October21 Late Night (Date Night) Party (6:00 - 9:00p)

24 Conference Day - NO SCHOOL - ED open

25 Evening Conferences (4:00 - 8:00p)

28 Fall Movie Night (6:15 - 8:30p)

31 School Photos (all week)

November1-4 School Photos

1 Math Night at SFFS

2 Community Meeting for Worship (8:40 - 9:10a)

2 Middle School Tech Night (6:30 - 7:30p)

3 Booktopia (6:00 - 9:00p)

5 POCIS Conference

7-10 ERB Tests

7 Alumni Reunion (6:00 - 8:30p)

8 Board Meeting (6:00 - 9:00p)

11 NO SCHOOL - Professional Development Day

15 Blue Party All Hands Meeting (6:00-8:00p)

17-19 Fall Play

See full calendar here

CIRCLE BACKOctober 20, 2011

A Brief Sabbatical

Flying High

300 Easy Steps

san francisco friends school * 250 valencia street * san francisco, ca 94103 * 415-565-0400 * sffriendsschool.org

6th graders leap into the unknown at Skylark Ranch

San Francisco Friends SchoolOctober 20, 2011

Late Night (Date Night) PartyDrop your kids off for a night of fun (and treat yourself to a child-free dinner)! Pizza, a costume contest, a treasure hunt, and all sorts of exciting games. We’ll show a short movie to wind down the fun.

Details:October 21, 6:00 - 9:00pMarina Vendrellmvendrell@sffriendsschool.org

Get Mixed Up - It’s Potluck TimeBased on Quaker-8 Dinners, the SFFS Mixed-Up Potlucks bring SFFS parents together in new groups to create connections and build friendships. It’s a great way to get to know families outside of your regular social circle or child’s grade.

First Step - HostingWe need hosts to volunteer their homes for the events. The potluck can be brunch, lunch, or dinner, limited to adults or include children. As a host you pick the date and time that work best for you. Everyone will bring a dish and a good time should be had by all. If you can host a potluck, please click here: http://bit.ly/n9o94V

Questions?Theresa Kolish & Chris Baker, tkolish@me.com & chrisb@jvmlending.com

Fall Movie NightWe’re going to celebrate fall with an evening at the movies; a great way for our whole community to relax together. There will be a movie for the younger set, one for the middle schoolers, and plenty of FREE pop-corn. Last year’s movies (Babe and The Princess Bride) received rave re-views from parents and kids alike, and concession sales raised over $550 for the 8th grade class trip!

Details:October 28, 6:15 - 8:30pJesse Millerjessemiller@reedsmith.com

BOOKTOPIA SoonCome have fun with your fellow parents while helping to expand the Friends School library! Booktopia is a fun evening of shopping, refresh-ments, and delicious food where our community supplies the SFFS library with hundreds of books, including all of the books for the Birthday Book program. If you can’t attend, phone orders can be taken on Nov. 2 & 3.

Details:November 3, 6:00 – 9:00p Books, Inc., Opera Plaza 601 Van Ness at Golden GateQuestions? Laura Norman, lauranor@yahoo.comJenny Lee, jennyleeburnett@yahoo.com

Extended Day available all day this MondayOctober 24, 8:00 - 6:00p

School Picture WeekIt’s that time of year again! School pictures will are happening October 31 - November 4. If you miss your photo slot, make-up photos are on Friday. Please see the complete schedule on the parent wiki. Sign up to help the process go smoothly.

Re-Thinking ColorblindnessThe POCIS Fall 2011 Lower School/Middle School Conference, “Color-ing outside the Lines: Re-thinking Colorblindness” calls us to question the post-Civil Rights teaching of colorblindness as a goal for an equitable society. What are the impacts of avoiding and/or ignoring difference while supporting a meritocracy myth? POCIS seeks to challenge colorblind ideol-ogy and lead a movement that honors, values, and respects cultural differ-ence. We hope to reframe the way students, educators, and families engage in our 21st century world.

This is a FREE event for all members of the SFFS community.

DetailsNovember 5, 9:00a - 12:00pPark Day School, Oaklandhttp://www.nocapocis.org/events/upcoming-events

San Francisco Friends SchoolOctober 20, 2011

To Our Friends School Families, In the fall of 2002, the doors of 117 Diamond opened to 36 kindergartners. A handful of staff and faculty were busily launching the “first” of everything - the first Meeting for Worship, the first Back-to-School Night, the first student assembly, the first field trip, and even the first climbing structure for the play-ground.  Now nine years later, our school is rolling along at full throttle, having wel-comed dozens of teachers, hundreds of students, and thousands of applicants. Our academic program is thriving, our arts and athletics are blossoming, our new building has become our home, and our first class of graduates has headed off to high schools near and far. We think its a perfect time for our leader, Cathy, to take a brief sabbatical, both in celebration of the school’s vigorous good health and the excellent leadership of the administrative team, and in anticipation of the next phase of the Friends School’s growth.  Cathy’s sabbatical is planned for the months of January and February of this winter. She will be traveling, reading, writing, and thinking big thoughts about where we’ve come as a school and where we are going in our second decade. (As an aside: Cathy would welcome any suggestions of warm locales to settle into for her hiatus - both domestic and abroad!). In the interim, Andrew Salverda (Middle School Head) will serve as Acting Head of School. Andrew and Cathy are in conversation about keeping all the balls in the air --  board, administration, faculty, staff, parents and students -- while Cathy has “stepped away” and making this brief interlude seamless for the school community. We are confident that Andrew and his administrative colleagues will keep the school moving forward and in good order. When Cathy returns, the school will be into its phase of “seconds”: its second high school admissions season, its second major fundraising campaign (“Build-ing Friends”), planning for its second graduation, and its second decade in existence. We look forward to her return and wish her the best on her winter explorations. Sincerely, Staci Slaughter and Koof KalksteinCo-Clerks of the Board

San Francisco Friends SchoolOctober 20, 2011

Sixth Grade Swings High at Skylark RanchTo the tune of “Blackbird” (with apologies to Paul McCartney and Kent Jue)

Banana slugs crawlin’ in the rainy slime,Take this endless rain and learn to slide. All your life, you were only waiting for the sixth grade to arrive.Banana slugs slime, banana slugs slime,Into the light of the weak sunshine.

