Did you know – Things you already do could support SLLIS!

November marks the beginning of the most generous time of the year. Like other nonprofits, St. Louis Language Immersion Schools sends out an annual appeal letter to its community members – something you should be receiving in the mail anytime now. But – there are many other ways to support SLLIS – here’s a quick list to consider throughout the holiday season and beyond!

Amazon Smile

Amazon.com has launched a charitable program called AmazonSmile. Through this program, shoppers choose a charitable organization to support and through every purchase Amazon donates 0.5% of the proceeds to the chosen organization. SLLIS is a registered charitable organization on AmazonSmile, meaning you can support SLLIS while shopping at Amazon.

On AmazonSmile, all products and prices are the same as Amazon, but your chosen organization will benefit from each purchase. To choose SLLIS as the benefitted organization for your purchases, type in St. Louis Language Immersion Schools when asked to select a charity when first visiting smile.amazon.com.

Box Tops for Education

Remember to continue collecting Box Tops to turn in for SLLIS. One box top equals a 10 cent donation to SLLIS. These add up and when more families participate, the more money SLLIS will earn! Look for the Box Tops for Education logo on participating products when you go shopping.
Every contribution makes a difference! Thank you for helping SLLIS with its efforts to purchase more resources for your child’s education. To assist with Box Top collection in your school, contact your SAC or the representatives below!

The French School – Suzy Hallerman

The Chinese School – Luann Schafer

The Spanish School – Emily Dusenberry

eScrip Program

Through the eScrip program, purchases made at Schnucks (and other places) will create automatic contributions to SLLIS of up to 3% of what you spend. To participate, get a card at any Schnucks Customer Service Desk, register your card online or over the phone, and have your card scanned every time you check out at Schnucks. If SLLIS families scanned their eScrip card for their holiday groceries alone, SLLIS would benefit greatly!

Visit escrip.com to learn more about the program and other businesses that give back through the program.

Goodsearch.com

Goodsearch.com donates to your chosen charitable organization when you use the website to do things you already do online. SLLIS is a Goodsearch participant as a beneficiary organization. For any web search, $.01 will be donated to your organization. There are also opportunities to shop at many online stores, and a percentage of purchases will go to your organization. On Goodsearch.com, there is a tab called “more ways to raise” which offers other opportunities to raise money for SLLIS, including online games, dining at
participating restaurants, and travel coupons.

Target REDcard

Do you shop at Target? Consider applying for a Target RedCard and supporting SLLIS through your Target purchases. When you use Target’s RedCard to shop at Target, you get 5% off EVERY purchase you make (plus a bunch of awesome coupons) AND %1 of your purchases will go to SLLIS when you designate us as your charity of choice. Applying for a Target Credit or Debit Card at any Target store is FREE.
For more information and to enroll, visit the RedCard website at http://www.target.com/redcard/main.

Can’t sleep? Neither can we. See you at school tomorrow!!!!

Dear friends, chers collègues, estimadas familias y tian chu,

Five years ago, I wrote the following on the eve of our very first day of St. Louis Language Immersion Schools:

Tonight I cannot sleep.  I cannot believe that this dream is real in St.
Louis.  We are poised to embark upon this most important social venture
of positioning all of our children for success in local and global
economies through holistic, intellectually inspiring language immersion
programs.

In 9 hours, 180 fresh faces will begin the first day of their language
immersion elementary school.  These young learners will come from every
zip code in the City of St. Louis and some of them will be driven in
from St. Louis County. My Heads of School, Director of Operations and I
will ride the buses with 140 of our students, greeting them and their
families at each stop.  We will see with our own eyes that families in
every neighborhood in St. Louis believe that our small, international
school model is the right choice for their children’s future.

…

This week we will open our hearts to 900 students in three elementary schools, on two campuses, who represent the same diversity as our founding families.  Our growth over our first five years is much more than a story of population.  We have grown our curriculum through implementation of the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme. Our staff has grown to include social workers, special education services and Mosaic afterschool.  We have grown our English Language Learner instruction and are positioned to provide more robust Title I services in reading and math.   Our enrichment supports have grown to include soccer and basketball teams, private music lessons in violin, viola, guitar, piano and voice.  This spring our 5^th graders will engage in hallmark experiences: Exhibition of their IB projects, their first language trips to Puerto Rico and Canada, and final reflections of the 5^th Grade Leadership Academy. And this year, we will celebrate the first fifth grade graduation for founding classes in The Spanish School and The French School.  

I am fond of saying that this is the beginning.   There is much to celebrate when we consider our first five years and yet, we know there is significant work ahead of us before our first high school graduation.  

Thank you for being a part of our early success.  I appreciate the belief, support and contributions that each of you make on behalf of our students.

Optimistically yours,
Rhonda

Forming Our Future

Forming Our Future: An Invitation

The Saint Louis Language Immersion Schools are growing exponentially each year and the time has come to make some decisions about how we shape our school space for the future.  In order to do that, we need to define the ways that we will functionally engage our students, staff, parents and community members.  We need to answer some very important questions, including:

• How can the facilities express the SLLIS vision?
• How will our schools make us feel?
• Where will our schools be located?
• What facilities needs are most important to us and our students?

By helping us answer these questions and more you can determine the future for the Saint Louis Language Immersion Schools.

Over the next month we will host three community planning sessions and we invite you to participate in these important conversations with us.

Wednesday, November 10th 6pm-8pm : Planning Session #1      Design Philosophy

1. What is most attractive about the SLLIS experience ?
2. What are the obstacles to achieving this ideal experience ?

Saturday, November 20th 10am-12pm : Planning Session #2  Location and site attributes

1. Follow-up questions from Session #1
2. What are the values that we place on our locations ?
3. How do these location values relate to our school vision ?
4. What types of neighborhood relationships would be important for our ideal location ?

Tuesday, November 30th 6pm-8pm : Planning Session #3  Programmatic requirements

1. Follow-up questions from Sessions #1 and #2
2. What are the classroom strategies for dedicated and specialist rooms ?
3. How do we enhance our purpose and place in the community ?

All sessions will be held in the Multipurpose Room at SLLIS.  To facilitate the most impactful conversation, each session is limited to 40 general parent community members.  Please RSVP to Rhonda (rhonda@sllis.org) to confirm your participation.