e-Newsletter: July 2007

IN THIS ISSUE
Graduation
Last Week of School Year
Emerald Downs
Babies!
July - What's Happening

GRADUATION
Per tradition, our graduation ceremony was held at beautiful Mosswood Hollow, a retreat center in Duvall that is about an hour’s drive from Seattle.  Mosswood is owned and operated by Paul Martin and Sandie Grumman, founding PSCS parents, and doubles as their home so it’s very comfortable and friendly. It includes 40 acres of forests, fields, and beaver ponds, plenty of places for quiet reflection and relaxation.

Students and staff arrived at Mosswood around 11am on June 15 and spent the day in various celebratory activities.  Our annual “Soul Food” activity took place, with each person writing special comments to everyone else on personalized paper plates while sitting in a circle.  When your plate returns to you, it is filled with a heaping helping of soul food!  We held an appreciation circle for departing staff members Neal Hanson and Matt Schick.  And we all enjoyed our traditional end of the year potluck with the full community.

Graduation at PSCS is an event all unto itself. At 7pm we gathered in a spacious 30 foot yurt, the enrolled students sitting in a small circle in the center surrounded by the rest of the attendees.  Staff member Neal, who was chosen by the graduates to host the ceremony, began the proceedings by delivering an opening speech that was both touching and poignantly funny.  The five graduating students were then honored, one at a time, each having chosen a person to introduce them to the community as a PSCS graduate.  Following each of these introductions, stories and appreciations of the graduate were shared spontaneously, with each student being held in a place of honor before the community for about an hour.  As is often the case, the ceremony went deep into the night. People cried at times and laughed at times.  It was a tribute to everything it means to be a human being, and not something soon to be forgotten.

Congratulations to the PSCS Graduating Class of 2007 – Melissa Brown, Terra Williams, Megan Shore, Thomas James and Kaitlin Spangler.  The school is a better place for your involvement.

LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL YEAR
As has been the case over the years, the students decided to dispense with the usual schedule for the last week of school and replace it with a series of group activities.  The week began on Monday with a day at the park at nearby Green Lake in Seattle, with time set aside to honor this year’s volunteers.  Staff member Matt coordinated some silly games, three-legged soccer being among the zaniest.  Tuesday was spent at the regular school site in a morning-long birthday party specific to those people with summer birthdays.  Some students arrived in pajamas, per request.  Matt played the happy birthday song on the trumpet, with strong singing accompaniment.  Pin the tail on the donkey and a quickly made piñata added to the fun.   Tuesday afternoon was devoted to cleaning the school.

Wednesday may have been the craziest day of the week due to the day-long, city-wide scavenger hunt.  Staff members Matt and Nic put together a long list of items that either needed to be found and brought back to school, or be presented in photographed form.  Seven teams were drawn up and volunteers recruited to assist.  For four hours teams roamed around Seattle gathering items and taking pictures.  If you happened to see small groups of young people taking pictures of “famous people,” “wet feet,” fountains, trolls, and local landmarks, with each member of the group in each of the photos, that was probably PSCS.  Upon their return to school, Matt and Andy “evaluated” each group’s artifacts for validity and awarded points.  Each group then presented a slide show of their photos.  Oddly enough, the competition ended in a 7-way tie.

On Thursday we met in West Seattle at beautiful Alki Beach Park.  We got to experience a very low tide, perfect for some beachcombing, before gathering for a barbeque lunch.  In the afternoon, as the tide came in, we held a special ceremony for departing student Gabi.  Andy handed out copies of a school yearbook he had made, complete with a mixed CD of a specially chosen theme song for each student and member of the staff.

Friday was our day at Mosswood Hollow, described above, culminating with the graduation ceremony.  All in all, it was a wonderful week of school, a fabulous way to end the year.

EMERALD DOWNS
Another of what has become among our annual events at PSCS is our field trip to Emerald Downs, the local thoroughbred racetrack.  School director Andy Smallman has a background in horse racing, having worked as a statistician at the Daily Racing Form.  His father, Al, is the public handicapper for the Seattle P.I., making selections for the newspaper that are printed each race day.  Al volunteers each spring to co-facilitate with Andy a class on horse race handicapping, and late in the school year the class has what Al jokingly calls its “final exam” at the racetrack.  Other members of the community are invited to attend, an event that regularly draws parents, alums, and others.

Per tradition, the class gets an individualized tour of the “front side” of the track, watching a race with the track announcer, meeting members of the media, getting a lesson from the photo finish operator, and this year even got to watch a race with the stewards.  Emerald Downs personality Joe Withee invites students into the paddock before a race to analyze it with him over the public address system and to the remote sites throughout the country that carry the local track’s races.  This year two students, Joy and Eric, took Joe up on his offer and discussed with him the 6th race.  Joy even picked the winner, leading her to exclaim after the race, “I passed the final exam!”

An interesting side note to this year’s handicapping class is that a reporter from the Seattle P.I. wrote an article about the class.  This article has had some pretty extensive reach.  It was received in the publicity office at Churchill Downs, the site of the Kentucky Derby each year.  What a surprise it was to us when posters of this year’s Derby winner arrived, enough for each student in the class.  And just last week a reporter for the Blood Horse, a national magazine covering thoroughbred racing, contacted PSCS to write about the class.  So with all the innovation around educational philosophy at PSCS, what gets national attention?  Our class on horse race handicapping, of course!

BABIES!
The year of the baby continued early in June with the births of the two most anticipated babies of the school year.  If you don’t know, staff member Anoo has been expecting, as has Kristen, wife/partner of staff member Nic.  Their due dates were roughly two weeks apart, close enough for the expectant parents to attend childbirth and parenting classes together.  Apparently, though, the bond felt by these babies was greater than anticipated as they were born on the same day and in the same hospital, about six hours and four doors apart!

Please welcome to the ever-growing PSCS graduating class of 2025, Vehd Reddy, son of Anoo Padte and Vamshi Reddy, and Japhy Luca Bel Tsiatsenhoven, son of Nic Warmenhoven and Kristen Tsiatsios, both born on June 6.  Their parents are healthy and proud, and the boys are healthy and destined to be fast friends.  All of us at PSCS could not be happier!

JULY– WHAT'S HAPPENING

SCHOOL OFFICE CLOSED
Wednesday, 7/4, Independence Day.

SUMMER INTENSIVES WEEK
The first in our summer series of week-long "intensives" is coming up the week of 7/16-20. Michael Coffey will be leading "Can We NOT Talk About Shakespeare?"

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