teams had an outstanding season. Congratulations to sophomores Mariah Morton and Esichang McGautha, who made first team all-league, junior Alex Foster, selected to first team, all-league, and senior Sam Tucker, second team, all-league.

Remember the soccer season? This news came in recently: Seniors Ian Maier and Adam Maier were selected first team all-state, junior Ian Agrimis made second team all-state, and Mike Davis was awarded state coach of the year honors.

Sophomore Neil Badawi’s FC soccer team, Team Navy, won the championship at the recent 2010 Silver State Tournament in Las Vegas.

Students lead CG response to Haiti earthquake, community raises $28,000

The world looked on in horror when the January 12 earthquake rocked Haiti. Immediately, Catlin Gabel students of all ages got to work organizing fundraisers to help the devastated island. Alumna Caitlin Carlson ’00, communications officer for Mercy Corps, came to campus to talk to about the essential need for cash in the coming months. We set up a web page aimed at inspiring students and consolidating our community efforts. Student-led bake sales and the Lower School read-a-thon raised $28,000 for Haitian earthquake relief. Our contributions will make a difference in Haiti: $16 provides a child’s "comfort kit” that includes a blanket, sketchpad, crayons and toys, $43 buys 110 pounds of rice, and $75 equips a Port-au-Prince resident for two weeks of recovery work.

Bon voyage, adios, namaste

Catlin Gabel's global education program spans the world during experiential week and spring break when students in grades 7 through 12 travel to Martinique, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Nepal. Watch the website for blog posts and photos from afar.

Donate humanitarian supplies for Cuba trip

Did you know that a Cuban citizen receives one bar of soap per month, and that all the hygiene supplies we take for granted are rationed in Cuba? You can help our students prepare for their trip to Cuba by donating basic supplies, from toothpaste and soap to old baseball gloves. Drop off your donations in the Upper School office or library any time through March 12. When the students arrive in Cuba in March, they will distribute the supplies to clinics and individuals. For a complete list of requested items to donate, please visit the Cuba trip page on the Catlin Gabel website. On behalf of the students making this life-changing trip, thank you for your contributions.

Faculty, staff, and seniors give back

Faculty and staff contributions to this year's Annual Fund are at 75%, well on the way to our goal of 100 percent participation. Thanks to the faculty-staff giving committee—Chris Balag, Lynda Douglas, Kate Grant, Ginny Malm, Kathy Qualman, Ron Sobel, Spencer White, and Chris Woodard—for their tremendous fundraising work on behalf the school.

The senior class has launched Campaign $20.10 for the Annual Fund. Each member of the class of 2010 is asked to contribute $20.10, either as a one-time payment or a pledge to be paid over time. The seniors are focusing their support on financial aid—a noble effort that will ensure an enduring class legacy. Many thanks to student body president Eddie Friedman ’10 and senior class co-presidents Joey Lubitz ’10 and Will Jackson ’10 for their leadership and inspiring commitment to the initiative.

Apostrophe violation in Portland Monthly advertisement

Did you see the Catlin Gabel ad in Portland Monthly’s recent schools issue? Were you horrified to see a misused apostrophe in the opening sentence in the word “its”? So were we! The copy we submitted didn’t even include that word. An editor at the magazine added the misspelled word, failed to show us the changed version, and allowed the publication to go to press with the embarrassing grammatical error—not okay for a school promoting its high academic standards. Portland Monthly took full responsibility for the mistake, and we did not pay for the ad.

Chamber Choir transforms tennis court into St. Ruth's Cathedral

Tuesday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear the Upper School's Chamber Choir and String Ensemble in an acoustically unique setting: our very own tennis court 2 turned into "St. Ruth's Cathedral."

Thomas Tallis (1505-85) was a prolific composer of sacred music for both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. His career spanned four monarchies: Henry VIII (with the dissolution of the monasteries), Edward VI, Mary (who re-established Catholicism), and Elizabeth I. Thomas Tallis was fortunate because he was in Queen Elizabeth's favor as a Catholic — like William Byrd, his pupil — during a period of religious unrest in English history, resulting in the state religion of England switching from Catholic to Protestant. In 1575, Queen Elizabeth granted Tallis and Byrd a monopoly in England on printing music.

William Byrd (1543-1623) was the leading English composer of his generation, and together with his continental colleague Giovanni Palestrina (c.1525-94) one of the acknowledged great masters of the late Renaissance. Byrd is considered by many the greatest English composer of any age, and indeed his substantial volume of high-quality compositions in every genre of the time makes it easy to consider him the greatest composer of the Renaissance. 

