Dear Parents,
I would to like personally welcome you and your children to a new and very exciting year at AIS.
After several years looking for a new home, we finally found one and what a place it is! This is a major achievement for our school community. Because of your constant support and the leadership and tenacity of our board, the school will have a beautiful place to call home. This is a game changer for AIS. This will allow us to plan for the future in a serene way, to develop a solid relationship with the Austin community at large while developing an international community open to the world. This new campus allows us to dream big and gives us the energy to work even harder to make AIS one of the very best schools in town.
The AIS community has many reasons to be proud of its accomplishments. Last year, many of you volunteered to make our school a better place. Whether you came to spread mulch on the playground on a Saturday morning, came and read a story to your child’s class or gave some of your time to help during the Kermesse, it is your time and energy that makes our school such a vibrant community. I want to sincerely thank you for dedication.
This year we will build on our successes and continue our pursuit of excellence. You will notice that we hired additional playground supervisors and additional teachers, all of whom will work as an international team to better serve the students and to communicate with you. We will collaboratively work on language in pre-k through kindergarten, on reading in kindergarten through 2nd grade, and on mathematics in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, streamlining the curriculum and delivering it in an international manner. We will focus – even more than before – on meeting every student’s needs by developing systematic assessments and reporting the information in a more precise and consistent manner.
A school is, first and foremost, a community: a learning community that shares the same values and the same vision of the world. Your time and energy is the bond that keeps us together. To develop this sense of belonging you will be invited to attend Curriculum Nights, our annual State of the School meeting, and other, less formal, social events. I hope you join us.
We need to continue to work together to develop the school and I will invite you to demonstrate your support by contributing to our annual fund and by participating in the different events that will raise funds for our new playground.
Based on my experience, I can assure you that with your support and dedication AIS will become one of the most desirable schools in the Austin area.
Come on out to the new parent welcome night on Thursday night, from 6 to 7 p.m. and meet current parents and the PTO. It’s a great time to meet current AIS parents who have been through all the events of the school year and can give you a helping hand while you start in this new environment! There will be lots of friendly faces to welcome you and share all the ways to get involved in the AIS community this year.
The CE1 and CM students – many of whom had excelled at keeping their artwork and stories under wraps for weeks – were thrilled to show off their work to the parents who gathered last Friday for the exhibit of their original creations in collaboration with the prolific author of youth and adult illustrated books Nicolas Poupon. CE1 students under Mélanie Vincent and CM students under Cédric Hervé capped their months-long project with a personal author visit, exhibition, and book signing in the multipurpose room.
“The whole project was just amazing,” remarked parent Valentina Ortiz.
