September 18th Notes

Car Tags

We are aware that there is an issue with the parking permits with tinted windows. If you have tinted windows, please cut a white index card and tape to your sticker. This will make it visible through the tinted glass. Thank you.

Break Room

We have begun to take note of students who are in the break room more than the one hour per day that is allowed for free. Please remember that we only allow one study hall per week. If your child is spending more time in the break room, you need to come by and pay for the extra study hall. We strongly discourage more than 2/ week, even if you are paying for this because it the children become bored . Please come by and take care of this if you know this email is targeting you. We are making phone calls each week as we check the roster in the break room. The extra study hall is $25 per semester (about $1.50 each week per extra study hall).

For those who are volunteering, the break room is a good place for your children to wait for you, unless they are younger, and then they should go to the nursery.  The nursery is only for volunteers’ children and teachers’ children. 

The rule about the one hour in the break room is for those students who have a regular schedule that includes more than one unscheduled hour during their stay at Thursday Connection.

I hope this helps clear up any questions.

Silent Auction

We are continuing to collect items for the silent auction-please consider talking with any business that you are patronizing to see if they are willing to donate something to us. We are also collecting items that can be used in baskets—movie night, scrapbooking , cooking , baby , game night, picnic, romantic evening. We are very excited this year to end our auction live. Please add Nov 21 to your calendar-we will be having an Adult Only , Coffee and Dessert Auction Finale. This will be very special - our “hostesses” are busy planning this evening for us. Childcare will be available by the student government in the downstairs. Please watch for more details.

Coupon Books

We did very well with coupon book checkouts this week. If you signed them out, please work very hard to sell them. We will have more next Thursday. If you checked out a large number and it looks like you’re not going to be able to sell them, please email Jennifer Scoggins at jmscoggins@msn.com to let her know how many you will be returning, and then return them next Thursday, so we can distribute them to others. We need to know how many are coming back, so we know how many more to order for next Thursday. Also, if you take orders for a large number, please let her know that as well. Communication is going to be key here, so we don’t end up with a huge number at the end of the sale. Thanks.

Parking Lot

Please remember the direction flow of the parking lot. Drive up all the way to the back of the parking lot, left around the back of the lot and then forward around the parking spots. It is very important that you follow the traffic flow.

Fire Drills

Please talk with your children about fire drills. We plan to have one in the next few weeks and don’t want anyone to be scared.

Security Issues

On Thursday, there were several episodes of children playing on the playground while waiting for their mothers to come out of the building. This is absolutely not allowed. Children can not be out of the building without an adult present. The playground is right next to the parking lot. Please do not allow your children to go there to play without supervision-this would be a high schooler or adult who is in charge. This is very important for your child’s protection. Please help us enforce this rule.

Vandalism Issues

Parents, please note that we have had an issue with vandalism in two different boys bathrooms –this occurred sometime during the day during orientation.

Please talk with your students about this.

If the board is able to determine who is responsible for this, there will be immediate action taken.

We have a very good working relationship with this church and do not want to destroy this because our students think it is funny to cause plumbing issues. If any of you have any idea on how we can stop this type of behavior, we are all ears. We had the same issues on the last day of class in the Spring.

It is not funny-please counsel your students on this immediately.

A Note From First Cumberland About Our First Year

Dear Mary and Thursday Connection Friends:

Just a note to say how blessed we have been by the life you have brought to First Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Hosting your learning and family time over the last year has been a tremendous pleasure for us! Your presence has brought a sense of hope and purpose and we are indeed grateful.

We look forward to 2009 and the coming years of fellowship and friendship. Let's work together to keep the joint ministry we share the best it can be for the glory of the Lord.

Have a wonderful vacation! We will see you soon!

Yours in Christ,
Kevin L. Wood, Pastor 
Knoxville 1st Cumberland Presbyterian Church

End of Year Gifts

Mary and Wendy are often given lots of very thoughtful gifts at the end of the year. While we greatly appreciate this, we have a request.

