Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dear Teachers:

Welcome back to school, hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! The school will resume this coming Sunday 12/7.

Spring Registration

Online registration for 2015 Spring semester will start on 12/14. We have included this information in this week’s newsletter.  Please also include this information in your weekly communication with parents. Please refer to the following link:

http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/registration-procedure-for-spring-2015/

Teachers Absence

Another important thing we would like to revisit is the Teacher Absence Policy.  We understand that teachers sometimes have business trips and family matters to take care.  Our school allows up to four school days off for the school year.  If you will be absent, please inform school dean Lin Xiaoyan laoshi as early as possible so we can make arrangement accordingly.  For TA work, you need to inform the principal assistant Tian Yi laoshi in advance.  If for any reason, your absence is over four school days during the year, your year end bonus will be affected accordingly based on the amount of extra days off.  If you have any questions, please come to the the principal desk on Sundays.

Picture Taking in Class 

As you all know, the out-school 2015 Chinese New year gala will be on 1/31/2015.  We have a group of people including EC, admin staff, PCC and teachers who have been working very hard to prepare for this event. In order to make school slide show for the spring gala, we will have our admin staff to stop by your class on Sunday to take some class pictures while the class is in session.  No preparation needed. Just want to let all teachers know.

November School Journal

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents:

http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you on Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

We won’t have school this coming Sunday (Nov. 30, 2014) due to Thanksgiving. Wish all have a safe and wonderful holiday. The school will resume on Dec. 7, 2014.

For the past Saturday’s Teachers Appreciation/Thanksgiving party, it’s the 1st time we combined the two parties together.  Considering the whole party planning, time allocation, program collection and arrangement, food ordering, and a lot of other factors, it was much more challenging than organizing one party. Nevertheless, under the strong leadership and great effort from EC(led by Jianhua Huang), two major organizers – Support Education Group (led by Liang Nan Laoshi and Chen Hui Laoshi) and PCC (led by Lei Gao and Hong Guo), as well as strong support from school admin and board, the whole party went smoothly and successfully. Thanks to all teachers who gave us support and help in organizing this party.  Thanks to those who took participation in the wonderful performances.  You all made this Thanksgving celebration an unforgetable event.

Thanks and wish all families have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

-Thanksgiving Party

The annual school Teacher appreciation/Thanksgiving party will be on Sat. 11/22/2014  at Woburn ACAS Center, 29 Montvale Ave. Woburn, MA 01801. The appreciation dinner will be from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm at basement. Please be there on time. After the dinner, performance will be on the 1st  floor from 7:30 pm to 10:30 pm.  Here is the program list:

http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NCLSThanksgivingParty2014ProgramList.pdf

There are a few things that we would like to address for the party:

1. parking: There are plenty of parking spaces across the street of ACAS, but be aware that some spots are for private parking, please pay more attention to the sign.

2. The performance is on the 1st floor.  At the same time, PCC will arrange many kind of kids games at the basement.  Water and snacks will be provided

3. Safety:  The ACAS center will be crowded this Sat, especially at basement.  PCC will have full authority to maintain the order.  Please remind your child to follow instructions whenever it is required. Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable evening.

– Parking Issue

This is a repeated topic, but the illegal parking issue has raised concerns from the Newton City. Recently we have received a message from the Newton School Operation Management. Here is part of the message:

”As I have mentioned in the past, there is a significant parking issue in the neighborhood around F A Day during Sundays when your school is in session.  People are parking illegally, blocking driveways, parking on grass areas and parking where there are no designated spaces.  There is no respect given the neighbors who live around Day.  This needs to stop.  I understand this behavior isn’t representative of everyone, but there is a significant number of folks guilty of this behavior”.

The school has been taking this parking issue seriously.  If you park outside the Day School campus, here are some important parking notes:

1). On Albemarle Rd, please do not park along the brook side, it’s no parking area.  Please try to leave enough space for the drive way if you park along the residential house. The State regulation requires that cars cannot be parked within 5ft to the drive way opening.  We did spot some cars parked too close to the residential drive way.

