Friday Focus

A BIG thanks goes to the Arias family for all their help at school! They've helped clean all the windows in our classrooms plus help pulling up weeds around campus--all to help us get ready for our school evaluation on November 15 and 16.

Operation Christmas Child

Shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child have already begun to get turned in. Thanks for all your help with this special project as we share God's love with those less fortunate than us. Shoeboxes need to be turned in by Monday, November 14.

More About Operation Christmas Child...

Veterans Day

There is no school next Friday, November 11. We'll be closed in honor of Veterans Day.

Explore Veterans Day with your kids...

Work Bee on November 13

Our next work bee is scheduled for Sunday, November 13, to complete some projects around campus. Your help is needed to help complete a few projects.

A pizza lunch will be provided that day.

"How Can I Help?"...

School Evaluation

A visiting committee will be on campus November 15 and 16. They are here as a part of our accreditation process.

On Wednesday evening they will be sharing their report with us. You are welcome to join us at 5:30 pm for this event--come and hear what we'll be focusing on in the future.

Supper will be provided that evening.

Review "Journey to Excellence"...

Thanksgiving Vacation

Our school will be closed November 21-25 for Thanksgiving Vacation.

Extended care is available on Monday and Tuesday (November 21 and 22) from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm.

Enjoy the weekend!

Thanksgiving Fun...

Thank You, Rosa Parks

Not everybody in the world is selfish and mean. It would be overly cynical to say that everybody is unkind. It would even be false to say that everybody is prejudiced toward his or her "own kind" or racist. But it is possible for mean, unkind, and racist sentiments to exist – even for us to institutionalize them by law.

In spite of the pride I take in being an American citizen, I am embarrassed by this country's history of racist attitudes and behavior toward Native Americans, Africans brought here to be slaves, and other ethnic groups. Yes, progress has been made. But there are still problems. We dare not stop working on them.

Because of the color of my skin, I was born to privilege. I had educational and social options others did not have. As a child, I was born to a situation I did not create and did not know even existed. That was just the way things were. Then, when I was 10 years old, something happened that changed everything.

A 42-year-old woman on the fifth row of a bus chose to remain in her seat, when the bus driver demanded she give it up to a male passenger who had just boarded. The issue at stake in Montgomery, Alabama, that day was not male chivalry toward a woman. It was racial segregation. It was humiliation of a human being. It was unjust law. For the woman was black, and the man was white.

It was December 1, 1955. A married seamstress was on her way home from work and using her city's public transportation. "I did not get on the bus to get arrested," she said later. "I got on the bus to go home." By Montgomery's statutes, she was required to give up her seat on the front row of the "Colored Section" when the whites-only section was full and another white person boarded.

When she refused to move that day, a bus boycott was sparked in Montgomery and the Civil Rights Movement launched in America. Many persons have been more public, vocal, and famous over the subsequent history of that movement, but it started with her principled act. Her dignity. Her courage.

What she began that day has made some of the people who weren't so mean, unkind, or racist sensitive to injustices that had been taken for granted. And they have changed their own minds and actions. Together, they have helped changed laws and a whole society. What she began also put on display the evil that was entrenched in some of our citizens – even some racist church leaders.

Rosa Parks forced us to face up to an evil. She gave us the chance to repent. In her death now, she reminds us of goals we have yet to achieve.

--Rubel Shelly