If you are considering a gift, would you instead consider making a donation to the Thursday Connection general budget for next year? Small donations added together could really make a dent in the deficit we are anticipating for next year.

Thank you for considering this request.
Mary & Wendy

Surprise Visitor on October 11th, 2007

Thursday Connection Families,

As many of you may have heard, we had a surprise visitor on Thursday. Steve McGill, State Dept of Education, Regional Coordinator of Auxiliary Services, visited us saying that we needed to come under state authority. We have contacted SMHEA, several state representatives, and HSLDA. HSLDA will be contacting Mr. McGill, and we should not have any further issues with him.

This incident could be very precedent setting, and proper handling of the matter was and continues to be very important. When approached by the authorities, a home schooler should be polite without offering any information to them. When finding oneself in this situation, it is easy to get “scared” and inadvertently offer information or to get defensive and become rude. This incident also boldly highlights the importance of ID cards at Thursday Connection. It was easy for our door monitor to notice that this gentleman did not belong in the building. He was not able to wander about the premises, but was noticed and promptly escorted to Mary.

We have been advised to have no further contact with this man or anyone else from his office. If he should return, we are to politely ask him to leave, and to request any further contact to be in writing which we will forward to our legal counsel (HSLDA). If you are a member of any other co-ops, they should be aware of this situation already. Cory Bennett has contacted all of them. If they are not, please make them aware of it, and if they have any questions, they can contact Cory Bennett or Jodie Moore. Once again, Thursday Connection is operating totally legally, and we do not need to be overly concerned about them shutting down TC or any other co-op. We do need to be aware and careful. All TC personnel and volunteers should be alert at all times for any unbadged individuals.

A big “Thank You” is due to all those who are involved in keeping home schooling legal in Tennessee : SMHEA and HSLDA.is incident could be very precedent setting and proper handling of the matter was and continues to be very important. 

The Thursday Connection Board

Fire Drill

The fire drill went extremely well on Thursday, September 27th. The building was vacated and everyone in the field within 3 minutes with very little confusion. We were very pleased. We were able to identify anyone missing and whether or not they had scanned into the building. This was a very good practice. The next time we do this, it will be without warning to anyone, so please talk with your children about this. It won’t be for awhile, but when it does occur, we all need to be prepared to simply follow the instructions as we practiced today. Please congratulate your teachers—they did an awesome job of following the directions!!

We Welcome your Constructive Comments

If you have constructive suggestions for how to improve, please feel free to write them up and send them to us. Our surveys are meant to help us improve. They are not meant to be a place to offer mean, unconstructive advice. We try to be as fair as possible and are willing to consider constructive advice. But please be sure that it is constructive and not an attempt to get “something for nothing”. Your children are worth more than that.

Thanks for understanding that we want the best for each family in our program!

Visiting with Mary and Wendy

Please remember that Wendy and Mary are working while at co-op. We love you all, we love visiting with you, however, this is a VERY busy time of year for us. Please do not loiter by our table. We are happy to answer your questions and help you, but it is very hard for us to visit, or to have groups of moms visiting by our table while we are working. Please move outside, or to the break room in order to visit. It is also not appropriate to sit in the hallway outside of classrooms to visit. Thanks for understanding.

Can You Help?

It has come to our attention that there are several needs in our cooperative community.

We have families whose primary breadwinner has lost a job, families with single moms struggling to make ends meet, and  families where the husbands/fathers are being deployed to the Persian Gulf. We would very much like to be able to bless these families with a little extra financial boost. 

We currently use a portion of the registration fees to fund scholarships. Our teachers also each provide at least one scholarship per class.

We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to support us in our scholarship program. If you would like to donate towards this cause, please give your checks made out to Thursday Connection, to either Wendy Barnett or Mary Wegman. This money will be used 100% towards helping another family in need. If you would like to contribute via mail, please mail your check to Mary Wegman , 9016 Candlewood Dr , Knoxville , TN 37923.

Also,  if you know of someone who could really benefit from this help, please notify Mary.

Thank you so much.

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