Following a great Summerfest of historic proportions with about 700 in attendance, we are now racing towards the end of the 2009-10 academic year. While our enrollment this year did not go up, it also did not go down despite a poor year on the economic front here in California. Plans for the next year are mostly finalized and it appears that we should again see the gradual growth that was typical in previous years. This has been helped by a number of important factors. First of all the renewal of our lease at this campus has given us breathing room for the upcoming five years, and has opened a new thread of discourse with the district on the possibility of purchasing the campus outright. In addition the outstanding evaluation report from the International Baccalaureate Office has affirmed the quality of our Primary Years Program. Academic excellence has further been confirmed with great results in the International School Assessment Tests (ISA) taken in Grades 3 & 5 and in the SAT10 results which will be published in the next days.
I would like to thank all of you for the support and collaboration given to the school. I have had the fortune of working with a wonderful teaching staff, which through their professional dedication and team spirit, have made GAIS an outstanding school. We are fortunate to have great students at our school and I am very pleased that almost all of them will be returning in August for the new school year.
The end of a school year does, however, result in some departures. Our school staff and parents will bid a fond farewell to Martina Ruetz, who will be leaving the USA, Leila M'Barek who is returning to Berlin, Mareike Hoelzel who is also returning to Germany, Elena Pacheco who has returned to her native Chile, and Uschi Waite who will be dedicating more time to her family.
Joining our school in August I would like to welcome the following new staff:
Preschool Assistant: Claudia Trojan is a qualified Preschool teacher from Frankfurt. She will work in both the Preschool and Hort program.
Middle School Science: Sabrina Grossmann will teach Science in Grades 6-8. Prior to coming to California with her family, Frau Grossmann taught Middle School Science for 4 years in Regensburg, Germany.
Spanish and IT: Amanda Rodriguez will join us in August as Spanish teacher for Grades 5-8 and IT teacher for Grades 1-5. Ms. Rodriguez is currently a bilingual Spanish teacher in Illinois and has a Masters Degree from Illinois State University.
Katharin Taatz will join GAIS as a Grade 5 co-teacher. Frau Taatz did her degree at the Otto Friederich University in Bamberg and taught Grade 3 at a private school in Leipzig.
Our new administrative Assistant to replace Uschi Waite is Stella Klose. Stella comes from Berlin and earned her degree in English from the Technical University. Prior to coming to GAIS, she has worked as a marketing assistant, web designer, and database administrator. She has started work this week to ensure for a smooth transition going into the summer.
As you can see, there will be a good number of new faculty members joining us in August. To facilitate a smooth and focused start to the academic year we have planned an extended program of orientation for our teachers which will run an entire week, from August 16-20. Following this, the faculty and I look forward to meeting all parents on Saturday, August 21st at our traditional worknic to get the year rolling.
Our next two weeks of school will be very busy with the usual end of year activities including Graduation and the start of the World Cup.
