by Lural Ramirez | May 2, 2018
This May 17th there is an extraordinary meeting of the FV General Assembly. Our annual meeting is held every October and is set up as a time to review the school’s finances and to report yearly achievements. Each year, we hold an extraordinary assembly in order to make big financial decisions for the coming school year. This meeting specifically focuses on any decision related to tuition increases for the coming school year. All parents are invited and expected to attend this important meeting.
This year, we are modifying the dates and procedures related to the registration process for the coming year and the following school years. This is a big change for families who have been with us for many years and I want to take the time to explain the reasons behind this big change.
For years, Futuro Verde has given priority for registration to recurring families up until the month of December of the current school year. The new process does not give such a long priority period for registration of returning students. The reason we have made this change is simple and is two-fold.
- Futuro Verde operates financially based almost exclusively on tuition payments. All of us have big expenses in the month of December and leaving the window for registration for recurring families open until December means that Futuro Verde confronts a yearly struggle to meet our financial needs during the closing month of the school year. Confirming registration for the coming school year half way through the current school year allows us to meet our December financial obligations with less stress.
- Futuro Verde is growing every year and multiple grade levels are wait-listed for the 2019 school year already. Making accurate projections for staffing and building needs has to happen for Futuro Verde much earlier than December and families who are wait-listed also need confirmation far earlier in the year than December.
Below, I will detail for you once again (this was sent already in an email) the different processes and dates associated with this change. I remind you that tuition price proposals for next year will be shared, discussed and voted upon during our meeting on May 17th.
- Priority, reduced-rate pre-registration window for the 2019 school year: June 1st-July 31st.
- Scholarship applications are received: June 1st-15th
- Scholarship applications will be reviewed: June 16th- July 13th
- Scholarships will be announced: the week of July 17th.
- August 1st: Pre-registration period, with discount in registration price, ends. Wait-listed students can register for the new school year. (current students lose priority for their spot unless they have paid their 2019 registration).
- August 1st on: Registration price discount ends.
If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the administrative team and we are happy to meet with you to discuss your concerns directly.
Thank you for your understanding and support of this important change in support of the proper functioning of our school!
by Melissa Kovics | May 2, 2018
Big Apple here we come! We are only days away from an exciting Futuro Verde fundraising event in New York!
On May 7th we will proudly host the Futuro Verde Benefit reception at the prestigious CORE: club in New York City. The fundraiser will benefit our Capital Campaign and Student Scholarship program.
I will be accompanied by several parents, board members and staff. Two of our amazing scholarship students, Elian and Mateo, will also be speaking at the event. We are so proud of their bravery and enthusiasm to make this journey far from home.
We’ve lined up a distinguished guest list of potential donors, great food and a live auction. We look forward to a successful event and our hope is to continue these fundraisers annually.
Thanks so much to all the parent volunteers who have helped make this event happen! We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you all! The Futuro Verde community is a special group. Thanks for all the support.
Pura Vida!
by Angie Briceño | Apr 29, 2018
On April 23rd, we celebrated Earth Day at Futuro Verde with costumes, activities and workshops. Thanks to the collaboration of students, parents and friends, Refugio Romelia, Cabo Blanco Reserva Absoluta and ASVO achieved the first, second and third place respectively, reaching 1,000 dollars raised before the closing date of the competition, April 27th.
It is with great enthusiasm that we share with you how the beneficiary organizations will use the funds raised at Futuro Verde:
Refugio Romelia can now afford to remunerate the volunteer coordinator for the coming turtle season, starting in June and ending in January. Refugio Romelia coordinators are interns graduated in Biology or a related field of studies who have had previous experiences with turtles. They travel to Refugio Romelia as volunteers from other countries and receive $ 200 per month as a token of appreciation for their work protecting the species.
The funds raised for Cabo Blanco Reserva Absoluta will go towards repairing the public trail bridge and hosting ecological camps on site.
ASVO will use the donation to repair and finish the turtle hatchery, which is very important because it provides a safe and comfortable place where volunteers perform their duties and which serves as a patrol headquarters, both at night and during the day. They will also purchase research and environmental education materials.
The rest of the donations will go towards the Futuro Verde multipurpose sports field fund. Thanks to the initiative of our fourth grade student Margaret Holland and her companions Sofía Morales and Naomy Delgado, we will be able to sterilize and provide a better quality of life to our two school cats.
