Enjoy Sugar Plum Faire on Saturday, December 6 from 11a-3p!

Every year at Bright Water, families come together at the Sugar Plum Faire to prepare for the holidays ahead, surrounded by crafts and other gift ideas, music, and good cheer. This year's event takes place on Saturday, December 5th from 11-3 pm. Daphne Cuizon and the Festival Committee have worked tirelessly to make sure that this year’s Faire is just as magical as in past years!

Guests are invited to use the beauty of wool, wood, beeswax and other natural materials to fashion a variety of gifts for family and friends. The younger set will enjoy the Enchanted Cookie Forest, a magical place where children can spy King Winter and the Root People in a forest of cookies. This special place is only for the youngest children: Grade One and younger are welcome to the Forest. Our young friends will also enjoy a delightful puppet show created by our Early Childhood teachers.

Those more advanced in years may find that special gift among displays of ceramics, wooden toys, dolls, silks, jewelry and other items provided by guest artisans. Our students have produced an outstanding array of handcrafts for purchase. Other gift ideas include Chinook books, PCC scrip cards, as well as a wide variety of books about Waldorf education, child development, festivals, and health.

The cafe will serve coffee, tea, and cider to accompany an enticing array of soups, bread and butter, hot dogs, and a variety of tempting home-made sweets. Proceeds from the fair go to the curriculum trips our students take in Grades Three through Eight. These include trips to farms, the Potlatch, the Olympiad, the Medieval Games, Renaissance Faire, and the crowning event: the 8th grade trip, where students combine service and adventure.

Parking may be tight as there is an event being held at Gage Academy on the same day. Please be patient when you arrive and you may even consider parking on the street. (After all those cookies, a walk might not be such a bad idea). We look forward to seeing you there!

Planning Ahead for the 2010 Gala Auction

Acorns, pine-nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds . . . the squirrels in our neighborhoods are busily gathering. Bright Water School families have also started gathering, building, and collecting treasures—wonderful items for our Gala Auction & Dinner!

Each Bright Water School family is asked to bring three gifts for the auction. All households received auction packets last week-and if you need more donation forms, you can find them in the school office. Items are due February 1st, so you have plenty of time to dream up your finest creations and to pass donation forms along to your friends and your favorite local businesses.

All parents are welcome at our monthly Gala Planning Team meeting. Join us on November 18th, 1-2:30 pm, in the auction room at school (North end of the first floor hallway).

Do you have questions or suggestions for this year's Gala Dinner & Auction (March 13, 2010)? Your help and good ideas are invaluable. Don't hesitate to contact me at:

auction AT brightwaterschool.org

George Hoffecker Lecture, Open to All!

George Hoffecker will visit Bright Water School from October 22-November 6 to observe and evaluate some of our class teachers and subject teachers. Regular evaluations are a part of our professional development program, providing teachers with valuable insight into their teaching.

While here, Mr. Hoffecker will also host a lecture entitled “Media and its Effects on the Developing Child.” This lecture is open to all BWS parents and to the public. You are encouraged to attend this informative and highly engaging talk. This lecture will be held on Tuesday, November 3 at 7pm. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to our receptionist.

George Hoffecker has been an educator for 39 years. He received his initial teacher training at Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. For the past 30 years he has been actively involved in both Waldorf curative and regular education. He was a class teacher at Live Oak Waldorf School in Applegate California for 12 years.

Mr. Hoffecker was the principal of the first Waldorf methods charter school in the United States as well as a principal of a charter high school. While Assistant Superintendent for Twin Ridges Elementary School District he was Director of Charter Services and helped to create and implement a nationally recognized innovation in the way charter schools and their authorizers collaborate. He is a visiting faculty member of Rudolf Steiner College and lectures widely on child development, positive discipline, Waldorf Education methods in public schools, collaborative leadership, and designs for organizational renewal and reframing, including strategies for conflict resolution. Mr. Hoffecker has served on the Education Commission of the States, the U.S. Department of Education’s task force designed to study charter schools’ impact on national educational reform. Mr. Hoffecker has his B.A. in education and is a certified Waldorf educator. He lives in Meadow Vista, California with his wife Donna who is also his partner in their educational and organizational consulting firm, Hoffecker Burgess Consulting. He is the father of three adult daughters and has two grandchildren.

