Currents

Snippets
WATERSHED High School
2344 Nicollet Avenue South, 3rd Floor, 612.871.4363
http://www.watershedhs.org
December 5, 2006

Our mission is to nurture the intellect and embrace the creative potential of youth in a balanced environment that engenders reverence, respect and responsibility for nature and the needs of human beings.

Upcoming Events:
(See SIPS/Centerpoint and our website for more calendar information)

Dec 6
Community Council Meeting – 6:15pm

Dec 8
Watershed 4th Annual Art Opening

Dec 14-16
The Innocents, a Watershed Studio Production

Dec 18
Watershed Basketball Game

Dec 21
Last Day of Block 3; Last Day of School for 2006

Jan 10
Jane Healy lecture

Community Council Update
Watershed: Because it Works!
Endel Kallas, Community Council Co-Chair

In the welcoming remarks at the All School Meeting/Financial Forum last Wednesday night, attendees were invited to listen closely and look carefully throughout the evening for glimpses of the greatness essential to realizing Watershed’s significant promise as a Waldorf methods charter high school. Those who accepted this invitation were not disappointed. They witnessed passion and sincerity in the testimony of current and past parents whose students had been well-served (even saved!) by this school, the courage and sacrifice of unselfish faculty and staff in cutting costs without sacrificing the integrity of our programs, and heard the honesty and wisdom of our board as it shared and opened up the possibility of all the initiatives aimed at addressing our substantial–but surmountable—challenges. Throughout all there was evidence of the extraordinary qualities that make this school work and further, are the key to our future. In a memo circulated the following day, one board member observed, “I think we all realize that something opened up last night paving the way for prosperity and abundance to flow into the school…”

Please join us in building upon the energy and momentum realized last Wednesday evening and join everyone at Community Council this Wednesday, December 6th , 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. for a meeting and a celebration of Watershed High School. You can also visit or revisit some of the highlights from last Wednesday by logging on to the Watershed website and following these links:

*Agenda: Watershed High School Annual Financial Forum 20006-07

*Watershed High School Mission and Vision Statement 2006-07
http://watershedhs.org/currents/lyceum/doclib/archives/207

*Transcript of Closing Remarks (Letter from Linda Weber, Parent of Ayla Weber, Class of 2008)
http://watershedhs.org/currents/lyceum/doclib/archives/206

Administrative Changes at Watershed
Christina Beck

December. All at once, the cold and darkness wrap us up with the clear intention to bring us back to our core. I marvel at the plant world…their ability to literally die, restore their forces and prepare to renew. Almost all of our “light” hours will be spent in school this month as the darkness increases. And so, what an opportunity arises! Our attention will be called in many directions as we take on the challenge of truly “self-administrating” as a faculty. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, saw this mode of operation as an ideal; that the people who worked at the school would have a collaborative relationship in the running of it. It is also a strong value of the charter school movement, which requires the majority of the Board to be comprised of licensed teachers working at the school.

Please do not hesitate to call on us with your ideas or concerns. Listed below is a general list of newly added areas of responsibility for staff that you can contact during this period of interim administration, which is scheduled to last until July 1, 2007.

Overarching general administration: Christina Beck
Front Desk volunteering, Site Contact: Jamie Hepner
Finance & Operations: Ingunn Henrikssen
Development: Mark McGarraugh
Snippets Faculty Contact: Anne Crampton
Maintenance: Connie Gretsch
Lunch: Mark McGarraugh or Kjerstin Gurda

This list is by no means comprehensive. We will all continue with our current duties and more. Thank you for your support as we reconfigure the administrator and front desk positions. If you have any time and are willing to volunteer at the school this winter, please call and let us know.

Annual Financial Forum Summary
Patricia Neal, Board Secretary

Over 40 parents, faculty, staff and board members met on 11/29 to hear reports on 1- the Watershed Vision created to fulfill the Mission Statement, 2- current financial condition, 3- faculty/curriculum updates, and to 4- kick off the Annual Fund for 2006-07. The evening concluded with clarifying questions from the parents to the faculty, staff and board.

It was an evening of education, illumination, community; of recognizing the wonderful students we have this year and the dedicated and loving faculty and staff that give their hearts and best intellect to every day.

(Note: See the new chart tracking fundraising progress on our Donations page. We’re already a third of the way toward our goal!)

Annual Watershed Art Department Annual Art Opening

Join us Friday, December 8 for a participatory student art how. See art! Make art! Even eat art! There will also be a Grand Prize Raffle for prizes, including a digital camcorder!

See you Friday night at 5:00 p.m.

Calling those who Sew: Help needed in Traditional Arts Classes

We need in-classroom sewing help is needed Monday – Thursday, 12:20-1:20 pm and 2:30 – 3:30 pm beginning immediately and continuing through the end of the semester on Jan. 26, 2007. (Not including winter break, Dec. 22 – Jan. 7.) Help is especially needed in the beginning, but help at any time will be most welcome.

