Newsletter #18

Dear Parents,

This week, as we are about to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy with our students, school communities should reflect on more than Martin Luther King's civil rights record, but also examine whether their schools are living up to his "dream" for education. We invite all of you to go back to the "Purpose of Education", written by Martin Luther, Jr. at Morehouse College in 1947.

Read "The Purpose of Education" shared in our Newsletter 2 years ago

There is much to find in the legacy of Dr. King's words that aligns with our UNIS Mission. Today, I encourage everyone, parents, teachers and students to reflect on this thought:

"As a result of our increasing sophistication and to build our civilization, we have created and environment so complex, so fast-paced, and information-laden, that we must increasingly deal with it in the fashion of the animals we long ago transcended. Thus, [...] we can understand that the media does more than presentation facts and information."*

It is critical to support students in developing their ability to identify the media and social media persuasive tactics of spreading "ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person"*. The assemblies devoted to Martin Luther King Jr. this week should therefore not only be about the celebration of his fight for social rights, but an opportunity for all of us to recognize how propaganda and lies can, in very subtle ways, change contextual understanding for the untrained eye. "In a sense, the main theme of prevention is awareness; understand the situation and act accordingly. Only through this can one recognize persuasive tactics in propaganda and how they shape our beliefs."*

Supporting this awareness is tremendously important, from Pre-K through grade 12, for our students, for their success, and to provide them with the tools to, one day, tomorrow, make a better World.

Pascal Vallet, Junior School Principal

Susan Scullin, Junior School Principal Assistant

* Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade People's Attitude, Beliefs and Behaviors, Johnnie Manzaria & Jonathon Bruck, War & Peace: Media and War, Stanford Univeristy

IMPORTANT DATES

EVENTS THIS WEEK

UPCOMING EVENTS

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

INFORMATION: COMPOST CLUB NEWS

Hello, parents of the Junior School.

If you were wondering what this club is let us explain. We were just two J4 students with a dream to make the school, other schools and our planet better. Now we are in M1 and it came true, we are now running a compost club with the help of Ms. Fico. This club is on Wednesday mornings for J4s’ and J3s’. This week we worked on learning how to sort things into the correct bins and how they can be resourceful to our planet.  We split the kids into groups 5 and 4 and they had 3-4 minutes to sort everything in the right order. They had 4 categories landfill, compost, recycled plastic, and recycled paper. We encourage you to do this at home with your child or children to learn about what should or shouldn’t go in the boxes and get into good habits of learning it.  

Zoe and Renee M1

BIT OF NEWS: JS TECH LEADERS 

On December 14 some of our JS Tech Leaders and their parents attended the Scratch Day event at Teachers College Columbia University. We all had a great time learning together!

BIT OF NEWS: TOILETRY BAGS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED!

On December 14, a group of 40 UNIS students and families volunteered at the Community of Hope soup kitchen, where we handed out the toiletry bags that were made after the drive.  Before the visit, our students decorated and packed over 80 bags filled with useful items from your generous donations. Below are some snapshots and the thank you letter from Community of Hope. 

BIT OF NEWS: ADVERTISE IN THE MATILDA PLAYBILL

Interested in sending a shout out to a cast member in the Matilda playbill? Want your business to be seen by the 2,400 people that will be seeing Matilda? Advertising in the playbill not only gets your message seen by thousands, but supports the Theatre Program at UNIS. 

BIT OF NEWS: A FESTIVAL OF ORCHESTRAS CONCERT AT CARNEGIE HALL - SUNDAY, JANUARY 26

A Festival of Orchestras concert at Carnegie Hall on January 26 at 2:00pm will feature our Wind Ensemble and Tut House Strings/Jazz Band. Tickets can be purchased at Carnegie Hall's website, and UNIS families can purchase tickets for $25 with the special promo code UNI32854

REMINDER: INFORMATION: JS TOY SALE, JANUARY 24TH -  BRING ON THE TOYS!

Any unwanted toys or games taking up space at your house? Let's find them a loving new home and honor the spirit of 'Greening the Blue' by handing them over to another happy owner.

We will gratefully take all gently used toys off your hands for our beloved JS Toy Sale (except stuffed toys). Please make sure that all toys or games with small pieces are intact and well secured. No one wants broken toys or games and puzzles with missing pieces. Thank You! Collections in the UNIS lobby will take place from Tuesday, January 21st to Thursday the 23rd – three days only!

The JS students will visit the Toy Sale with their homeroom teachers on Friday, January 24th. Please send your child to school with a shopping bag (again: Greening the Blue) and $5 to spend.

This highly popular event is only possible with the help of many parent volunteers! Please click the link for volunteering and join the fun!

REMINDER: SAVE THE DATE - UNIS FUNDRAISER GALA ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28

Happy Near Year and welcome back from winter break! I hope you are as excited as we are about our upcoming UNIS Fundraiser Gala on Friday, February 28, 2020 at the Prince George Ballroom. We look forward to welcoming you to this celebration.

It is your commitment to UNIS that will make this an event full of fun, energy, and excitement. I look forward to seeing you there.

Don't delay! Buy your tickets today!

REMINDER: LOST AND FOUND UPDATED POLICY

UNIS has implemented new lost and found procedures. Lost and found items will be collected weekly and displayed on racks just outside the front door of the school every Monday, and any unretrieved items will be donated on Friday. Items that are collected after Monday will remain in the lost and found crate by the playground doors until the following week. Any items that are not retrieved from the racks by the front doors after a week of display, will be deposited in our RefashionNYC Bin. RefashionNYC is NYC's official clothing reuse program in partnership with NYC Department of Sanitation and Housing Works to make textile donations to those in need. Once items are deposited into the RefashionNYC bin, we cannot retrieve them.

We ask that you please label all clothing, lunch boxes and water bottles. Labeled items will be delivered to the appropriate school office to be reunited with their owners. Please note that unlabeled lunch boxes and unlabeled water bottles will be discarded at the end of each week. We will no longer set out lost and found during parent teacher conferences. Please stop by the racks on your way in and out of school to retrieve items and ask your children to check for any lost items. 

REMINDER: UPDATE YOUR PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION

Please take the time now to review your family profile and contact information to ensure that your cell phone numbers, email addresses and home address are correct. You may update your information at any point throughout the year, but if you have not reviewed your information since the school year began, we encourage you to do it today. 

All departments at UNIS, including the Nurse, rely on the information that you provide in the Veracross Parent Portal to contact you. The only way you can be reached in an emergency is through the information that you have entered in the Portal. After logging in to the Portal at myunis.vc , you may review and update all of your family contact information by:

If you need support in order to make your updates, please email veracross@unis.org

REMINDER: UPDATE YOUR CHILD’S DISMISSAL PLANS

Our homeroom teachers follow the instructions entered by parents in School Dismissal Manager each day. Please update your SDM account to indicate what the plans are for your child for each day of the week.

SDM is the only way of letting your homeroom teacher know where your child should go at 2:55 dismissal. In addition to indicating that there is an Athletic or After School Activity, you must enter a description of the activity in the box below. If the activity name is not entered in SDM your child may be placed in the Care Program instead.