2024 Important Dates

Feb 9 — Rainbow and Sunshine Room Children Mailbox Walk
Feb 10 & 24 — Open House at school for prospective families, 10:30am-12:30pm
Feb 14 — Valentine’s Day celebration
Feb 19 & 20 — Presidents’ Day Holidays, No School
Feb 23 — Lunar New Year Parade at school, 9:10am, please join us!
Feb 26 — 12:00 Pick Up for all children; No Extended Care due to Staff Meeting
Feb 27 — Board of Trustees Meeting, 7:30pm via Zoom. All are welcome!
Mar 16 — BCSO School Community Social and Fundraiser, Piedmont Community Hall

BCSO Board of Trustees Update: It was an eventful evening at the January Board Meeting! We are so very pleased to announce Akaash Gupta is now serving as our Board Chair. Akaash has been on the Board since 2022 as a Member at Large advising on legal issues; he is dad to Kieran in Rainbow and Felix in PACT. Thank you, Akaash!

My Chau (mom to Penny in Sunshine) has joined the Board as Secretary; Tyler Stuckey (dad to Luna in Rainbow) has joined as a Member at Large supporting the Finance Committee; Anny Carson (mom to Ezra in Rainbow) has joined as a Member at Large and chairs the Parent Involvement Committee; and Daniel O’Neil (dad of Isaac in Sunshine) and Danielle Velasco (mom of Viera in Sunshine) have both joined as Members at Large. We are absolutely thrilled to see this strengthening of support and partnership with the current parent community. Thank you and welcome to each of you!

We also said fond goodbyes and grateful thanks to outgoing Board Chair Robert Smith, as well as to Board Member Francis Adanza and long-serving Board Member Alexis Bornoff. We will miss your active participation and deep knowledge of our school, but thankful you are forever a part of our Broadway family.

Annual Fund: There is just about one month left in our 2023-2024 Annual Fund. If you haven’t already done so, please consider making a donation to BCSO today. Every gift is so very appreciated and every dollar brings us closer to our goal. Support from you— our current families—is truly meaningful and helps ensure Broadway is here for you and your children and for generations to come. https://givebutter.com/broadway

Auction News: The countdown continues to our annual BCSO School Community Social and Fundraiser, taking place on March 16th at Piedmont Community Hall. 43 days to the party! Save that date, order your dancing shoes, schedule the babysitter, and watch for more information from our Parent Involvement Committee Chair, Anny Carson, who is hard at work with her team to make it a fun and special night for all.

Keep your eyes on your kids’ cubbies, too—basket raffle tickets will be coming your way soon. Each family will be provided with 20 raffle tickets to sell at $10 each. There will be upwards of 20 prizes plus a grand prize round-trip ticket on Southwest Airlines. It is not mandatory to sell all your tickets—but the exciting view is if every family sells all their tickets we could make over $7000 from the raffle!

Introducing “Farm Fresh to You” Farm Fresh to You is a produce box and grocery delivery service—and our newest fundraiser! Customers just need to add “BROADWAY” in the promo code and the school gets 10%. It’s very versatile, coming in several types and sizes, with the ability to customize how frequently your box is delivered, add or remove fruits or vegetables from your delivery, create a “never send” list, and add on items such as eggs, dairy, honey, jam and more—all delivered to your own door! A flyer with QR code will be coming soon.

Summer School: Diana is at work on making staffing, scheduling, and program arrangements. Please stay tuned!

Gung Hay Fat Choy! The Year of the Dragon will begin February 10th. At school, we will share stories and traditions around the Lunar New Year, including having our own Lunar New Year parade on Friday, February 23rd. We’ll open the gate to the yard at drop off, so that you may gather there while we ready the children. The parades generally last about 15 minutes or so—some longer, some shorter, but always fun! See you in the yard at about 9:10am.

Open House for Prospective Families: Our Open House series to welcome prospective families continues this month on Saturday, February 10th, and Saturday, February 24th, from 10:30 to 12:30 on both days. Please keep sharing these dates far and wide! It has been a delight to share our school with newcomers and to see the positive impact this is having on our enrollment. Thank you! More dates to come as we move into Springtime.

Valentine’s Day and Cards: Valentine’s Day is coming up soon. At school, we will read stories about friendship, families, and how we show others we care about them (topics we cover all year long 🙂 We’ll also have a little celebration on Wednesday, February 14th.

If your child wishes to bring Valentines, please include a card for every child in the class. The children will “mail” their set of cards into a special Valentine Box on arrival at school; after drop off, parent volunteers will distribute these into individual bags for each child. Room parents will be asking for volunteers soon.

Valentines are much easier to distribute if you leave off writing individual names in the “To: _______” area of the card. Simply leave that line blank, please. It’s also very helpful if all your child’s valentines are held together with a rubber band or placed inside a paper bag to keep them all together. Thank you.

Bringing valentines is optional; if you or your child are not interested in participating, that’s ok!

Gentle Reminder

Hand Washing: let’s work together to keep up the routine of hand washing, an important part of our health and safety. We use these 5 steps at school: water, soap, scrub, rinse, dry. Encourage scrubbing (or “scrub-a-dubbing” as one student recently called it) for at least 20 seconds. Your reinforcement at home of these steps is super helpful!

From the Classrooms:

Why is it the Year of the Dragon? What happens when I mail a letter? What is a friend? Am I different from my friends? How are we the same? These are among the many questions your children may wonder and learn about this month at school. The teachers look forward to exploring these topics with the children through dramatic play, discussion, and songs such as Love is Something If You Give It Away (aka Magic Penny) and I’m Gonna Mail Myself to You, and African American spirituals There’s a Little Wheel Turning in My Heart and This Little Light of Mine. We will continue to read and celebrate stories by Black authors and artists; this month a few of the titles we’ll share are Firebird by Copeland/Myers, I Am Every Good Thing by Barnes/James, and Saturday by Oge Mora. If you have traditions or plans for honoring Black history with your families, please share with your child’s teachers so that we may incorporate these at school. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Jennifer McManus
Assistant Director