Burroughs Community School

Whether or not you were able to attend February's Rally for Public Education in St. Paul, you've got another chance to help make a difference on Thursday, March 31. And you don't even have to leave the comfort of your own home! You can participate in a "Virtual Rally" on Thursday by contacting your legislators, Tim Pawlenty, Steve Swiggum, and Dean Johnson to let them know how you feel about funding for public education.

More details on the PTA blog and in the online flyer for the Rally (in PDF format). Also on the PTA blog, take a look at the Legislative Alert post about the Dorman Greiling amendment.

Burroughs students reached their goal of reading over 700,000 minutes in February by reading over 900,000 minutes. The Read-a-thon event raised just over $53,500 for the PTA's 2005-2006 budget -- HIP HIP HOORAY! These funds will go toward enrichment materials for reading, math, art, science and music, classroom teacher budgets, Burroughs website, field trips, and other activities and events that help support Burroughs!

Look for a longer post with more details in the next few days.

The Art Adventure program is looking for volunteers to lead classroom sessions during the 2005-06 school year. For more information about what's involved and who to contact, take a look at the new Art Adventure blog!

The third and final week of CALT testing is underway. Classes taking the test this week are:

• Monday: Room 205 - Mr. Larsen
  
• Tuesday: Room 233 - Ms. Butchert
  
• Wednesday: Room 206 - Mr. Benjamin
  
• Thursday: Room 203 - Mr. Janssen
  
• Friday: Make-up day
  

This Sunday, March 13, Anthony Middle School will be Great Harvest Bread Company's Baker of the Day. Volunteers from Anthony will be running the bakery that day and all proceeds in bakery sales benefit Anthony.

The bakery will be open from 8 AM to 5 PM. Several years ago when Burroughs was the Baker of the Day, they ran out of baked goods before closing time. To avoid disappointment (and to help Anthony maximize this opportunity), pre-order your choices by clicking this link, printing and filling out the form, and dropping it off at Anthony's main office by Thursday. You can also call in your order directly to Great Harvest at 612-929-2899.

University Language Center will once again be offering Spanish Camp at Burroughs this summer. Registration information will come home in backpacks later this month, but for planning purposes, here are the details:

Dates: Monday - Thursday
Times: 9:00-12:00 OR 1:00-4:00
Students will be grouped based on total enrollment and based on age and language proficiency.

Session I: June 20-23 & June 27-30
Session II: July 11-14 & July 18-21

Tuition: $245 per child, $220 for additional siblings, all materials included.

Registration deadline: June 3, 2005

Questions? Contact Program Director Dery Vinholi at University Language Center.

NALT/CALT testing continues this week. The schedule looks like this:

• Monday: Room 353 (Mr. Kilibarda)
  
• Tuesday: Room 351 (Mr. Wilkinson)
  
• Wednesday: Room 348 (Mr. Kroening)
  
• Thursday: Room 346 (Mr. Moen)
  
• Friday: Room 302 (Mr. Frober)
  

Plenty of rest and a good breakfast are important every day, but they are especially important on test days. They'll help reduce any anxiety your child might feel about the test and help them be their best.

Yesterday, Burroughs PTA forwarded a Rally Follow-up notice to everyone on our e-mail list. The notice referenced a couple of bills currently under discussion at the legislature, SF 1304 and HF 1183. The Minnesota State Legislature has made significant enhancements to their Web site of late, and you can follow these and any other bills or issues online.

In addition to tracking bills and finding legislator information through the site, you can sign up to receive information on particular bills or issues as e-mail using My Bills, or receive items on the What's New list as e-mail.

Within the last week or two, the Legislature also added an RSS feed to their What's New list! If you're already reading blogs (like the Burroughs Blogs) in a news reader, you can now also subscribe to the What's New feed.

Not sure what an RSS feed is, or how to subscribe to one? I've been trying to find the time to write a summary for Burroughs parents to add to this site, but in the meantime, the state legislature site has a list of links you may find helpful.