Dear Acera Community Families,
We did it! The first days of the first week of the 2023-24 school year are behind us. The building is humming as excited voices and laughter drift out of the classrooms and fill the Commons. We love having our students and teachers back in the building!
Acera’s Back-to-School Night is Wednesday, September 13th from 6:30 pm to 8:15 pm. Teachers enjoy this night because they get to share with you what they’re working on for the year with your children. We hope to see all of you there, and felt it would be helpful to provide some details about what you can look forward to and how our Back-to-School Night is structured.
This adult-only evening is an opportunity to connect with Acera teachers and staff and other families in the community. The evening will include:
- Courtney sharing updates on the school;
- Core Teachers opening their classrooms to meet with you to talk about curriculum, their themes for the year, how core classes work, and about the wonderful things they have planned for the year;
- Specialist and Math Teachers sharing short presentations with Q&A on Math@Acera, Science@Acera, Making@Acera, and IMPP@Acera (these presentations will each run twice so you can choose which you would like to attend);
- Members of the Acera Parent Partnership being on hand to discuss what you can do to support our community;
- The Counseling Team being available to talk about their role and sharing a variety of resources, while also floating around the school to model how they support students by being easily found (go ahead and stop them; they want to talk with you!).
To get the most out of this start-of-year event, we encourage you to:
- Check your email for introductory messages from your child’s core classroom teacher. There you will find information on the learning and activities from the first week of school, the theme for the year, and classroom norms. This may help answer some questions, and prompt new ones to ask on Back-to-School Night.
- Ask your Upper School student about Electives and IMP. During the first week of school students heard pitches from teachers and mentors; they selected and started electives and began writing their Inquiry, Making, and Passion (IMP) project proposals.
- Ask your child about Math. Students started math classes during the first week of school.
- Get to know our fabulous faculty and staff! Our website’s People page has photos and short bios with education and background. If there’s someone listed there who you haven’t met yet, you’ll have the chance on the 13th.
There are so many things we want to include during this one night, and while not everything can fit, we have heard from parents over the years that they really appreciate these highlights:
- Seeing the classrooms and the other learning spaces in the building,
- Interacting with teachers and staff you might not have regular contact with,
- Meeting other families,
- Hearing the organizational overview,
- Learning about classes and courses from throughout the Upper and Lower Schools,
- Asking questions of our Administrative Team.
We look forward to seeing all of you in the building during this community-building event. And as always, reach out to anyone on the team with any questions.
Malcolm & George
Malcolm Campbell is Acera’s Director of Lower School
George Papayannis is Acera’s Director of Upper School
