Please join us this Wednesday evening at 7pm for the Summit Schools Board of Trustees regular monthly meeting. We will be meeting at the school.
Some thoughts for discussion:
This video is a segment of a TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson recorded in 2010.
Additional readings: Nostesia (Jamie Vollmer, 2010). This piece is an excerpt from Vollmer’s book Schools Can’t Do It Alone. Read the introduction to the book by clicking HERE.
Thanks to all who attended our Summit Schools Board meeting last week. We had some great discussions about a variety of things! Full board meeting notes for the September meeting will be posted to Renweb after approval at the October meeting.
One of the topics that led to thoughtful discussion involved the Summit logo. When you think of our school, what visual logo-ish image comes to mind? For some, it’s this lovely green, gray and blue logo, which has graced the Regent Street side of the school for years. Many Summit parents no doubt, have countless photos of kids standing near this sign on the first day of school.
Perhaps for others, the blue and orange logo that has graced much of our communications in the 
past two years comes to mind. This logo is on our external website, was incorporated into many of our Summer Camps promotional materials and communications last summer, and is part of our current letter head.
If you frequent the Summit Facebook page, you might notice a combination of the two logos. Here the blue background is pulled in from our latest version, but the triangle and a bit of green remain from the building sign.
In our board meeting the Marketing Committee presented a sneak peak at a new logo. But first, they helped us all understand WHY THIS MATTERS? You may be thinking…is it important to work on this logo? Does it really matter if we use blue or green or we dot the i with a triangle or a dot? Is anyone really paying that much attention?
Turns out, it does matter. Dan Schuster is a Summit parent who is working with the Marketing Committee to create a visual identity for Summit. You may recognize Dan’s graphic design work at NewBo City Market, or NewBo Books, or Brucemore to name a few. He joined the board meeting to help us understand the importance of our visual identity. According to Dan a good logo should answer these questions:
Do any of the logos we currently use feel relevant or memorable? There are LOTS of Summits around (there is a Summit Pointe nursing home in Cedar Rapids, Summit beer, Summit racing, Summit farms, Summit ministries and schools with the name of Summit are in NC, OH, MN, CO, AZ, UT, AR, NY, MI and more!) We need our logo to help set us apart, to be an immediate identifier and to reflect a memorable impression. In essence, we need this one picture to speak a thousand words about us!
Stay tuned for the big reveal!
Lisa Wiebenga Stroschine
The Summit School Board is meeting this Wednesday evening for our regular monthly meeting. We will meet in the MPR at Summit at 7pm.
Committee updates (as of Tuesday afternoon):
Marketing: The Marketing Committee has met several times since the last board meeting. Working with Summit parent Dan Schuster, the committee will be presenting a new logo to the board for consideration. The committee is defining/refining its goals for the 2014/15 school year. Some of the current goals/outcomes include:
Technology:
Buildings & Grounds: Kitchen work is complete. Rachel will begin onsite food prep in October. The counter tops for the MPR book shelves have been put on hold due to budget. Current projects/updates:
HOS (Head of Schools Report): Learning Extension Camps are being finalized. Connections with community partners include (1) Cedar Rapids Public Library, (2) Ceramics Center, (3) Theatre Cedar Rapids, (4) LD Kidd, (5) Carol Maxwell Rezabek. Our first full day extension camp is scheduled for Friday, October 17 and will be held at the CRPL and TCR. All of the full-day Learning Extension camps will center around the theme “Happiness.” This theme is inspired by Amie Olhmann (U of I PhD Candidate in Language, Literacy, & Culture) and her work with the poet Mary Szybist and her poem Happy Ideas. Szybist is a graduate of the U of I’s Writers’ Workshop and an award-winning poet. She will be working with Amie this year to recreate her work through art. We hope to include Szybist in our later sessions and after-school programming. For more HOS news, read the full HOS Report here.
BRAIN POWER: new to this month’s board meeting – homework! As a way to increase our understanding and focus our discussions on philosophies, research, trends and current topics in and around education, we’re introducing a short reading/discussion to our monthly meetings. This month’s reading is an article written by Elliot Eisner in 2002 titled “The Kind of Schools We Need“. Discussion starters:
The Board meeting will take place in the Multipurpose Room at 7pm on Wednesday, September 17. Hope to see you there!
The Summit School Board met for our first academic year meeting last week. A big thank you to our community members and staff, both returning and new, who took time out of their week to join us! Your input is appreciated.
Full board minutes, upon board approval, will be posted to Renweb, under School Information>Resource Documents. Look for June’s approved minutes coming soon!
The HoS (Head of Schools) Report included an update on Summit’s Learning Extension Camps. With the adoption of our innovative calendar for 2014-15, Summit will NOT follow the early out calendar set by the Cedar Rapids Community School District (like we did in previous years); instead we’ll utilize several full-day non-class dates for Staff Professional Development. On these days we’ll also provide full-day (optional) “development” for our students! We are working with our community partners, including Theatre Cedar Rapids, The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and the Cedar Rapids Public Library (and more!), to provide full-day, engaging, learning-centered activities for our students. Our first full-day Extension Camp is scheduled for Friday, October 17. In addition to the full-day camps, Summit will also offer after-school Extension Camps. These camps will run in 8-week sessions starting in late September. Our after school Extension Camps will include a variety of themes throughout the school year. As a parent who relies on after-school care, I’m so excited about this program! Look for more information on our Learning Extension Camps programming coming soon!
A few quickly approaching calendar highlights:
The next Summit Board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 17 at 7pm at Summit Schools. Hope to see you there!
Lisa Wiebenga Stroschine
Summit School Board
SUMMIT SCHOOLS 