PLACE offers new class, creates new website

PLACE— Planning and Leadership Across City Environments—is a unique program, run by Catlin Gabel School in partnership with the greater Portland community, that focuses on how we relate to our urban environment through smart planning and effective leadership.

All classes within the program include real-world projects. For example, last summer students teamed with community members and Portland State University professors to plan a new local high school that would serve as the center of a walkable community. The work was presented to the public as well as city leaders and has since inspired local high school classes while shedding light on new ways to connect schools with their neighbors.

Currently, the Upper School urban studies class is working with Portland State students and faculty, and the Bureau of Environmental Services, to design and plan four acres at Zenger Farm in southeast Portland.

Rising sophomores, juniors, seniors, and recent graduates interested in city planning and leadership are invited to participate this summer from July 5 to July 30.

To learn more or sign up, browse the updated web page at www.catlin.edu/place or e-mail George Zaninovich, PLACE director, at place@catlin.edu.

Bike, hike, raft, explore with outdoor education program this summer

Check out all the great summer outdoor education trips for Middle and Upper School students at http://www.catlin.edu/middle/outdoor/trips

What’s Next update

The January 23 community meeting to consider what’s next after Rummage was in many ways like Rummage itself. Parents, faculty-staff, and students worked alongside alumni, parents of alumni, past faculty-staff, and Rummage volunteers to brainstorm ideas that would bring our community together now that the Rummage Sale is retired.

The What’s Next steering committee met in February to chew on the four ideas that came to the fore at the community meeting:

• Expand campus days to include a bigger work force including parents and alumni. Out of town alumni would be invited to volunteer in their communities on the same day(s) in solidarity with what’s happening on campus.
   
• Enhance the current garden projects to engage people of all ages year round and cultivate more produce to use in the Barn
   
• Create a multigenerational Catlin Gabel service corps to volunteer in the Portland community as well as on campus. Again, out of town alumni would be invited to represent Catlin Gabel in their own communities. We imagine Catlin Gabel volunteer T-shirts being an important part of this initiative.
   
• Find opportunities for the community to “barn raise” on campus, such as building a greenhouse, painting classrooms, or replacing siding. The Lower School playground project is the model for this initiative.

The steering committee broke into four sub-committees to research the ideas and explore the feasibility of launching them. The committee members meet again after spring break to report on their findings and determine what needs to happen so Catlin Gabel can officially adopt one or more of the big ideas.

Take Kindle for a spin, overnight checkout available through IT department

The information technology office now has an Amazon Kindle available to families for overnight checkout to evaluate whether or not they might wish to purchase one. The IT office is in the upper level of the Vollum Humanities Building. Please e-mail IT@catlin.edu if you wish to reserve the Kindle.

We do not anticipate formal school adoption of the Kindle or other electronic book reader, but we would like to support families that are interested in them.

» Learn more about Kindle features

Staff member publishes photography handbook

Ed Sallia, transportation coordinator and facilities AA, has published the Handbook for the Casual Photographer, Taking Better Photos with Non-Professional Equipment. This 52-page handbook, designed to keep in your camera bag, covers photographing people, nature, cityscapes, flowers, and interior spaces. The book is written in non-technical language for amateur photographers with simple cameras who want to take better pictures without attending photography school or plowing through complicated photography guides.

The book stems from Ed’s many years as a photographer and commercial studio and laboratory owner in Santa Barbara, California. It is a compilation of answers to the most common questions raised by his customers.

The handbook is available through the Catlin Gabel bookstore. Proceeds benefit the school.

Model Railroad club open house

What has 34 wheels, generates more than 5,000 horse power, weighs 1.2 million pounds, can travel 80 miles per hour, and runs on water?

Answer: The largest steam locomotive ever built, the Alco 4-8-8-4 Big Boy.

Come see this and more than 30 other locomotives running in HO scale at the Catlin Gabel Model Railroad Club’s sixth anniversary open house. See the town lit up as well as the six-stall roundhouse. If you want to know how cool the train setup is, just ask the Beginning School Honeybees who recently visited the club.

Thursday, March 4, 3 – 6 p.m.
Friday, March 5, 3 – 6 p.m.
Saturday, March 6, 1 – 5 p.m.

Basement of the Catlin Gabel caretaker’s house at 8685 SW Barnes Rd.
Top of the hill behind the facilities building
Look for the yellow sign on the door leading to the basement.

It’s FREE, FUN, and TOTALLY COOL!