The singing of these original lyrics was only one of the many outstanding performances at the annual Spoken Word Night up at Skylark Ranch in Pescadero last week. Despite relentless rain showers dur-ing the day, we managed to squeeze in a campfire each night. Highlights at the campfires included Tracie’s pirate story, the poetry recitations with s’mores, and, of course, the early humans rituals from drama class.

Our spirits were not dampened by the weather! On Thursday, the high ropes course, now an annual rite of passage for SFFS sixth graders, chal-lenged students to climb a 30-foot pole and leap (belayed by peers and instructors, of course), to soar through the trees on the “flying squirrel” apparatus, and to climb a tree and cross a bridge with missing links high above the forest floor. Students learned how to belay each other and worked in teams of four with a guide to practice the skills before support-ing their peers in meeting a personal goal.

Low ropes coursework engaged groups in teamwork puzzles like the whale watch and the marble challenge. All groups were able to experience both the high and low ropes courses despite the rain. Inside activities included drying out socks, writing letters to second grade buddies, creating a cave art mural of the trip in silence, and listening to chapters of our current read aloud, Operation Redwood.

Our partners on the trip, Naturalists at Large, worked with students to set up and break down each meal. Burgers, burritos, bagels and brownie bites were our main sustenance along with handfuls of trail mix and apples grabbed between activities. We can happily report that no critters were discovered visiting the tent cabins, and that Violet and Liam are available to help any arachnophobes in our community!

The camping trip ended with a gorgeous sunny morning at the beach. Students reflected on their hopes and fears for the trip in their Writer’s Notebooks, and we joined together for a meeting for worship before heading back to the city. Sentiments of appreciation for each other, for our NAL guides, and for the teachers were received with many SFFS “con-nection” signs around the circle. This trip sneaks up on us early in the sixth grade year, but we welcome the opportunity to know our students more completely by spending a few days outside learning together.

- Chris, Don, Evelyn, Mick, Kristen, and Tracie

Two weeks ago, the school was thrilled to launch Building Friends, SFFS’s campaign to raise $6.5 million to fund three Friends Com-munity Scholars per middle school grade and complete the buildout of the third floor with music rooms, language labs, a black-box theater and a learning commons. The SFFS community responded with its usual chorus of enthusiasm, energy and drive – one particularly excited parent offered to start hammer-ing drywall. And, while union rules might prevent such literal hands-on participation by parents, never let it be said that SFFS doesn’t let everyone roll up their metaphorical sleeves. Because that’s exactly how we are going to build Friends: one SFFS family at a time.

When the San Francisco Friends School embarks on a project as big and exciting as Building Friends, we sit down with each and every family – personally and individu-ally – to talk to them about the campaign, give them a personal-ized tour of this existing space and enlist their support. With nearly 300 SFFS families, it is an ambitious goal – but no more so than asking kindergartners to sit in silence or seventh graders to reach consen-sus.

And our experience shows that going granular on these meetings is worth the effort. In the Light the Way campaign that built our

beautiful home at 250 Valencia, we took on the unprecedented goal of 100% participation – both in terms of pledges and individual meet-ings. The physical results are obvi-ous. Equally important is the sense of ownership that every Light the Way family feels toward the school and the community as a result of that rite of passage. Although the school has nearly doubled in the short time since Light the Way, it is just as committed to its goal of 100% participation.

We have a group of amazing volunteers eager to take on the challenge of meeting with nearly 300 SFFS families. Between them, Building Friends volunteers have children in every SFFS grade. Some are experienced fundraisers; others were just inspired by the vision of the campaign. They are all eager to talk more about the buildout and Friends Community Scholars. And when they tell you they don’t just want your pledge form, they mean it: they want to meet with you per-sonally – ideally, with both partners in our soon-to-be construction site, where they can fully explain the program and answer your ques-tions. But they are also happy to meet with you at home, or near work during the middle of the day, or on a Saturday in the park, if that’s more convenient. The Building Friends committee will begin by contacting those families who have not yet had the

pleasure of sitting down over archi-tectural plans to discuss the future of the school and the vision for the community. First on the list are the families who arrived in 2009, just after Light the Way concluded – largely second grade families and a few in older classes. Next come those who arrived in 2010 – mostly first and third grade families. By early 2012, the committee plans to be meeting with kindergarten families and others who arrived just this year – time enough, we hope, for them to catch their breath after the excitement of starting a new school. Once these families have had their chance to participate in this rite of passage, the committee will reach out to the Light the Way families. Our goal, as always, is that every SFFS family has the chance to discuss how to steward the school into its second decade.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about Building Friends – or just can’t wait your turn to talk about the campaign – please feel free to contact the development office or one of the co-clerks. We look forward to speaking with you soon.

- Fred Chung (Milo-3 and Ben-K)- Shannon Cogen (Jack-6 and Tess-3)- Justine Sears (James-3 and Viv-1)

San Francisco Friends SchoolOctober 20, 2011

Building Friends in 300 Easy Steps