We could also have need of the following donations:
-sewing machines
-fabric scissors
-irons
-needles
-thread
-laminator
-slide projector
-yarn

If you have any of these you are not using, need more information about the items requested, or can help with sewing, please contact Maggie at 612-871-4363 ext. 258, or email rozy0002 (at) umn.edu

Theatre Performance:
The Innocents: December 14, 15, 16

Tired of the holiday rush? Need to take a break from the stress of the season? Join in the Watershed Commons as our talented students perform “The Innocents,” a play based on the Henry James nouvella, “Turn of the Screw.” The Innocents is a rare, juicy melodrama filled with ghosts, forbidden passions, and mysterious happenings. The show begins at 7:00 p.m. nightly, Dec 14 – 16, and lasts about 90 minutes. Hot apple cider and other refreshments will be available. Requested donation: $3 for adults, $2 for students. All proceeds will fund this and future Watershed theater productions.

Theater Notions Needed:

We are gearing up for our December production of The Innocents, and our annual Medieval Feast coming in February 2007. Connie Gretsch, Special Ed teacher and costuming seamstress extraordinaire, has submitted a wish list for creative costume making. Please contact Connie at the school, extension 207 if you can provide any of the materials on the list or offer up some volunteer time in costuming. Donations can be left at the office marked “Connie.” Thank you!

-old formals and evening gowns
-long skirts long slips
-long night gowns
-maids’ hats
-long black gloves
-wigs
-combs
-brushes
-scissors
-hot glue guns
-hot glue sticks
-duct tape
-safety pins
-clothing dye, especially grays and blacks
-sewing needles
-thread
-working sewing machines
-volunteers to work on costumes (you do not have to be a seamstress for many of the costume jobs)
-volunteers to work on sets

Sports News
Bob Anderson

Basketball Season is up and running! Reminder to the players: Don’t forget to pay your sports dues! Practices are Mondays and Wednesdays after school. Also, rumor has it that there is a grass-roots effort to create a cheer squad. Our first game of the season is an away game December 18th. Signs in the school will provide exact locations about a week before the game. Parents, friends and students—come support the Watershed home team!!!

Special January Event: Jane Healy Lecture

Mark your calendars now for Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 for the Jane Healy lecture! The Twin Cities Waldorf Schools present a lecture by Jane Healy, member of the Alliance for Childhood. Jane M. Healy, PhD, has been an educational psychologist and professional educator for more than 35 years, with experience as a classroom teacher, University professor, reading and learning specialist, and elementary school administrator.

The author of three previous books, including the bestseller “Endangered Minds”, she frequently lectures and consults for public and private schools and parent groups. She is a parent and grandparent, and lives with her husband in Vail, Colorado.

Time and location TBA

Exchange Student Host Family Opportunity

Take advantage of an opportunity for building foreign language and cultural understanding by hosting a foreign student (11th & 12th graders) in your home from the end of Jan. till the end of the school year. Students are from Germany, Brazil, Columbia, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and other countries. Host families will receive a monthly stipend.

For more info, please contact Kim-Vu Friesen at South High School at 612-668-4372 or e-mail friesen (at) mpls.k12.mn.us

Illuminations
Sheila Weidendorf

from Rudolph Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul:

Can I conceive my being,
That it may find itself anew
Within my soul’s creative urge?
I sense, to me the force was given,
Unassumingly to integrate my Self
As a limb within the Self of worlds.

We are born into this earthly existence through the creative spark of our parents’ longing—for love, for union, for hope and other desires perhaps unnamed—and that of our soul’s longing for physical expression. And so here we are. Now what? We might ask, “What to do with this life?”

There are many moments in life when are are asked to “re-conceive” ourselves. Surely that happens when we become parents and take on the new role of lamp-bearer for another being. It happens when we find our work has become tedious, and we feel the spark of longing for a new expression of our “soul’s creative urge.” It can also happen when the needs of our community bid us go beyond our normal expression and do what needs doing for the greater good.

When I move through the craziness of my every day, I often joke (though it’s not really a joke!) “Am I only using my powers for good?” After all, I still have ego and fragments of floating psyche and no doubt a few unhealed wounds and maybe even self-satisfying desires that motivate me from time to time. Sometimes I’m not too concerned about the greater good; I just want to sit down, put my feet up and enjoy a glass of wine (Self of Worlds,you’re on your own for a little while!).

This time of year of dwindling light demands a little reflection, to be sure. But it can also be a time of action, a time to bring our outer life into alignment with our hopes and desires and dreams and intentions. And in light of the current needs of our school community, our own metaphorical “Self of Worlds,” it is a good time to bring our intentions and our actions to the task of bearing fruit for the sake of the greater good. In this light, it is time for each of us to “use our powers for good” for the sake of this school, its survival, and its flourishing for the sake of our children and of future students for years to come.

I guess that glass of wine can wait.

Submit articles for considering in Snippets at sheila (at) hokan.org.