Hello. GREAT news to report!

Introducing our Founding Principal, Marissa Berman:
The Board of CWC is thrilled to welcome Marissa Berman as our Founding Principal. The Board, led by Kate Sobel (Principal of the highly successful Camino Nuevo Harvard K-8 campus), engaged in a very rigorous hiring process with several exceptional candidates -- Marissa was the first choice!

You will all have the opportunity to meet Marissa soon, but in the meantime, here is some brief background information about her:

Marissa received her B.A. from Columbia University and her Master's in Education from Berkeley. She has been a teacher and administrator at the North Oakland Community Charter School (NOCCS) for 5 years, including a three year stint on their Board of Directors. Previously she worked at different elementary schools in San Francisco and Berkeley. She is a Project Zero Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, where she has led teacher training workshops in specific curriculum that CWC intends to use.

This year, Marissa is in an administrative role at NOCCS, leading fundraising, redesigning the after-school program, creating a school-wide service-learning program, supervising the math intervention program, doing extensive teacher mentoring and professional development, and taking over some responsibilities for their Director, who has been on maternity leave. NOCCS is similar in many ways to CWC: K-8, a socio-economically and racially diverse student body, and very similar curriculum ideas.

Marissa is a true "citizen of the world," and has lived in Cameroon and France, and traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and North America. She speaks French, some basic Spanish and Fulfude (Cameroon). Marissa is incredibly passionate about our mission and vision for CWC – she said when she was first reading our website she felt like we had written it personally for her! Her enthusiasm about what we're doing is truly contagious.

We are very pleased to welcome Marissa to CWC and believe she will be a tremendous instructional leader for our school.

Our Charter Petition Passed a Major Milestone with LAUSD:
We were delighted to receive a letter from LAUSD last week that began with the word, "Congratulations!" We officially have passed the first major milestone in the charter review process and the written substance of our petition has been approved. Our Board and school leaders will next participate in a rigorous interview with members of the District's Innovation and Charter Division. We will of course continue to keep you updated as news develops.

Parent Information Sessions: THERE'S ONE SATURDAY!!!!!

We will be hosting additional sessions in March – info coming soon. We're also very interested in coming to your schools, day care centers, religious groups, community groups, etc. – please let us know when you're meeting and if we can come give a 5 minute presentation. outreach@citizensoftheworld.org.

Application Forms Now Available!
Our Application form for Kindergarten and 1st grade 2010 enrollment is now available in English and Spanish (more languages coming soon) at our website: citizensoftheworld.org/enrollment.html. You can either complete the application form on-line, or print it out and mail it in. EVEN IF YOU HAVE PREVIOUSLY SIGNED UP ON OUR WEBSITE OR SIGNED ONE OF OUR PETITIONS, YOU MUST COMPLETE AN APPLICATION FORM TO BE ENTERED IN OUR LOTTERY! One application form is required for each child, thus, if you have twins, or one child entering K and another entering 1st, you must complete two forms.

As detailed on our website, we do not yet know when the lottery will be. We have set an application deadline of MARCH 15th, and will notify everyone who has submitted an application about the lottery details as soon as they are available. The lottery will not take place before March 18th at the earliest. There are more details on the website.

Translation:
We continue to need help with translation. If you, or someone you know, is able to help us out, please have them contact our parent volunteer, Sandra Ponce, at sponce7552@yahoo.com.

We're On Facebook:
If you're a Facebook member, join our group, Citizens of the World Charter School Hollywood: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=159926639445 We'll continue to post updates about our progress there.

Other Updates:
We are working very aggressively to secure a location, and we are negotiating a few options. More soon!

- Tara Kelly, Executive Director

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