Handwashing!

Flu season is upon us and I hope that you all are well. We are trying to teach the children proper hand washing procedures. We have talked to some students who don't wash their hands in public restrooms or when they use the restroom at home. We also have some students who don't have soap in their bathrooms at home. We know that hand washing can be messy, but it is the best flu preventive we have! Please work with your children to turn on the faucet, wet their hands, get one squirt of soap, make bubbles (before they put their hands back under the running water,) lather the fronts and backs of both hands while singing the ABC song, rinse their hands, get a paper towel, dry hands and use the towel to turn off the water. Of course, you set the best example by using the proper hand washing procedure yourself! Thank you for partnering with us to stay healthy this year.

School Canceled 3/27/2009

AMA will be closed on Friday, March 27 due to snow forcast! The snow make-up day will be held on Monday, April 13. Please stay safe and warm and I hope that you are not standing in line at the grocery store! We hope to see you all at the open house on Sunday, the 29th from 2:00 to 4:00 PM.

I just wanted to write a note to explain our re-enrollment process and our new tuition structure. The AMA board voted to keep the tuition for the 2009-2010 school year the same as this year! Yeah! We do have a change in the payment structure however.

During the month of March we will be re-enrolling our currently enrolled students and their siblings for the summer of 2009 and the school year 2009-2010. Older siblings and former students up to eight years old can enroll for the summer program. Children six weeks through six years can enroll for the school year.

Our summer program will run for ten weeks from June 1 through August 7 with a holiday on July 3. The registration fee for the summer program is $75. Summer tuition will be paid in two equal payments that are due on the first of June and the first of July. Right now we are only enrolling children for the school day or the all day program. (Requests for half-day will be considered at the end of the enrollment period.)

The 2009-2010 school year will begin on August 24th. The school will be closed for maintenance and teacher in-service from August 10 through August 21. The re-registration fee for returning students is $125 and new students pay $250 to register. The school year tuition will be paid in nine equal payments instead of ten and will be due on September first instead of August first.

If you plan to enroll your child for June 2009 through May 2010, you can pay tuition in twelve equal payments. Those payments will be due on the first of each of twelve months starting June first. We hope that this will make budgeting easier for families who plan to attend school in the summer and during the school year.

Our Annual Open House will be held on Sunday, March 29th from 2-4 PM. Our currently enrolled families have until that day to pay the enrollment fees and reserve their spot for summer and the school year. We will open enrollment to the public during the first week in April.

Enrollment forms are available on the admission page of our website, www.amarillomontessori.com. We are so pleased that you have chosen AMA for your family and we would like for each child to be able to return this summer and in the fall. If you have any questions please feel free to call the office at 353-3871.

Prospective Board Members

Our annual Meeting of the Members of the Amarillo Montessori Academy will be held this Monday night at Jason's Deli. The business portion of the meeting will begin at 6:45. We will be electing new board members at this meeting. 

The prospective board members are: Craig Brewton, our current board treasurer. He is the father of a child in room 1 and a child in room 4. Sabiha Shareef, who is a former teacher at AMA. She works as a medical technologist. Corey Burns (I'm at home so I hope I spelled that right) who is a job coach and small business specialist and has a child in room 3. 

We are so thankful that these folks have agreed to donate their time to the school. I hope that you can make time to attend our annual meeting on Monday.