March 2012 Newsletter From Your Executive Director Calendar of Upcoming Events 2012: March 14-17 AASSA Educators Conference, Quito July 15-18 Business Managers’ Conference, Miami September 12 AASSA Board Meeting, Miami September 13-15 Governance Conference for Board Members and Heads, Miami October 12-14 GIN Conference, Graded School, Sao Paulo, Brazil November 27-29 Latin American Administrators’ Conference, Atlanta November 29-December 2 AASSA Recruiting Fair, Atlanta 2013: January 19 VANAS Conference, Colegio Internacional de Caracas January 19-21 Innovate 2013: Reimagining School, Graded School, Sao Paulo March 13-16 AASSA Educators’ Conference, Lincoln School, Buenos Aires Do You Know What You’re Missing? Are you a teacher who wants to keep up with the coursework necessary for on-going certification in your state? Are you an educator who wants to take online courses for graduate credit? Are you an administrator or academic leader who wants to provide members of your staff (or all of your staff) with state-of-the-art online courses? AASSA launched a partnership with Knowledge Delivery Systems and JK Global earlier this academic year which provides these useful services for our membership. This service is also designed to assist schools by providing individual or bulk online courses for staff development and you will find top names listed among the course presenters. As you will see on our website, AASSA members that purchase 20+ courses will receive a 5% discount. Please visit http://www.aassa.com/page.cfm?p=489 on our website for further information. 2 AASSA Board Election Results The Association held elections for the AASSA Board of Trustees at the Latin American Administrators’ Conference in Atlanta in December. Incumbent Susan Barba (American School of Quito) was re-elected for a three-year term Mike Martell (Colegio Internacional Puerto La Cruz) was also elected for an initial three-year term, and Eric Spindler was elected to complete a vacant one-year term.. The officers for the current year remain unchanged: President: Philip Joslin (Lincoln School, Buenos Aires) Vice-President: Susan Barba (American School of Quito) Treasurer: Bill Pearson (American School of Curitiba) Secretary: Steve Herrera (Escola Americana de Campinas) The Board and I would like to thank David Wells for his three-year term on the Board and for his many contributions. I would like to personally thank the Board for their dedication to AASSA, for their support of my work, and for serving as a model of good governance for our entire region. ………………………………… Please Welcome Our Newest Associate Members Mason Associates Nasco J Farrell & Taylor, LLC Turning Technologies Developmental Studies Center 3 AASSA Global Citizen Awards Sponsored by TIECARE International With TIECARE International’s generous sponsorship, AASSA has launched the AASSA Global Citizen Award. The award recognizes a student or group of students selected from AASSA member schools that has made exemplary contributions through a school and/or community- based service program which has led either to: greater international understanding, positive local or global change, addressing a global challenge, or changed lives—thereby setting an example for us all. We would like to thank the many schools that submitted applications for provided a suitable number of candidates to truly allow us to select the following five exceptional recipients: George Qino and Patrick Prommel of the American Cooperative School in La Paz, Bolivia, for their work with Las Calles del Basket, a program that encourages sports among low-income children in La Paz through weekly practices Andrea Gabrielle Chahin of Escuela Internacional Sampedrana, Honduras, for her work with TOMS Shows and Caminando con Amore in providing over 80,000 pairs of shoes to those needing them. Francisco De Tomassoi, Javier Estrada, Eduardo Gainsborg, Ines Gurovich and Andreaz Orduz from Lincoln School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for their work with Chaco, a long-standing project that has built 5 schoohouses providing over 600 students with K-12 education. The TASERS, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Technology Student Association, for their outstanding work not only working the recent GIN conference and other tech-related events at FDR but also for their work in establishing tech facilities at two local schools. Macarena Valdez from the Santa Cruz Cooperative School in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for her work with Operation Smile, an organization that provides operations for children with cleft palates. Each of the organizations mentioned above will receive an award of $800 for the fine work of each of the students or student groups receiving the award. Congratulations! 