Liebe TCGIS Gemeinschaft! / Dear TCGIS community,

The TCGIS administration and Board of Directors are committed to providing yearly progress reports to the school community regarding the implementation of the Vision 2025 strategic plan. Significant work was accomplished last school year to enhance the TCGIS community, workplace and student experience in support of our mission of the innovative education of the whole child through German immersion. 

At the January board meeting, I shared the progress in a written summary of SY21-22 milestones, status, and achievements, which I invite you to read here. For reference, the full strategic plan is linked on the Board’s webpage. 

The board and I thank our TCGIS community for your engagement in the school we’ve built together. We invite your feedback and comments on this strategic plan progress report to be emailed to board@tcgis.org.

Mit Blick nach vorne / Looking ahead,

Kirsten 

Note: If you don't see the calendar at the end of your Rundbrief, the message has been clipped and you must click "View entire message" to read the entire Rundbrief. Danke!

Please attend the school board meeting tonight at 6:30pm, and hear a special performance by the TCGIS Liederkranz choir before the board recognizes teachers and staff with service awards for 3, 5 and 10 years at TCGIS. Following the awards ceremony, there will be a recess with treats provided by school board members. The meeting agenda is available here. 

Spring Conference Dates:

• Thursday, March 30th, 4pm-7:30pm: all meetings are in-person (Elementary, Middle School, Special Education)
• Friday, March 31st, 8:10am-3:30pm: all meetings are virtual (Elementary, Middle School, Special Education)

You should have received a Constant Contact email with sign-up information on Wednesday, March 1 at 8pm (when the window opened).

Sign-up runs through March 15, 8pm. Please contact info@tcgis.org with questions or if you did not receive the sign-up email.

The MCAs (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) are administered state-wide each spring in grades 3-12. Assessments begin in March and go through the beginning of May. You can learn more about MCAs by reading this information from the Minnesota Department of Education. Important Additional Information can be found here.

We will start in March with Reading MCAs:

• Grades 5-8: Early Release Wednesday, March 8th
• Grade 3: March 27th, 28th
• Grade 4: March 29th, 30th

The data we glean from the MCAs is helpful in informing instructional and curricular decisions. Parents and guardians have the right to refuse participation in MCA testing by filling out this form, which can be submitted in hard copy in the office or by email to dnicholson@tcgis.org. Please submit this form at least 3 days before your child(ren)’s first assessment so we have time to process it.

Our 3rd annual Lesemarathon is almost here! Here's how students can participate:

• READ & RECORD! (any language counts!) From March 6-20, students track minutes spent reading, being read to, or listening to an audiobook using our minute tracker (tracking sheets are being sent home with students this week and are also available to print here).
• SUBMIT your minutes March 19-20th using this Google Form.

Prizes include congratulatory certificates for top readers, a top class prize for elementary & middle school, AND if students fill out a BINGO sheet and return it to the library they get a sticker & are entered in a $5 gift card drawing!

Wondering what this year's Executive Director & Principal Challenge is?? Watch the video to find out!

Help us prepare for the 2023-2024 school year by completing our re-enrollment survey! Please click here to fill out the survey by March 24th. If you have more than one student at TCGIS, please submit one form for every child in your family who is currently in grades K-7.

Filling out this form is not required in order to attend TCGIS next year but it is extremely helpful for the school. We gather information about returning and withdrawing students to plan our class compositions for the next year. We appreciate your participation; thank you in advance! 

We invite 5th grade families to join administrators Elizabeth Zehnpfennig and Michael White for a conversation around 5th graders and their needs for challenge and support. Please RSVP here. We will meet in the TCGIS Cafeteria on Thursday, March 9th from 6pm to 7pm. 

Social Media use is something all of our children today are exposed to. Some of us have not experienced what it means growing up with social media and some of us were just getting introduced to it towards the end of our childhood. Parents today have new challenges to face for which they can not pull from their own experience. In school we see children tired, finding out that they might have missed their bed and sleep time due to social media distractions. Often they are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information and/or pictures which their developing brain can not digest. We also see stress and anxiety around other classmates and with friends over something which happened in a social media exchange. Fear of missing out and being excluded does not make it easy for parents to convince their children that less use of social media can release some added stress and anxiety in their life.