2). On some small streets off Walnut Street, please do not park too close to the intersection.  The State regulation requires that cars cannot be parked within 15ft to the street intersection.  However, we spotted some cars parked too close to the intersection which would block the view of the traffic.  We took a picture of  Linwood Av. off Walnut St. last Sunday.  Please see the picture in this link.  Cars parked too close to the intersection.  This is one of the big problems that caused the resident safety concerns.

http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/parking611-16.jpg

3) There are plenty parking on California St and Linwood Av. off Crafts Street.  We have checked that street parking is allowed there.  They are good alternatives besides Albemarle Rd. and Newton Education Dept. parking lot on Crafts St.

One observation from last Sunday, one car with teacher parking permit occupied two parking space, maybe it’s due to technical skills, but please pay more attention to the line when you park your car.  Our teacher parking spaces are limited.

-School Facility

Based on the agreement between Day school and NCLS, we can not take or use the Day school properties unless we got approval from Day school. Recently, we received couple of complaints form Day school room teachers. In order to avoid such issues happen again, please review the following items with your class:

1. Classroom: Please do not take anything  that belongs to Day classroom.  Please do not touch things on the teachers desk.  All chairs, desks and other things have to be put back to the original position after the class.

2.Library: Please advise your class not to remove books from book shelves and left them randomly.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and hope to see you at the Saturday party!

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

-Thanksgiving Party

Just a kind reminder, the Teachers Appreciation and Thanksgiving Party will be on 11/22/2014 at Woburn ACAS. The party will be split into two sections. The 1st section is for all teachers and staff, adult TAs, PCC, EC and Board members, including family members. The 1st section will start from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, during this section, we will have dinner, raffle price, etc.  The 2nd section will start from 7:30 pm till 10: 30 pm, including performance  and dancing at upstairs, games and Karaoke at basement. We hope all of you and family come  to enjoy this party.

If you have not inform your head counts to Tian Yi laoshi, please do it no later than this coming Sunday, pa@newtonchineseschool.org

– For teachers that have students perform in the Thanksgiving party, please take a headcount of how many students will join the performance. Our staff will come collect the headcount and sell tickets this coming Sunday.

-Class Discipline

In this week’s newsletter to parents, we revisited the topic of class discipline. We do believe that a good class discipline is important to maintain healthy teaching and learning environment at NCLS. Recently, there are several individual cases brought to our attention that some students’ inappropriate behavior during class have negatively affected our teaching and learning quality and caused some parents’ concerns.  According to NCLS school policy, it’s the requirement for all students to follow the school and class rule. Please review these basic rules with your class:

1.  Respect your teachers and TAs; 2. Raise hand and get the teacher’s permission to speak in the class;  3. Follow the teacher/TA instruction when taking a break, no running or making loud noise in the hallway during the break time; 4. any inappropriate behavior that distract other students or interrupt teacher’s teaching is not permitted in the class; 5. No food in the classroom.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you on Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

This past Sunday, we have smoothly made transition from the Daylight savings time to regular time.  Here are some notes for you: 

1. Mid-term exams:  A lot of classes have completed mid-term exam last Sunday.  After the exam,  it will be good to communicate with parents about the students learning status, especially for the students who need help in the future study.  This school year, one of our emphasis is to strengthen the parent-teacher communication.  We strongly suggest all teachers to communicate with parents after the mid-term.

2. Grade leader meeting: We had grade leaders meeting on 11/2. Thanks a lot to all grade leaders who spent time attending the meeting.  Here we outlined what we have discussed during the meeting:

–  Thanksgiving party (11/22), this is the 1st combined teacher appreciation and thanksgiving party. We hope you and your family members will join this event.  Please either inform your grade leaders or send email to Yi Tian at pa@newtonchineseschool.org regarding your family head count to attend the party.  We need that to plan our dinner.

–  We have invited Wang Ruiyun laoshi to update the grade leaders about the feedbacks from the first parent forum held on 10/26.  Based on the feedback,  we have asked the grade leaders to discuss three topics with their respective grade teachers:  1) Is the homework amount appropriate for our students? 2) With regard to students with different learning abilities, should we consider different homework load? 3) At the end of the school year, should we give parents a recommendation with regard to next level study for all students?   We hope to further discuss these topics at the next grade leaders meeting.

– Chinese Teachers In-School Training:  This year we will have group trainings instead of everyone training together. Please discuss with your grade leaders regarding some possible topics for the training.  We will collect the topics at the end of January.  The group training time will be at next March to May.