4 Thanks to Our Highest Level Sponsors PLATINUM LEVEL SUNY Buffalo TD Bank TieCare International GOLD LEVEL Lehigh University SILVER LEVEL Endicott College George Mason University International Schools Services K12 Seton Hall University The College Board ……………………………….. A Special Thanks to TD Bank We have many Associate Members who go beyond the call of duty in their sponsorship of AASSA events. For their contributions, they are recognized in conference programs and periodically through the AASSA Newsletter. One of our members who provides an invaluable set of services to AASSA is TD Bank. Because their contributions mostly fall outside the parameters of conference sponsorship, their invaluable contributions often go unrecognized except on a private basis between our organizations. Joseph Pereira and TD Bank provide AASSA with a fee-free account, a noteworthy contribution because of the level of ACH and wire transfers that pass through AASSA on a daily basis. In addition, TD Bank developed a system of “internal credit cards” which AASSA uses to procure goods on behalf of our member schools. This benefit affords us a system of tracking purchases for schools that is highly efficient and timely. The level of service we receive from TD Bank and personally from Joe is unprecedented. In addition, their online system is very user-friendly and comprehensive. Through their support of AASSA, TD Bank is already serving our entire region in ways unrealized by our schools. If you are not currently using TD Bank, please do yourself a favor and explore the possibilities. It is one of North America’s strongest banks and is known for its high level of service and willingness—as they have demonstrated with AASSA—to seek creative solutions to their client’s problems. 5 AASSA Recruiting Fair 2011 This year’s AASSA Recruiting Fair was the best-attended and--based upon evaluations by both recruiters and candidates--a successful event. We had a record 47 schools in attendance, a total of 329 candidates in the database available for placement, and 275 candidates present at the fair. To date, 135 candidates have been hired. This year’s database remains active until mid-May, so if schools still have positions to fill, please browse the active candidates. On June 1st, we will open next year’s registration and begin anew. Next year’s fair will take place from November 29 – December 2, 2012. 6 Margaret Sanders Foundation Scholarship Winner This year’s recipient of the Margaret Sander’s Scholarship Award for her dedication to and embodiment of service to her school and community is Jéssica Maguilnik Leão from the Pan American School of Bahia in Brazil. While all of the applicants for this year’s scholarship were highly involved, community-minded, and clearly superlative students and individuals, Jéssica stood tall on the shoulders of her peers. Jessica is a fine scholar at the top of her class, but he is not the typical international school student. As she wrote in her essay: “I take the bus [to school] because I have to. Since I was 11 years old, the bus has given me access to two very different worlds. On the bus I am the girl who goes to a private school, while at schools I am the girl who takes the public bus. In one world, I’m from a family of Jewish immigrants that lost everything to the Holocaust, but in the other world, my educated upbringing prevents me from fitting in.” Her involvements include being Student Body President, MUN, Knowledge Bowl, soccer, drama, and having been an exchange student for one year to Boston. Since the age of 7 she has participated in and become a leader in Habonim Dror, a Jewish youth movement whose main goal is to form future leaders capable of creating a better society through action which is informed by values. She has also volunteered at AKIM, a mental health institution. I have not met Jéssica, but her humanity, intelligence and spirit literally leap off the pages of her own writing and that of her references. Congratulations, Jéssica, from AASSA, and may this accomplishment help propel you to your dream of attending an American University and becoming an international lawyer.. 7 A Reminder of Some of Our Other Services AASSAnet (World Virtual School) Project Continues to Grow AASSAnet was launched last year by four of our member schools: Graded School in Sao Paulo, Colegio Alberto Einstein in Quito, The American School of Asuncion, and the Pan American School of Porto Alegre. I had forecast a doubling of participating schools this year, but to date we have only one new member: the Pan American School of Bahia. The good news is that a number of schools are currently investigating joining… The Department of State has been working with the various regional organizations to develop a Moodle-based site on which each school which joins the consortium can participate. Many of our schools currently have a Moodle site which they are hosting—generally investing a good deal of time and perhaps money in maintaining. The reasons to have a school site are many, among them: Emergency Readiness: As we have seen in our region in the past year alone, emergencies strike without warning.