March 1, 2010

Dear Hokkaido International School Community,

In previous announcements you will have heard that our current Head of School, Rick Branson, is leaving HIS

in June 2011, in order to be closer to his family. HIS is in the unique position of being able to look for a new

Head of School 18 months in advance of the start of the school year 2011-2012.

As Chair of the Board, I am pleased to announce that, after John Ritter’s intensive visit to HIS and his

recommendation to the HIS Executive Board, we have officially begun work on this important assignment to

search for and select our new Head of School (who will take over as Head in July, 2011). It is my honor and

privilege to also serve as Chair of the Search Committee, and we pledge that our decisions will have the best

interests of our students at the forefront. I would like to introduce the search committee to you.

We have an excellent group that is representative of the HIS community. Committee members are (in

alphabetical order of surname):

Jim Allison   —  Parent

Karen Katayama  —  Parent/ Board of Councilors

Hide Kurosawa  —  Parent/ HuPA

Sherrie Oda   —  Teacher elementary/ HuPA

David Piazza   —  Teacher secondary

Kathleen Riggins  —  Library teacher/ Board of Councilors

Dale Viljoen   —  Chair of Executive Board/ Board of Councilors/

John Ritter will continue to guide us through this process. Briefly stated, our mandate is: “To conduct a formal

Head of School search within the HIS community, with the option that, if at a later stage the Search

Committee believes that it should also consider additional, external candidates, we undertake a wider search.”

We are pleased to announce that at this time we do have an internal candidate applying for the Head of

School position — Barry Ratzliff. Mr. Ratzliff, and any other internal candidates who apply by March 22, will

need to submit a formal application that includes curriculum vitae, statements of educational philosophy, and

written references.  Applications for the headmaster position from the HIS community are due March 22, 2010.  After this the Search Committee will formally interview the applicant(s) who will also interact with all other constituencies associated with Hokkaido International School. The details of the interview process will be communicated to you in advance so that all interested can fully participate in the process.

At HIS the Executive Board is responsible for hiring the Head, and the Board of Councilors is responsible for

appointing the Head of School proposed by the Executive Board.

I am sure that you will have some questions, comments and concerns. Please keep communication open and

contact the committee directly through my personal email viljoendale@omf.net. Please contact me if you

would like an electronic copy of the method used by John Ritter last week and his results that I received today.

We are excited to be underway in this important process and will keep you updated as we move forward.

Sincerely,

Dale Viljoen  (pronounced “fil-yun” – just call me Dale!)

Search Committee Chairman

MISSOULA CHILDREN’S THEATRE — Once again H.I.S. will be hosting Missoula Children’s Theatre. We are excited to be welcoming Lynda Mondragon and Jeffrey Staso who will be the directors of a humorous, musical rendition of THE WIZARD OF OZ.  Auditions for the play will be held Monday morning, March 29th. All elementary school children from grades two through six will either be in the performance cast or a member of the Production Crew, an important group that does behind the scenes work.  Everyone will be busy the whole week preparing for the two performances.  We are always pleased with the results of M.C.T. and we are looking forward to the performances this year as well!  We thank HuPA for its generous support in helping to bring MCT to our HIS community.

THE WIZARD OF OZ

Performance and ticket information:

Performance One: Fri, April 2nd, 7:00 pm in the H.I.S. Gymnasium

Performance Two: Sat, April 3rd, 3:00 pm in the H.I.S. Gymnasium

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! INVITE YOUR RELATIVES AND FRIENDS! THIS IS ALWAYS AN ENJOYABLE SHOW AND AMAZING WORK ACCOMPLISHED IN ONE WEEK!

**Children age 5 and under are free. Ticket prices are ¥500 per person.  The week before Spring Break, Elementary families will be receiving tickets to help sell. Tickets will soon be available from an Elementary family, from  Mrs. Oda (room 203) or sold at the door.  See you there!!

Dear Parents — The Secondary students will soon be receiving their first Progress Report of the 2nd semester. Progress Reports are sent home in order to update parents and students of their progress and are not reflective of how the final grade may actually be. Progress Report grades are not stored as part of any permanent record.

Teachers do not always leave comments on Progress Reports at this point in the year unless they feel it important to do so. Should you have any questions after receiving your child’s progress report, please do not hesitate to contact individual subject area teachers or your child’s homeroom advisor.

Progress Reports are also used to help teachers identify students for extra support through our after school Study Hall program. Students with grades of D+ or lower will be asked to attend after school study hall sessions so they can have greater contact time with their teachers.

Sincerely yours, the Secondary Teaching Staff

Rod Kelly, Sherrie Oda, Peggy Shibuya, and Tom Ruhm are at the IPC conference in Singapore through Wednesday, March 10. We have teachers, colleagues and friends covering their classes: Christy Regan is covering 2nd grade; Shannon Koga and Yasmin Morrison are covering third grade;  Yui Kashiwabara is covering fourth grade and Aaron Holder is covering fifth grade.

Mr. Holder will be back to teach music when Mr. Sugino will be taking the ninth grade students to Kyoto.

MISSOULA CHILDREN’S THEATRE – Once again H.I.S. will be hosting Missoula Children’s Theatre. We are excited to be welcoming Lynda Mondragon and Jeffrey Staso who will be the directors of a humorous, musical rendition of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Auditions for the play will be held Monday morning, March 29th. All elementary school children from grades two through six will either be in the performance cast or a member of the Production Crew, an important group that does behind the scenes work.  Everyone will be busy the whole week preparing for the two performances.  We are always pleased with the results of M.C.T. and we are looking forward to the performances this year as well!  We thank HuPA for its generous support in helping to bring MCT to our HIS community.

