“And now we welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been.” –Rainer Maria Rilke
On behalf of the seven of us at AASSA, welcome back from the slower pace of vacation. I would like to first introduce Paul Sicard, AASSA’s new Deputy Director:
Happy To Be Here! By Paul Sicard
My first month working in the AASSA headquarters has been both enlightening and rewarding. It has been great to learn about and participate in all of the “behind the scenes” work that occurs to deliver the quality services offered to our member schools. I also feel very fortunate to work with the other team members that have made me feel welcome and are hard working professionals.
Prior to working in international schools for the past 17 years, both my wife and I worked as educators in Broward County, FL (from 1991-98), the same location as the AASSA office and the home we recently purchased! Considering how fortunate my wife and I feel about our current situation, I can honestly say that I am “happy to be here!”
The Year Ahead
AASSA continues to increase its professional development offerings and services on behalf of our member schools, as you will see in the rather lengthy Calendar of Events which follows. For the sake of brevity, we have inserted hyperlinks for each event and highlighted only the next upcoming event.AASSA Calendar 2015-2015 (as of 8/31/15)EventVenueDatesDeadlineDifferentiating to Meet the Needs of All Our Students InstituteAmerican School of BrasiliaAugust 22 & 23August 1Assessment and Common Core MathematicsAmerican School of BrasiliaAugust 28-30AASSA Board MeetingMarriott Dadeland Hotel, Miami, FLSeptember 22AASSA Social Media InstituteMarriott Dadeland Hotel, Miami, FLSeptember 23September 7AASSA Governance Conference for Heads and Board Members
Marriott Dadeland Hotel, Miami, FLPre-conference: September 24Main Conference: September 25 & 26September 7MAP Professional Development WorkshopMarriott Residence Inn, AventuraSeptember 25 & 26Deadline for Teacher and Exhibitor Workshop Proposals for 2016 Educators’ ConferenceOctober 13Deadline for Learning Lab Proposals for 2016 Educators’ ConferenceOctober 15Reimagine Learning InstituteAmerican School of QuitoOctober 16 AASSA GIN Conference 2015American School of Rio de JaneiroOctober 22-24Hotels: September 15Conference: October 4Heads Workshop Rankings Due for AASSA Educators Conference (Lima)October 27Reimagine Learning InstituteAmerican School of JamaicaNovember 3Curriculum and Teacher Leader SummitAmerican School of Rio de JaneiroNovember 6 & 7October 16 EventVenueDatesDeadlineMiami Device Conference
($100 discount for AASSA members)St Stephen’s, MiamiNovember 12 & 13VANAS ConferenceColegio Internacional de CaraboboNovember 20Latin American Administrators’ ConferenceGrand Hyatt, AtlantaDecember 1-3AASSA Annual Business MeetingGrand Hyatt, Atlanta5:00 pm, December 3AASSA Recruiting FairGrand Hyatt, AtlantaDecember 3-6Enhancing Student Learning through Assessment and Feedback InstituteAmerican School of BrasiliaJanuary 16 & 17, 2016Differentiated Instruction InstituteAmerican School of BrasiliaFebruary 20 & 21, 2016February 1, 2016TTT2016: Engaging Students in Learning InstituteColegio Menor, QuitoMarch 11, 2016Social and Emotional Learning Institute: How to Teach Our Children WellInternational School of CuritibaMarch 11 & 12, 2016AASSA Educators’ ConferenceColegio Roosevelt, LimaPre-Conference:
April 13, 2016
Main Conference:
April 14-16, 2016
Expanded Offerings for the Year Ahead
Our plans for this year include expanding services, primarily:
Developing a database of master teachers in the region available to offer professional development to other schools on site or virtually
Beginning to have schools post best-practice documents
Planning the first Learning2 conference that will take place at Colegio Menor in October 2016 (this will be offered in alternate years as the Innovate Conference at Graded School)
Offering topic-specific institutes at host schools in the second semester
Promoting child protection efforts
Undertaking an upgraded version of the Salary & Benefits Survey
Promoting online videos of all AASSA schools
Get Involved with AASSA Virtually
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You will be able to search for past newsletter articles as well as receive announcements of postings between newsletter publishing dates. Contributions are tagged and categorized to make it easier for you to find areas of interest. This blog platform’s aim is to encourage continued conversation and connections between AASSA member schools and staff around articles, guest posts and international teaching and learning in general. Subscribe via RSS or get notified via email of any updates.
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Welcome to Our Newest Invitational Member School
QSI International School of El Tigre (Venezuela)
Welcome to Our Newest Associate Members
Deporte Conex
Global Education International
inRESONANCE
International Medical Group IMG
VWR International (Ward’s Science)
An updated list of Associate Members and event sponsors appears on the AASSA website. Please support our region’s Associate Members by availing yourself of their services and products.
Welcome to Our New Heads of School
Beth Almack, Crossroads Christian Academy, Panama
Matthew Beata, Uruguayan American School, Montevideo
Robert Bennett, Centro Educativa Internacional Anzoategui
Richard Boerner, Graded School, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Mark Brandin, Freeport Mining, Peru
Eric Hamilton, Knightsbridge Schools International, Bogota
Annabel Majende, International School Port of Spain, Trinidad
Kelly Pasch-Kramer, Colegio Internacional de Caracas, Venezuela
Rhonda Norris, Carol Morgan School, Dominican Republic
Toby Travis: Colegio Menor (Samborondon Campus), Ecuador
Douglas Vaughn, International School of Curacao
Susan Zapata, Santa Cruz Cooperative School, Bolivia
AASSA Newsletter Articles Welcomed
We welcome articles from our schools and Associate Members for the AASSA Blog and the AASSA Newsletter. We are currently accepting articles for immediate publication on the Blog. Articles submitted for the Blog will also appear in the January Newsletter.
The Newsletter deadlines for the 2015-2016 academic year are as follows:
January 11, 2016
May 9, 2016
Publication notes:
There is no limit on article length since we have an electronic publication
Please submit in MS Word (Times New Roman font, 12 pts)
Either insert photos or send them as attachments, preferably in jpeg
Since articles are now being published online, please be sure to provide copyright source information for photos or quoted material
Thank you for your contributions.
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