Tuesday 3/16: Publishing Party, 6:15 – 7:15 p.m.

Wednesday 3/17: Meeting with Chancellor Rhee about Middle Schools, 5-6:30 p.m.

Joe Corbi pick-up, 2:30 – 6 p.m.

Friday 3/26: Early dismissal – school ends at 12:15 p.m.

March 29 – April 5: Spring Break

School resumes on Tuesday April 6

Chancellor Rhee Comes to Brent to Discuss Middle School: Chancellor Rhee will be meeting with the Brent community on Wednesday, March 17 to discuss middle school options and what comes after 5^th grade for Brent students. We encourage every member of the Brent community to attend the meeting in the multi-purpose room from 5-6:30 p.m. on Wednesday so the Chancellor will see that Brent is intensely focused on middle schools. Child care will be provided during the meeting, featuring entertainment by the Great Zucchini. Dinner will be available after the meeting finishes at 6:30 p.m. If you’d like to learn more about Brent’s effort to create additional middle school options or have ideas to share, please contact Ruey Timberg at rtimberg@gmail.com or Daniel Holt at Daniel.holt@mail.house.gov.

Joe Corbi Pick-Up on Wednesday: Thanks to everyone who participated in the Joe Corbi fundraiser! We earned $3,954 in profits, which will support Brent’s schoolyard greening programs, and we donated 105 pizzas and one tub of cookie dough to the Capital Area Food Bank. The winners of the individual sales contest were Andre Carter, from Ms. Harding-Wright’s pre-k 4 class ($805 in sales), followed by Kirbi Walker in Ms. Hill’s 3rd grade class ($642) and Nevaeh Garrett in Ms. Pressman’s 2^nd grade class ($614.50). Ms. Harding-Wright’s and Ms. Hill’s classes had the highest sales and will both receive an ice cream party. Pick-up your Joe Corbi items from 2:30-6 p.m. this Wednesday March 17; all items that are not picked up will be donated to the Food Bank.

Brent Publishing Party: Support Brent’s young authors at the Publishing Party on Tuesday March 16 from 6:15 – 7:15 p.m. Enjoy performances in the multi-purpose room, then visit the K-5 classrooms and hear students talk about the books they have written in class. You’ll have an opportunity to get autographs from the young authors, learn about their work, and celebrate their publishing success!

International Night Success: Thanks to everyone who participated in another excellent International Night! The food was delicious and incredibly diverse (and quickly disappeared!), the performances were wonderful, and the kids did such a great job in the fashion show (see photo). Thanks to all of the families who brought food, clothes and cultural items and helped with the festivities. Ms. Homayoun would like to give a special thanks to Ana Townsend, as well as Donna Holley-Beasley, Jessica Smith, Lisa Perry, Bettina Schewe, Ruey Timberg, Anne Webb, Heidi Johnson, Melanie Baskurt, Ms. McDowell and the Glee Club, Ms. Basralian, Ms. Rouse and Ms. Levin – and to everyone who helped make it a memorable evening! Did you leave wishing you had a bigger stomach in order to taste more of the exotic culinary creations? If so, tune in next week for more details about the First Annual Brent International Cookbook Fundraiser. If you presented a dish at the event or have favorite recipes from your ethnic heritage, please send a copy of your recipe with your name, the country it represents, any interesting cultural or personal stories about your dish and phone number to Melissa Williams at melwilliams5@verizon.net. She’ll be gathering recipes and Ms. Homayoun’s class has offered to illustrate a cookbook that we can sell as a fundraiser for the school. More to come about the Brent cookbook next week.

Springtime in the Garden: The flowers are starting to bloom in the Brent gardens! The tulips and crocus that were donated by the Capitol Hill Garden Club and planted in the fall are starting to bloom, along with the tulips in the rain garden that Brent mom Astrid Fitzgerald brought from Holland. You’ll also see tulips peeking up by the mural wall and several varieties of daffodils in the butterfly garden. Thanks to Arya Civil Engineering for repairing the rain garden fence for free. Be careful, and enjoy the flowers!

Recycling Update: Brent Recyclebots are hard at work making sure that we are all doing our part to reduce, reuse and recycle! Please be sure to recycle paper, plastics and milk cartons in your offices and classrooms. Every classroom should have a recycling bin and a Recyclebots sign. Please place recycling bins outside your classroom door before recess on Tuesdays and Fridays so that our Recyclebots can take them to the toters in the stairwells (or lend a helping hand and empty the canisters in the toters yourselves). Toters are taken to the recycling dumpsters adjacent to the teachers’ parking lot. Everyone can do their part to help out, so please encourage staff members, students and guests to recycle at Brent! Questions? Please contact Ms. McGonagle or Ms. Pierce.

Help Sponsor the Gala: Do you work for or know of a local business or organization that may be interested in supporting Brent’s Gala? We encourage all Brent families to help the Gala committee identify donors, corporations, organizations and businesses to become official sponsors of Brent’s 2010 Gala. Benefits of sponsorship include tickets to the event, placement of an ad/logo on the Brent Web site and in our Gala program, mention of the sponsor’s name by the MC at the event, and more! For additional information on sponsorship, please see the attached flyer that you are free to distribute. The flyer can also be found on the Brent Neighbors Yahoo page under: Files (left margin), 2010 Brent Gala, “Gala 2010 sponsor flyer.pdf.” And don’t forget to purchase your tickets to the Gala, which will be held on April 17 at 6 p.m. at St. Mark’s Church (118 3^rd St., SE.) Proceeds will help pay for our physical education teacher, Chinese program, enrichment classes, classroom supplies, professional development and other important projects. Tickets can be purchased at www.brentelementary.org/fundraisers or from Julie Santoboni at (202) 607-6762 or jsantoboni@gmail.com.

Before Care Procedures: Before care is a fun program that attracts about 20 children every day and it only costs $50 per month to make it affordable to everyone who needs it. Students may arrive in Ms. Levin’s room as early as 7:15 a.m. and are supervised there until free breakfast is served in the cafeteria at 8 a.m. But many families are forgetting to pay the monthly fee, and the PTA is losing money by offering this service. If your child uses the before care services, please submit your $50 check to Brent PTA each month by dropping it in the green mailbox in the office. Children who are in the school building before 8 a.m. must report directly to Ms. Levin’s classroom (118), where they can be supervised, until they go to the cafeteria at 8 a.m.

Quality Family Time: Kids’ Book Fair and History Day, The Lyceum, Alexandria’s History Museum (201 South Washington St., Alexandria, Va.), Saturday March 20 from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Enjoy a book fair with Usborne Books, become history sleuths on a scavenger hunt, and explore what life was like in Alexandria 200 years ago during walking tours at 11:30 and 1:30 p.m. Book fair is free; walking tours cost $2 for ages 7 and up. For more information, see www.alexandriahistory.org. Elvis! Newseum (555 Pennsylvania Ave., NW). This new exhibit opens Friday March 19 and looks back at the impact Elvis Presley had on music, popular culture and free expression. See www.newseum.org. Environmental Film Festival, March 16-28, features 155 films at 56 venues throughout Washington, DC, including several films of interest to kids, such as Up, Food Fantasies (a selection of children’s films), Jonathan Bird’s Blue World, American Eagle, and the Path of the Condor. Visit www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org for a schedule (click on kid-friendly under “search films”).

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