THE WIZARD OF OZ

Performance and ticket information:

Performance One: Fri, April 2nd, 7:00 pm in the H.I.S. Gymnasium

Performance Two: Sat, April 3rd, 3:00 pm in the H.I.S. Gymnasium

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! INVITE YOUR RELATIVES AND FRIENDS! THIS IS ALWAYS AN ENJOYABLE SHOW AND AMAZING WORK ACCOMPLISHED IN ONE WEEK!

**Children age 5 and under are free. Ticket prices are ¥500 per person.  The week before Spring Break, Elementary families will be receiving tickets to help sell. Tickets will soon be available from an Elementary family, from  Mrs. Oda (room 203) or sold at the door.  See you there!!

The HEx is coming home in print version to all students this week. Included with the HEx is the printed Annual Report for 2008-2009.

The annual report is part of the overall school effort to monitor school improvement. In the Annual Report is information about academics, programs, activities, sports, and events. The report highlights progress the school has made and hopes to make in these areas.

It is a massive effort and the result of work by the entire faculty and staff. Individual teachers submitted sections that was then assembled into the overall report. The information helps guide the School Improvement Committee, which is comprised of teachers, parents, students and members of the Executive Board. The annual report is also a way for the school to report its work to the entire school community.

We normally work to get the annual report completed in October so it can be given to members of the Board of Councilors at its October meeting. This year, with the length of the report, it was finished in late November and then printed in January.

We thank the faculty and staff who put in additional time to report on school progress. Further, a special thanks goes to the editor of the annual report, Barry Ratzliff. Mr. Ratzliff has also guided the School Improvement Committee’s annual work as it leads to the 2012 accreditation. This Annual Report is part of that process.

As the 2009-2010 school year rolls through second semester, the process has already begun to write the annual report for the current year. We will use some of the tools we have added to school to help report student and school progress. The MAP test will provide more specific data than we have had previously. In addition, we will also use some of standard data such as SAT tests and teacher narratives.

The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) is an essential part of the elementary curriculum, and Peggy Shibuya, the IPC Coordinator, works with teachers each year to organizes and align units. This has provided a more unified elementary curriculum.

The International Primary Curriculum requires that HIS faculty stay current with the developments of the program. Last year, teachers were scheduled to attend the Asian conference, which was later cancelled. This year HIS is pleased to be sending Mrs. Shibuya and three teachers to the annual conference on March 8, 9 , 10 in Singapore.

IPC now has 40 schools in Asia using its curriculum. The host of this year’s conference is the International School in Singapore (SJI). SJI introduced the program two years ago. Here is what the principal, Louise Grant, said about the program:

“The depth of the IPC has become more evident the more that we’ve used it. It has been written and updated by curriculum experts and for us that’s a massive benefit.”

“We all love that the IPC is flexible. It actively encourages you to make it your own.  We never get the impression that there’s only one way. IPC lets us do what we think is right for our school. It’s phenomenal in that way. We are all IPC converts, without exception.”

HIS will look to work with St. Maur next year to bring an IPC consultant to our own campus in September to continue with teacher training.

IPC continues to be a part of the essential structure to our elementary curriculum and we are thankful that our teachers will be able to attend the conference through our HIS professional development funds to improve their understanding and their teaching to directly benefit student learning.

At the January 2010 Executive Board meeting, Shannon Koga, ELL coordinator, updated the Board on English Language Learning (ELL) in the mainstream curriculum.  The Board learned that the term ESL (English as a Second Language) has been updated to ELL, acknowledging that English is the third or fourth language for many HIS students. Instead of pulling out students into separate ESL classes, ELL is co-taught with the regular classroom teacher and content. ELL reporting to parents has also been updated. Parents now receive a rubric and a short personalized narrative about their child’s development. The Board is excited about this progress towards one of our very important Strategic Plan goals: fluency in English for all students.

John Ritter spent fours days at HIS to gather information for the Executive Board as it prepares for its search for a headmaster beginning in August 2011. We thank John for his time and expertise.

In addition, many parents met with John at two different sessions, and thanks goes to HuPA and the Steering Committee as well as individual parents for their time.

John also had several sessions with teacher throughout his time, and also met with Student Council. He finished his work on saturday when he met with members of the Executive Board.

Thanks to Yuko Kanehira for her work in organizing John’s visit.

Thanks also goes to the sixth grade class and its teacher Doreen Deelstra for the wonderful elementary variety show on Friday as well as thanks to the Student Council and its adviser Tracy Evans for the secondary variety show. Congratulations to all of the performers.

On Friday night 80 guests attended the HIS Auction helping raise ¥200,000 for the Endowment Fund. It was a fun night with some active bidding on the baseball bats from the Sapporo Fighters.

A few people ended up with some excellent deals including the trip to the resort in Bale.

We thank Helping Hand Group for its support and especially the representative Ian Syer. Thanks also goes to Shimako Abe for her organizing the event and Phred Kaufman and Tatsuaki Ikeda who brought many guests to the event. Thanks also to Shannon Koga who was the evening’s emcee.

We look forward to continuing the growth of the event and seeing everyone there next year.