3.  Talent show: Under the leadership of Support Chinese Education Group, Chen Hui laoshi, Liang Nan laoshi, and school Event Committee, as well as great support from teachers, students and parents, the annual talent show was successfully accomplished. It’s worth to mention that two groups from our teacher’s club have given wonderful performances at the talent show. Thanks to all for your great support.

The last thing we would like to address here is Food/Candy Policy :

We have recently received some parent emails regarding candy given in the class as the reward for student behavior.  One parent complained that the candy contains nuts and their daughter has nut allergy.  In addition, some parent do not want teachers to give candy as reward due to the concern of sweet addiction.  We would like to remind all teachers that the school does not allow any nut contained food given out in the class due to food allergy concerns.  We have noticed that some teachers gave out nut-free candies as reward to student.  We suggest these teachers communicate with parents and obtain permission.  In  general, we suggest teachers use other means to reward student good behavior other than candy.  Last but not least, we would like to remind all teachers that no food would be allowed in the classroom.  Families can have food at the first floor cafeteria.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you all on Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

Time is flying, half of the school semester has almost past, thanks a lot for your hard work.  Let’s keep it up for the rest of the semester.

1.  Please note that the Daylight saving time will be ending this coming Sunday 11/2, hope everybody enjoy an extra hour of sleep. However, it will be darker when we leave the school. Please pay more attention during walking and driving in the dark, safety is always our school’s top priority.

2. This coming Sunday (11/2), we will have Chinese mid-term exam (Ma Li Ping classes not included), all TAs should be at the classes to help room teachers start the exam on time. If the students finish the exam early, please  keep the students in class.  The bathroom break should be supervised by TAs.

3. Teacher’s Appreciation and Thanksgiving Party on 11/22:

Based on the feedback from the teachers meeting, PCC, admin staff and school board, we will have our first combined teacher appreciation and Thanksgiving party on 11/22. You and your family members are invited to attend, we hope this new format will bring more fun to everybody. The party will be hosted by the Admin, Supporting Education team and PCC.   Please see the following link for detailed info:

http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/TeacherDinnerParty2014.pdf

Please email pa@newtonchineseschool.org to indicate if you and your family are coming and how many people will come.  Please reply no later than 11/15.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you on Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

We are approaching middle of the fall semster.  In this week’s newsletter to parents, we have sent out all mid-term exam reviews for all Zhongwen classes.  Please remind your students to print them out at home and bring to the reivew class.  The school do not make copies for review materials.

Here are some notes we have for you this week:

I. False Fire Alarm:

This past Sunday, we had another false fire alarm incident which are believed to be done by one of our student.  This is the second similar incident happened in less than two months. This has not only interrupted our normal school life, but will also cause monetary penalty to our school due to frequent false alarm, even worse situation, NCLS may be forced to move out of day school if similar things happen again and again. After talking to the Newton fire department on Sunday, we found out that someone pulled the fire alarm right outside room 210 on second floor, outside the gym. We hope all parents, students and all school staff pay more attention to avoid the similar things happen again.

1.  Please talk to your class again regarding the fire alarm and tell them not to touch any fire alarm at the school hallway and gym.  If any one pull the alarm either by accident or intentionally without a true fire, the parent will bear the monetary penalty. If the student pull the alarm intentionally, the school may discontinue his/her NCLS student status.

2. To avoid any potential similar incident occur, All TAs must oversee the students who go to restroom and count the numbers after the students come back. If not going to the restroom, students must stay at classroom during break time. For all classes in gym, teachers need pay more attention to your students. We did noticed one alarm box opened by accident last Sunday.

In the future, PCC will assign two parents on duty to watch the fire alarm on each floor to make sure no one touch the alarm. In the meantime, we will put a sign on top of the alarm to make sure people not to touch it without noticed fire.

Thanks for your cooperation and patience during the fire evacuation. We noticed that people exited the building quickly and orderly.  However, we noticed that there were still quite a lot of people standing close to the exit doors. Newton fire department warned us that for people who exited door 3, 4 and 5, no one should stand in the driveway or close to the building as it will block the fire engine. All should retreat to the sports field behind the building.

