The PAC Mission:
To serve as the front line of communication facilitating cooperative efforts between home mentors, the school, and the RVA School Board with the intention to give a voice to families.
Well, first of all, what is the PAC? The state of Wisconsin will tell you that the PAC is the Parent Advisory Council, a mandate that every charter school have available for you as parents. So if there is an issue you have someone to go to.
Here at the RVA that would be me, The Parent Advisory Council President, Charlone Nikolaus. I will run any concerns up the ladder and get to the bottom of every question for you. You can reach me at nikolaus@ruralvirual.org or 920-255-6665.
You can expect the PAC at the RVA to create change for you as parents. This is how the Mentor Series came to be. We heard from one of our RVA moms with a desire to learn and grow as a home mentor and the Mentor Series was created!
You can voice your opinion too!
I will be holding four open forum discussions, not recorded. Where you as parents can discuss how you are doing, how you are implementing what you learned from the most recent Mentor Series or just pick my brain about the last Board Meeting. These sessions are all you. Just RVA parents having time to talk.
I will also be sending out four newsletters for the year updating you on what is going on within the RVA. I will be including any updates from the Board Meeting, Mentor Series or things from other parents.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me; The RVA’s PAC President, Charlone Nikolaus at 920.255.6665 or nikolaus@ruralvirtual.org.
Communication is Key
Keep an open line of communication.
As Home Mentors and parents we are wearing many hats for our children in our home. Moving throughout the day it can be hard to transition from cook-mom to teacher-mom to multi-tasking mom who is helping a school-age child with their homework while putting a toddler down for their nap. Not only is this mentally exhausting, but it can be hard for not only the adult in the situation to transition from one to the other, the child may have difficulties as well.
I have received just a few tips during my years as a Home Mentor, not all of them work for everyone. I am limiting this newsletter to the most significant, life-altering, joy bringing, would not go back if you paid me, few that changed the way my house is run. Enjoy!
First of all, as we wear many hats and transition throughout the day it is a big help to communicate with our students. When I give my son a warning as to what is going to happen next he is much more content. Communication is key with him in making our day run smoothly. No matter how many times we do it the same way, or that we have had the same schedule for the entire school year, he needs to be given that verbal 5-minute warning before transitioning. My daughter on the other hand has no such need. She is more than happy to skip at my heels and follow along with whatever we do.
Communication with teachers is also vital to our success and growth in the RVA. We may be the Home Mentors, feel as if we are the homeschool teachers. But remember that we need to communicate with our RVA teachers. Not only when there is a concern, but also when things are going well. These are our coaches, our cheerleaders, they fight for us and with us for the sake of our families and spend a lot of time looking for ways to make our school, and in essence, your home life, great. They are the people who serve as a main resource for us all. Do not forget to communicate with your teachers!
Schedule 15 Minutes of What?
Schedule 15 minutes of fun. We schedule math, science, reading and almost every other aspect of our school day with our children. When we wear so many hats and possibly have a secular job on top of all this, we may forget to just schedule -fun time. This little addition in my daily schedule has added so much open communication and laughter into my house I have a hard time not putting it into every newsletter. Let your kid pick something to do with you for 15 minutes every day. Something they like to do.
Here are some ideas to get started: paint or draw, jump rope, ride bikes, jump on a trampoline, play a card game, play a board game, have a sweet snack together, cook together, take a walk, go to the park.
This takes all the stressors of all those hats off. I hope you find as much enjoyment out of finding the time to put your ‘fun’ hat on with your kids. Connecting with them in a deep meaningful way.
Do You Have Ideas?
Just a small reminder that if you run across an idea that you would like to see the RVA implement, please let me know. That is how we got a lot of the clubs that are running now, people had a question, wondering if it would be possible. So I am calling upon everybody who have ideas. Let me know what you would like to see the RVA implement, curriculum that you find of great benefit, clubs that you would like to see started or field trips that you would like to go on. Please let me know and I will see if it will work for us.
State Testing Coming Soon
It’s that time again! State testing will be coming out soon so keep an eye out for more information being delivered shortly to your school email.
Reminder - Internet Reimbursement
Internet reimbursements are sent quarterly!
The new policy states that you don’t need to send in your internet bill for reimbursement, you just need to have an active student in the RVA to get the funds. The email will be sent to you on your RVA email asking if you would like to accept the allotted funds every semester. You will have the ability to decline the funds if you would want to do that as well.
This change was made starting this year. So remember to not send in your internet bill anymore, and respond to the email that gets sent if you would like to receive the funds.
If you have any specific questions the policy can be found in your student handbook, or reach out to me at any time!
The RVA has a program for you, our home mentors, called the Mentor Series. This is informational and educational to help make your experience of being a home mentor easier and better for your children. These will be announced by email invite and listed on the RVA calendar prior to airing in the Zoom Room.
You can view all the current scheduled topics, dates and times on the events calendar. If you have missed previous Mentor Series webinars feel free to visit our Mentor Series Library. Here you will find great resources to better your practices as a home mentor.
PAC Meeting
Our next PAC Meeting will be held on
Thursday, February 17th at 2 pm
Open Forum Parent Discussion
This meeting will be an open discussion, after the Mentor Network meeting at 1:15pm. If you have any questions or would like to be there to answer questions for other parents, please come. We hope to see you there!