And this is why we love Alan...

"Hey Hannah, I hate to remind you... but... YOU'RE GONNA DIE."

                                               - Alan Shelton 

CELEBRATE Good Times....

I know it's been a while, but it makes the updates all the more exciting. 

Today is report card pick-up day! - dreaded by students, loved by staff. 

We got our first in-kinding of the year underway thanks to Nicole!  Because of her we will be able to offer parents cinnamon cake from Corner Bakery!  We are so excited to be able to meet some parents today and let them know all of the great things we have been doing. 

In additon to the parent teacher day, we have had a lot of exciting things happening including but not limited to...
- We have begun opening the gym to students for morning greeting, socializing, letting them play basketball and of course playing all the coolest jams. 
- Our team has added more to our schedules in the past two weeks by picking up more classes!  Three of our corp members (Jasmyne, Nicole and Andrea) are actually in junoir ACT prep classes! 
- Andrea has done an awesome job getting all of our attendance ducks in a row.
- We have created a "Meet your CY Team" poster board to display at all of our events... It will get it's first test run today. 
- Homework help has been a big hit!  The basketball team is required to come to our support THREE times a week! 
- We are attempting to begin a Creative and Performing Arts Club next semester, so let the in-kinding begin!
- We all did teacher appreciations on tuesday night but making posters and hanging them on teacher's doors so they would be SURPRISED by them in the morning. 
- All of our students are CRAY CRAY (crazy) but we love them for it. 

-----DEUCES!-----

Hump Day Haiku

This weeks hump day haiku is a rather special one, because we have ANOTHER birthday today!!!

All Jazzed Up

Jasmyne has some 'tude

Snappalicious, so divine

Where you at? What what?

                       - Phil Horn 

Happy Birthday to the Jazziest member of our team!

This happens to be the only picture of Jasmyne... good thing she looks so fierce in it.

Know that you are loved (kind of) by us all!

Happy Novemeber!

Our homework help room exploding with students.

It is hard to believe that November is already upon us.  You know what they say, time flies when you're changing lives.  Last week was a busy one for us and it ended on a great note!  We started homework help, and while the beginning of the week did not look too promising by Thursday we actually had a sign-in sheet, which led to Jade doing "the sign-in sheet dance" at the end of the day (it was an utterly fantastic show, let me tell you). We also began our behavior coaching sessions during lunch.  For the most part I believe that the lunches went pretty well, however not everyone had 100% success due to some stubborn students, but we are on the right path! 

Friday was our first TEAM DAY at City Year and we had boatloads of fun!  We started the morning out with a fancy schmancy brunch at Orange followed by Chicagoween in Daley Plaza.  It was a nice change of pace to be at the plaza without doing chain breakers or jumping jacks... but we are always ready to do those things of course if needed and with excellence. 

Team in Daley Plaza in front of orange colored fountain. (Jasmyne is with us in spirit)

Chicagoween got us all in the mood for a spooktacular weekend, but our day was far from over.  There was still work to be done and lives to change.  We traveled to the West Side via the blue line so we could school our 9th graders on the importance of attendance.  We gave them a dose of what we like to call The Attendance Reality.  We also got the opportunity to formally introduce ourselves to the entire school, so now when they see me making a fool of myself at morning greeting they can call me out by name!  Our attendance rally went better than expected, but as I glance out the window (30 minutes into first period) there is still groups of students strolling in to school so our work is far from over!  I have to say the only thing that could have made Friday better was some cake.  Good thing it was Phil's Birthday on Saturday and therefore a reason to eat cake on Friday!!!!!
Happy Birthday Phil! I hope your day was Sasstastic!

Miss Serrano and the birthday boy looking extra fine. 

 Well it's time to go... I think my boots are on fire.  Hope everyone has a great Monday!