II. Parent Forum

This coming Sunday, 王瑞云老师 and 赵肖东老师 will host a parent forum for k-3 grade parents.  The topic is how to help kids learn Chinese at home.  If you are interested, please go to room 325 at 3:40 pm.

III. Writing Contest

The 3rd Annual Writing Contest is under way.  Please remind your class parents to submit the student writing work before Oct. 30.  Here is the contest information:   http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/WritingContest3Announcement.php

We hope to collect more student writing work this year.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents: http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you this Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers,

Hope all had a nice Columbus Day weekend.  NCLS will resume this coming Sunday 10/19.

With a great start of the school year, we have almost reached half of the fall semester. At this point, we would like to remind all teachers to build a good communication channel with parents. As you know, this year, we want to emphasize parent teacher communication as one of the important way to improve the students learning experience.  For all language teachers, we require either emailing parents or updating your teachers’ blog at least every other week.  In this week’s newsletter to parents, we also informed parents our expectation for teacher parents communcation. Let’s all work together to make our school the best place of learning Chinese and more.

In addition, we plan to have a series of parent forums on how to help kids learning Chinese at home.  The first forum will be for k-3 grade parents.  The time is 10/26 3:40-5:00pm, location is room 325.  The forum will be hosted by Ms. Ruiyun Wang (王瑞云老师) and Ms. Xiaodong Zhao (赵肖东老师), two very experienced Chinese teacher.  If you are a k-3 Chinese teacher, please include this information in your communication to parents.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents:  http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you all this Sunday.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

We do not have school this coming Sunday (Oct  12, 2014) due to Columbus Day. Wish everyone have a good weekend. The school will resume on Oct 19, 2014.

1. Fire Drill Last Sunday:

This past Sunday, we successfully finished our annual fire drill. Thanks a lot to school admin team, PCC team and teachers/TAs  for all of your hard work. The whole building was emptied less than five minutes that meets the requirements of newton fire department. But there is a couple of  important things that needs to be addressed during the exit process.   

1. After all people exited the building, the majority of people just stood near the building doors instead of walking far away from building. There are two classes that stayed near the door, exit 1. This is absolutely unacceptable. After exit the building, all teachers/TAs must bring your class far away from the building. For classes that exited from door 1, 2, you need bring your students to walnut street. For classes that exited from 3, 4, 5, you need to bring your class to the field.

2. The main entrance driveway is not clear enough, the majority of parents, students just stood on the main entrance (driveway) that will make other people difficult move forward, and even worse, the fire trucks will be difficult to get in.

The purpose of the fire drill is to let everybody get familiar with the general emergence exit process, strengthen the urgent feeling, know where your classes should go if something happens in the building. The safety of our community is always the school top priority.

2. Stipend code for Sep:

Some teachers were asking about the Sep stipend pay code in the memo field.  Here is what each code stands for:

s- 工资总和         a –   代课费        b –  9/4教师大会补贴            c-  校行政值班      d- 暑期教师NEACS和UMASS培训          e –   暑期马立平教师会议      f-   暑期年级组长会议      g-  暑期校行政会议     h-  暑期校行政工资       i-   其他

3.  NEACS 11/22 汉字文化节 Contests:

We have emailed the following information to all parents this week:

Please see the following message from NEACS(新英格兰中文学校协会）：

漢字文化節活動，將訂於11/22/2014(星期六)，在波士頓的華僑文教中心舉行 

(地址:90 Lincoln St., Newton Highlands, MA 02461, 電話: 617-965-8801)

比賽包括:

國語朗誦比賽 http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NEACSRecitationContestRule_11-22-2014.doc

國語演講比賽 http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NEACSSpeechContestRule_11-22-2014.doc

國語歌唱比賽 http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NEACSChineseKaraokeContest_11-22-2014.doc

中文聽打比賽 http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NEACS_Chinese_Input_11-22-2014.doc

寫作比賽:百字文學獎 (網路投稿) http://www.newtonchineseschool.org/principal/NEACSChineseEssayContestRule_11-22-2014.doc

請鼓勵貴校同學踴躍參與活動，由中文學校校際間之聯誼與文教活動，提高中文學校學生說中文之能力與興趣。

今年各項目增加雙語組，請鼓勵貴校雙語同學參與，報名時請註明組別:雙語組。

國語演講比賽與寫作比賽的題目都是"我最喜歡的成語"，同學寫作後可以直接參加兩項比賽。

敬祝 

教安！

新英格蘭中文學校協會 

Please note that this 11/22 event is in addition to NEACS April speech contest event, not a replacement. 