Read here how social media can impact your child’s mental health and how you can promote healthy social media use. Use this website to keep up with what is age appropriate media use and how you can support your child in developing a healthy technology use life style. 

Are you concerned about your child? Are you unsure whether your child is suffering from depression? Please feel free to contact the school social worker. Your school social worker partners with you through these difficult questions and connects you to resources in and outside of school. 

March 5-11, 2023 is National School Social Work Week, an opportunity for schools, communities, and partners to acknowledge and recognize the impactful work School Social Workers do to support students, families, and their communities. Under the leadership of the School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA), this celebration will emphasize School Social Work contributions of focusing on the “whole-child”, linking families to community resources, a valuable voice as part of the school’s multi-disciplinary team, and advocating for the profession of School Social Work.  

The theme for National School Social Work Week 2023 is “We Rise.” During the school year, School Social Workers are confronted with challenges, heightened anxieties, and anticipated difficulties. However, School Social Workers face these challenges with strength and resilience. School Social Workers rise up - supporting their students, families, and school communities. School Social Workers rise to share hope. They rise to listen and understand. They rise to challenge inequities. They rise to support all students. 

Please join us in acknowledging our hard-working School Social Worker, Diana Erwin, MSW, LGSW! 

This is a call to action to advocate for school safety funding for charter schools, including TCGIS. Currently, traditional school districts, but not chartered public schools, receive $36 per student for school safety expenditures. There is a vote scheduled to increase this funding for traditional districts, likely tomorrow, March 3. Please contact your legislators tonight to say that ALL public school students deserve equal resources for safe school environments.

Click here for the background information provided by the MN Association of Charter Schools (MACS). Click here to see which representatives to contact based on your home address. Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter.

It is time to plan for the next session of Enrichment Classes! The Spring session starts Monday, April 10th and ends June 9th. I am looking for instructors who are interested in leading an activity. This includes staff at school, as well as members of the school community!

Enrichment classes meet once a week for an hour after school (3:30-4:30). Classes can be anything from arts and crafts, playing a sport, dancing, etc. The possibilities are endless! If you would like to lead an Enrichment Class, please fill out this form and submit it no later than March 8th.

Please note that filling out this form is a commitment to lead your class on the day it is scheduled, based on the availability you provide. If you have any questions, reach out to amangan@tcgis.org.

This May, the community will elect three directors to the TCGIS School Board. Based on the current board composition and TCGIS bylaws, directors elected through the upcoming election must include at least one parent and at least one teacher. The third director can be a parent, a teacher, or a community member. Each will be elected to serve a three year term that begins in June. We seek any interested persons, especially those with experience in financial compliance, education, board governance, legal matters, management and leadership, and marketing and development. 

If you are interested in serving or would like to nominate someone to serve, all details and forms are available here. You do not need to be nominated to apply. All nominations and applications are due by April 10.

By serving on the School Board, YOU can help our school, strengthen connections within our community, and make important decisions that affect the future.

We need YOU to make a successful Auction happen! We're looking for your amazing crafts, your delicious food, super cool items, and great stuff from your favorite stores. Got season tickets to a playhouse or a sports team? Want to host a movie night? Or water play date for your kid's class? This is the time and place to do it. You can email the Auction team at auctiontcgispto@gmail.com. Auction Great Stuff here. Auction Great Gatherings here.

Maskenball is March 25th - Save the Date and book the sitter! Our theme this year is Hollywood! We can't wait to see how creative you get. Go glam, old school, red carpet, Hollywood punk - whatever you come up with will be amazing! Buy tickets here.

We know it doesn't feel like Spring right now, but let's brighten up your day and check out these amazing plants available in the Spring plant sale! Go to Gertens to order. Our school ID is 550. Orders must be completed by 10 PM on Thursday, April 6. Orders will be ready for pick up on May 12.

Parents/guardians of elementary students are invited to read a book in your student's class throughout the month of March. If interested, please get in touch with your teacher. If you're not sure about a book, your teacher or our library coordinator Frau Zimmerman may have one.