We thank all the people who supported both the students and the organizations.
by Katie Chiaverini | Apr 28, 2018
Living things grow and change. Futuro Verde first and second graders are seeing that first-hand through our new addition…the chickens. We started out with just two hens in hopes that we could see the whole life cycle over time. Now, with support of Futuro Verde staff, the environmental education program, and high school students, we have been able to create a larger, safer area for more chickens. The first and second graders get to visit the ten chickens, a mix of ages and types, including a rooster, and two little chicks several times a week.
According to Mark Ritchie, Ph.D., the Executive Director of the International Development Studies Institute, ¨Experiential learning — learning by doing with reflection — presents the educator with a tool that can both engage the learner with complicated material, and help illustrate the complexity of real world ecological and human systems.¨ This is exactly what I am seeing in our students – engagement paired with learning complicated science standards! Usually, the first question of the day is “when do we get to see the chickens?!”
The students are responsible for providing fresh water, leftover food from the kitchen, and cracked corn for the chickens. We are learning what items they like best through observation. The students are also learning how to safely handle the chickens by staying calm and waiting for the chickens to approach them – patience is often a difficult feat for such young children but they are succeeding! Through observation and reflection, we are looking at body parts and their functions, patterns of behavior, inheritance of traits, the stages of development within the life cycle and applying critical thinking skills. These are complicated topics for six to eight-year-olds, but when using the basic steps of experiential learning: Act, Reflect, Reframe and Apply, the students are able to grasp these concepts and problem solve any issues that might arise with the chickens. Beyond the science standards, the language development that comes from this hands-on experience is amazing – vocabulary development which begins orally in the interactions with the chickens to written application in their journal reflections.
If you run into a Futuro Verde first or second grade student, ask about the chickens…I am sure they will have a lot to talk about!
by Stuart Millar, IB coordinator | Apr 27, 2018
“I didn’t like it … I LOVED it!” is something you often hear Simon Cowell say on Britain’s Got Talent. It was the same for us with our first FVGT last year! Magicians, singers, dancers, and even juggling teachers. We had it all!
Now get ready for a whole week of talent. Literary and visual art entries will be on display during the week, with the culminating event being Futuro Verde’s Got Talent on Friday 15/6/18. Students will be able to enter Costa Rica’s student arts festival, assuming they meet all the event requirements.
Here are the important dates and information:
- May 3rd: last day to register for auditions
- May 8th – 11th: FV’s Got Talent auditions
- May 14th: registration for FEA
- June 1st: last day to submit Visual and Literary Arts
- June 11th -15th: talent week (Visual and Literary Arts exhibition)
- June 15th: Futuro Verde’s Got Talent!
The show will have the following categories:
- Preschool to 2nd grade
- 3rd grade to 6th grade
- 7th grade to 11th grade
Inspire and motivate your children to get involved. It’s going to be great fun!
by Eileen Walschmidt | Apr 24, 2018
Centro Educativo Futuro Verde is very fortunate to have two outstanding educators be the Keynote speakers for this year’s 4th Annual International Conference on Bilingual, Holistic, and Sustainable Education: Ken Winograd and Melinda Winograd.
Dr. Ken Winograd has experience teaching every elementary grade, Kindergarten-5th grade, in the United States, including a non-graded primary class. He also has international teaching and consulting experience in Japan, Norway, Vietnam, and Costa Rica. While in Costa Rica, he studied the literacy practices in Costa Rican elementary schools. Dr. Winograd has taught courses and published academic articles and books that address the emotional dimensions of teaching, critical literacy, and enhancing children’s resilience in a world of environmental crises. This last focus of Dr. Winograd’s work will have special interest for Futuro Verde parents because he has researched ways in which teachers and parents can help respond to their children’s possible fears and emotions as they try to process the news they hear about current global environmental crises with climate change. Dr. Winograd has recently retired from OSU but has kept active with part-time teaching in the OSU Honors College and in political action groups focusing on environmental issues.
Melinda Winograd has been a teacher in education for 42 years and is now teaching kindergarten. In the past 5 years, she has been involved in taking coursework and learning about teaching mindfulness to students and educators. Ms. Winograd has taught mindfulness practices to her kindergarten students and for professional development opportunities with teachers K-12. She is currently in a Mindfulness course about non-violent communication based on Marshall Rosenberg’s work. She says that it has already had an impact on her interactions with students and that it is amazing how the kindergarten students are using the practices as well. Ms. Winograd’s work will be of interest to not just Futuro Verde teachers, but also Futuro Verde parents because mindfulness practices have been shown to have a positive impact on students’ emotional, social, and academic progress in school.
We are very excited, and we are looking forward to, all that we can learn from Dr. Ken Winograd and Ms. Melinda Winograd’s experiences with and expertise in these important educational issues.