Based on ACS new rules, the speech contest will divided into 国语朗诵比赛 and 国语演讲比赛 two categories in the future. Our school will host our annual in school speech contest according this new format next spring. Please read the rules carefully. 

This will be a great opportunity for some extra practice in addition to the April contests.

If you are interested in joining any of these contests, please email our dean Xiaoyan Lin at xyc_lin@yahoo.com. Our school will send in registraion for all contestants.

Any questions, please let us know.

Principals

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents:  http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Have a nice Columbus Day weekend and see you on 10/19.

Ling and Li

Dear Teachers:

As we heading into the second month of the new school year, we thank you for your hard work and dedication during the past month.  Let’s carry this momentum into the rest of the year.  Here are some notes for you this week:

1. Fire Drill this coming Sunday 10/5:

We have sent you an email earlier this week regarding the unexpected fire evacuation we had this past Sunday and several safety issues we noticed during the evacuation process.  We specifically pointed out that our evacuation time was significantly longer than required  due to several classrooms (including cafeteria)  not leaving the building quickly.  This coming Sunday 10/5, we will have our scheduled fire drill.  We need to make sure that all safety requirements are met during this practice.  Therefore, please remember to:

* Read the Emergency Procedure carefully.  We corrected couple of typos regarding the exit numbers the classrooms are using (for 3rd floor, specifically).  Therefore, please read it again, even you had read it before.

https://www.newtonchineseschool.org/evacation.php

* Please evacuate immediately after the alarm sound.  We will have PCC and admin staff to help direct the exits.  Please leave the building quickly and orderly.  The Emergency Procedure link shows the gathering places for different exits.  Please stay there and wait for returning instruction.  The most important thing is to count the number of your students before and after the fire drill.

Please take all safety issues seriously as maintaining a safe and healthy school is NCLS’ top priority. We thank you for your cooperation and support.

2. Parking:  Recently we found quite a few cars that parked inside without parking permit. Here is the list of vehicles that parked inside on Sunday without parking tag: 9927RO, 8525TI, 2306JE, 767VP9, 518KK4, 236MDO, 9572DM, US23HC, 529YE6; If you have teacher parking permit, please hang in front of  your car. We are inspecting the parking lot on Sundays to make sure that cars without the parking tag stay out of the campus parking.  Newton City informed us that this past Sunday Newton Police issued 35 tickets to our parents’ cars for illegal parking.  Please make sure that your car parked in the right place if you park outside the campus.

3.  No business solicitation inside the school building:  A salesperson was found selling products and collecting student personal info inside one of our classroom. Later one parent reported to us about this incident.  Please note that any kind of business solicitation are not allowed in our school. If you find this kind of activity in the future, please inform school admin staff.

4.  Building needs to be cleared by 5:30pm for clean up. Unless we have special event planned after 5pm, all have to leave the building by 5:30pm for clean up.  We have notified by Newton Operation Manager that this rule has to be enforced.  Since the building opens early now, we can have more teacher’s activity planned during the early time.

5. September pay has been processed and the check delivery date is 10/8.  Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the pay after you receive it.

This past Saturday, NCLS had two groups of teachers and staff attended two activities. One group which led by principal Ling Zheng attended national day at City Hall and did fantastic job to expose NCLS to the public. Another group, led by vice principal, Li Lai, attended the annual Teacher’s Appreciation Lunch hosted by NEACS(新英格兰中文学校协会）. During the meeting, NCLS 王瑞云teacher gave a speech in regarding to her unique teaching skills and triggered great interest from peer school teachers. After that, NCLS along with other schools participated the Chinese cultural contest hosted by Lexington Chinese School and won the 2nd place. The award, $40.00 amazon gift card, was used to purchase school internet signal booster for library admin use.

Here is this week’s newsletter to parents:  http://blog.newtonchineseschool.org/

Thanks and see you on Sunday.

Ling and Li