Although you can hardly tell by the weather, fall is here. As I write this, the weatherman has promised that we are on our last warm day of 80 degree temperatures. Fall is my favorite season, and it looks like it may be short this year.
School is in full swing. It’s the time of year when our work as curriculum coordinators slows down and we can kind of lose contact with the school. There has been some testing of students to determine what is the best way for them to learn, and also some fine tuning of testing procedures. One of our goals is to make sure every child can learn to the best of their abilities, so that means testing in the beginning to find out how they learn.
Mr. Bruce has informed me that the music and Spanish classes have started up again. We have the benefit of having a Spanish teacher who lived among Spanish speaking people for a number of years, so it comes more natural to her. In a few years when our school is larger, who knows what languages we may offer? It would be nice to offer a choice of several.
As far as work going on, we are still waiting to finish the south hall bathrooms. They are usable and 90% done, but the company did not send some of the right parts, and we needed to make some customized parts and designs, so that is taking a bit. When your workers are volunteer and have full time jobs, it just takes longer to get things done.
Work is proceeding on the playground equipment again. There is a work day planned for Oct 13th. We can use many hands. We would really like to get this done before winter sets in. You can come and help even if you don’t have children at the school. If you want details, call 574-847-1369.
Looking at this equipment, it reminds me of the “dangerous” playgrounds I had when I was in school. All metal or wood, hot in summer, cold in winter. Splinters on the wood teeter-totter. A merry-go-round that had an open center. Very tall swings. It’s a wonder I’m here to tell the story. Evidently kids were tougher in those days. I will spare you the details of a couple injuries I saw back then!
We are already thinking about the donuts and coffee fundraiser in February. It is 4 months away, but that will be here before we know it. We are planning to make a couple changes this time. We want to do a little streamlining, and we may be making other changes as well. More on that later.
We had our pulled pork fundraiser a few weeks ago. Our thanks to all who helped and those who came out and supported the school! We had much nicer weather this year. It’s amazing how many fundraisers there are in our area, and it seems like this is peak season. We are also having one for one of our church members, Lavon Yoder, who is living with cancer right now. That will be at Salem Church on Oct 18th.
Not sure if I mentioned it before, but we have set up an endowment fund for the school. The goal is to provide better pay for our teachers. We feel strongly that a Christian school teacher should be able to make a living wage that will allow them to choose to teach for a longer period, or even make it a career. When the fund reaches the goal we have set, we will begin paying out the interest it is earning. Hopefully, with everyone’s help, we can reach this goal in a reasonable time. Please keep this in mind when you plan your giving, and consider remembering the school during your estate planning, or when you create a will/trust.
If you want to help with a financial donation for any of our construction projects, general school expenses, or the endowment fund, you can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information about current needs. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your donation to us, and your identity remains private. Please be sure to note what you want your donation to be used for. Thanks in advance for your support!