The Diversity & Belonging Committee has been researching and writing an Indigenous land acknowledgement, the first sentence of which reads: “We recognize and appreciate that the Twin Cities German Immersion School sits on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary homelands of the Waȟpékhute Dakota people.” The committee is hosting two presentations to introduce this important work to our TCGIS community, and to provide a forum for discussion. The second talk by TCGIS teacher, Rachael Schlee, is rescheduled for March 9 at 5:00 pm.

Note Time Change: Thursday, March 9, 5:00 pm, Room 100 with Zoom option. TCGIS Land Acknowledgement: Dakota Place Names and Origins, A lesson from 6th grade English class. Rachael Schlee has been teaching 6th grade English at TCGIS since 2017. She has licensure and a Masters degree in K-6 education, and enjoys teaching her students the history of the land they live on.

The Diversity & Belonging Committee is planning a Festival of Cultures to celebrate the diversity of our school by sharing our unique cultures through music, art, storytelling, dance, food, and community. The tentative date and time for this event is Saturday, May 20, 2023 11am-2pm.

Please fill out this short Google Form in order for the planning committee to find out what cultures are represented in the TCGIS community and who would like to share their culture at the event. Volunteers may be parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, grandparents or friends! Thank you for your consideration! If you have any questions, please email keberhard@tcgis.org

Board Meeting Thurs., March 2 - 6:30PM, Room 100, Zoom

Governance Meeting Thur., March 9 - 6:30PM, Google Meet

Communication Meeting Tues., March 7 - 12PM; Zoom

Finance & Facilities Meeting Tues., March 7 - 6:30PM; Zoom

Fundraising Meeting Wed., March 8 - 8:30AM; Google Meet

Diversity & Belonging Meeting Tues., March 21 - 4:30PM; Google Meet

Cmte of the Whole Meeting Wed., March 15 - 6:30PM

Board Meeting Thurs., March 23 - 6:30PM, Room 100; Zoom

TCGIS is proud to be hosting the exhibit Lest We

Forget, a touring collection of twenty-four 3D multimedia works of art with short literary

vignettes. Lest We Forget translates the stories of Fred Amram, a child Holocaust survivor, into

visual art.

Fred was born in Hannover in 1933 and escaped Nazi Germany with his parents in 1939. Nearly his entire extended family perished in the Holocaust. The exhibit is comprised of story panels with text by Fred, beginning with his birth and childhood, and including his time as a refugee and growing up in the U.S., accompanied by art created by Fred’s wife, textile and multimedia artist Sandra Brick. The exhibit will be installed in our atrium and accessible to classes and the greater school community throughout the month of March. 

On Thursday, March 16, at 6:30 P.M., the public is invited to hear Ms. Brick speak about Mr. Amram’s life and about their collaboration to tell his story. This free event will be held in the TCGIS school atrium.

Saturday, March 4, 2023

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Pre-registration is required | $10 per player

Play the world-famous German board game CATAN and compete to win fun prizes! Beginning at 5 p.m., we’ll explain the rules and how to play the game. At 6 p.m., take what you learned and put it into action! Tickets to this family-friendly board game night include one drink and bar snacks. Children 11 and under must be accompanied by an adult. Those 12 and older may be dropped off.

Prefer to play in German? Let us know at registration and we’ll put you at a German-speaking table. We’ll teach some basic German CATAN vocabulary as well!

No previous CATAN or German language is required. All are welcome! Register here.

The board’s Diversity & Belonging committee would like to highlight upcoming events in the Twin Cities as opportunities for intercultural engagement- one our school’s core values. Click here to learn about highlighted events!

March 1: Spring Conference Sign-Up opens

March 2: School Board meeting

March 2: Lost & Found emptied

March 6: Lesemarathon (Read-a-thon) begins!

March 8: Early Release

March 9: Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Talks at TCGIS

March 16: Lest We Forget event at TCGIS

March 25: Maskenball & Auction

March 30 & 31: Parent/teacher conferences

March 31: No school



TCGIS Google Calendar