Greetings

Dear RAUC families,

We hope you are having a great start to your week! Please watch the video or scroll down to read some updates for this week’s news:

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the news or anything else, please don’t hesitate to email Family Liaison Julia Ho at [email protected] or phone at 617.352.5781.

We look forward to seeing you in a couple days!
                         
Best,
Julie Craven, RAUC Principal
Julia Ho, RAUC Family Liaison

IMPORTANT Reminder:
Student CPS Laptops

If you haven’t already yet, please fill out the Upper School Device Agreement by Friday, October 15 online at the CPS family portal OR by filling out this PDF. This will allow your student to receive a CPS laptop. Need a paper form? Please have your student ask their advisor or stop by the main office to pick one up.

Note: ALL FAMILIES SHOULD COMPLETE THE FORM--There is an OPT OUT option at the end if you do not want your student to take a laptop home. ALL students will be assigned a laptop but if family opts out, they do not have to take the laptop home with them. They can leave it at school. They will just need to pick it up from the cart in their advisory class in the morning and make sure to plug it in at the end of the day.

IMPORTANT UPCOMING: Picture Day on Thursday, October 21st

RAUC Picture day this year will be Thursday, October 21st! You can pre-order the photos of your student by filling out a paper order form (your student can request one from their advisor) OR online by following these steps:
1. Go to www.geskusprint.com
2. Create an account.
3. Enter your student’s first name and last name.
4. Enter this unique school code: EWD9C9JD
5. Select your package, prints or novelties and checkout.

Scholarships for the pictures are also available. Please reach out to Julia Ho for more info.

Equity Update

For the second newsletter of the month, we like to give an equity update. For our first update, we want to make sure you’re aware of our website where you can explore the history of equity work, and hear from more parents and staff about why equity work is important to them.

For REFLECTION: Monday was both Indigenous People's Day and National Coming Out Day.

• President Biden issued a proclamation on October 8 about Indigenous People's Day, becoming the first US president to do so. What does it mean to have a president both name the significant contributions of people indigenous to this continent, and to name that our nation continues to strive to live up to the as-of-yet unfilled promise upon which the nation was founded?
  
• Why do we need a National Coming Out Day? What does it say about the strength still needed to be one's true self in our nation? How are we supporting each other in our RAUC community in small and big ways so that everyone can be their true selves?

Ways RAUC is supporting a safe & welcoming community for all

We realize that families--and students, may not know all that we do to make each student feel safe, seen, and included. We also want to make sure everyone knows how we handle reports or incidents of unsafe or inappropriate behavior as well as reports from both students or families of social or emotional concerns. Here is a video message all advisories will see next week to support students in feeling safe. If you would like to see a summary of what is in the video message, please click here.

Here some more information for families about other steps:

• Enriching our advisory program:
  
  • Advisory is a small group (14-16) of students with two advisors with the goal of ensuring that all students start the day seen and connected. This year we have expanded the length of advisory to ensure more meaningful connections.
    
  • September is all about building connections and a lot of that is through having fun together.
    
  • Starting in mid-October, advisors will dedicate at least one advisory to intentionally supporting students on how to build a community that is true to our core values.
    
    • That might be a lesson from our Developmental Design resources, the organization upon which our advisory model is built.
      
    • It might be a student-generated activity
      
    • We are working with a range of groups, including the GSA and the high school STARS program to support our students in finding their agency and voice in raising peer awareness in productive and inclusive ways.
      
• Expanding opportunities for students to connect in groups that meet their needs
  
  • We already have an active GSA and a new Student Government.
    
  • In the works is a weekly “safe space” for lunch--stay tuned!
    
  • We are also in the process of surveying students to identify additional groups that they believe would be helpful to them.
    
  • Once we have that information we will work with our staff and community partners to meet the needs students identify.
    

In case you missed it:
October Learning Previews

• View 6th Grade Learning Previews >>
  
• View 7th Grade Learning Previews >>
  
• View 8th Grade Learning Previews >>

Click here for a printable version. 

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