We are pleased to welcome Mr. Hoffecker to Bright Water School and we look forward to his evaluations of our faculty.

Annual Fund in Full Swing!

The progress of this year’s Annual Fund, which began on October 6, has been nothing if not robust! We have already raised $8,460! We began with a successful faculty drive, and we are well on our way to our goal of $35,000.

To track our progress, we have created a harvest-themed board with stalks of corn. For every $5000 raised, an ear of golden corn will be revealed. When we reach our goal, each of the seven ears of corn will be open! This beautiful board was created by our receptionist Alison Landeros.

If you have not yet given, we encourage you to do so. Any amount is welcome, and we hope our parent community will follow our faculty’s lead in active participation. Bright Water relies on the money collected through the Annual Fund to enhance all of our programs. Tuition alone cannot cover the school’s annual operating expenses. The Annual Fund helps close the gap between our tuition costs and what is needed to run the school.

If you didn't receive an Annual Fund mailing last week, please stop by the office and get a new pledge card. Contributions are tax deductible, and can be made in any amount that is comfortable for your family. You may also pledge by sending an email to: mmays AT brightwaterschool.org

Please check to see if your employer has a matching program. Many of our donors this year have doubled their contribution by receiving matching funds from their generous employers.

The Annual Fund runs through November 20 , but just like NPR, we can wrap it up early if we meet our goals of $35,000 and 100% participation!

Thanks again to all who have given and to all who are planning to give. Your support makes a difference!

Waldorf Education and Parenting Today

Please join us for an evening of insight, humor, and practical parenting advice. We hope you will join us next Thursday, March 19 at 7:00pm in the Community Room for a lecture entitled Waldorf Education and Parenting Today offered by Nancy Poer. In addition to being the co-founder of Rudolf Steiner College, Ms. Poer is also a Waldorf educator, author, artist, and mother of six children.

Ms. Poer's lecture will center on how to foster the growing consciousness of our often strong-willed children. Waldorf education supports cognitive brain development, and instills a love of learning and a deep sense of what is right and good. A deeper knowledge of the stages of child development—body soul and spirit—can aid in our parenting. This knowledge is the basis of Waldorf education. By strengthening self-discipline through the arts, academics, and through nurturing a strong individual inner life, Waldorf students develop the resilience to follow their own star in a culture of overwhelming, stressful consumerism and to shine with their own clear thinking and creativity as adults.

For more information about this lecture, please contact Trish Bondurant at (206) 624-6176.

In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chalkboard drawing by Grade Eight teacher Mia Fioravanti

We hope you were able to join us this morning for our Martin Luther King, Jr. assembly. Susan Koelle and her Strings students presented a lovely rendition of the Black Eyed Peas' Where is the Love? which brought tears to the eyes of almost everyone who attended. Well done Strings students, and great thanks Susan Koelle!

It was such a joy to celebrate the life and work of Dr. King, and we hope that you will continue to respect his memory on Monday, January 20, when we will take a day off from school. Rather than sleeping in, you may want to get involved in local events that honor his great civil rights advocacy and fight for social change.

Thanks to all who came and we will see you Tuesday morning!

Annual Fund

This year's Annual Fund is in full swing!

Did you know that our new President-elect, Barack Obama, was the recipient of tuition assistance that allowed him to attend an independent school? This year, all donations to the Annual Fund go directly towards tuition assistance. Your contribution to the Annual Fund can have positive ripples into a child's future that may reach farther than you can imagine.

Our Annual Fund has just tipped over the 50% mark both in participation and in dollars! Many thanks to those of you who have already pledged. To those of you who have not yet turned in your pledge, you may pledge by email if you haven't been able to return your pledge card to the office yet. As with every year, we are seeking 100% participation from families, faculty, and staff.

Our goal is $30,000, all of which will be used for tuition assistance, and our hope is to conclude our Annual Fund before the Thanksgiving break. Thank you making a difference in the life of a child.