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2011-12 Re-enrollment Forms are coming home via Wednesday Envelopes (one per family). The timeline for the 2012-13 re-enrollment process is below:

• Friday, February 10 – Registration contract and reenrollment fee of $150.00 per returning student due to secure your child’s space in the class. If we haven’t heard from you by this date, your child’s space in the class for next year will be released.
• Friday, March 16 – registration contract, registration fee, and 1 tuition installment due if you want to take advantage of the tuition discount ($750 discount/K-6 student / $200 discount/preschooler)
• Friday, June 1 – deadline to withdraw from Pinecrest without financial penalty per registration contract
• Friday, August 31 – Visiting Morning for 2012-13 families
• Tuesday, September 4 – First Day of School!

K-6 Quarter 2 ends on Friday, January 27, and K-6 report cards will go home in Wednesday Envelopes on Wednesday, February 1. Preschool mid-year narratives will go home at that time as well.

Our annual International Dinner will be held this Saturday, January 28, at 6 p.m., at school in the multipurpose room. This is always a wonderful event, and we look forward to having as many Pinecrest families with us as possible. It is not too late to RSVP!

We have two more open houses for prospective families coming up on Sunday, January 29 (1-4 p.m.) and Saturday, February 25 (10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.). If you know friends or neighbors who might be interested in our school, please mention this event to them. We have always found that the best way to spread the word about Pinecrest is for current families to share their positive experiences.

Although Fairfax County Public Schools are closed for teacher workdays on Monday, January 30, and Tuesday, January 31, Pinecrest is open. These are both regular school days for us.

Pinecrest will have a fundraising night at Moe’s Southwest Grill in Bailey’s Crossroads on Wednesday night, February 8! Pinecrest will receive a percentage of the profits from sales between 5-8 p.m. that evening. This is the Moe’s on Route 7 in the Bailey’s Crossroads (5855 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church) – in the same plaza as Panera, Best Buy, and Petco, and directly across the street from Borders. Please remember (and help your children to understand) that there will be other patrons at Moe’s that night, and we must show respect and represent our school well. I hope you will join us!

Mrs. Vogus took the kindergarten class to Hidden Pond Nature Center on January 13. Thank you to Kim Berestecki (parent of Ryan, K) and James Don (parent of Sophia, K) for joining them!

This week, all preschool children are being screened for speech, language, hearing, and fine motor and visual-motor skills. The fine motor and visual-motor screenings were completed yesterday and today; speech, language and hearing will be tomorrow. Summary reports prepared by the professionals at Skill Builders will be sent home with parents on Wednesday, February 1, with preschool narratives. If any K-6 parents are interested in having their children screened as well, we are currently negotiating with Skill Builders to do this at a discounted rate at Pinecrest. More details to come.

Our Annual Fund Campaign is in progress and will go through June 30, 2012. Our goal is 100% current parent and staff participation, although we have many alumni families and grandparents who give generously each year as well. This year, we have kicked off the campaign with 100% participation from the Board of Trustees! All independent schools and non-profits run Annual Fund Campaigns each year. Your gift helps strengthen and uphold Pinecrest’s mission for our current and future students. Thank you to the many members of the community who have already made their 2011-12 donations – we have received many contributions so far and are very grateful!

If you read this newsletter and respond by email by Friday morning at 10 a.m., you will be entered in a drawing to win a Pinecrest collector’s edition school or camp shirt from the past – select sizes and colors available. Congratulations to Amy Tomasco (parent of Jackson, grade 3, & Sophia, grade 1) who won the last newsletter contest!

As you have seen from the email updates, registration for camp has been unprecedented in these first three days. We are very excited and appreciate your patience as we continue to keep everyone in the loop with email updates. At this time, we have over 200 campers registered three days into the registration period! (To give you perspective, last year, we had 200 campers registered after two weeks of registration. We are thrilled with and awed by the response to our camp!) While many classes are closed, there are still many great ones with space open. The best way to check the most accurate class status is to look here: pinecrestschool.org/summercamp/summercampschedule.aspx

We love to see our students come to camp and spend part of or all of the summer with us! I encourage you to sign up promptly; general-public registration begins on Monday and we expect a significant increase in registrations at that time.

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday night, May 5 – Annual Fundraising Auction – S.S. Pinecrest: Come Sail With Us! ( cruise ship theme) – adults only – secure your baby-sitters now!!

Thank you to our wonderful classroom teachers for their presentations at Rising Back-to-School Night on January 11! We are so fortunate to have such talented teachers at our school.

Happy early birthday to Ms. O’Hara (tomorrow)!

"When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins."
(Michael Caine)