Upcoming Events and News: |
- August 22, 2008
Happy Friday to everyone!
We’ve had a great first week of school. In fact this completes week three for me and my family. Sarah, Jackson, Ella and I are extremely happy to be here. It has been a long time since we have found ...read more
- August 22, 2008
Happy Friday to everyone!
We’ve had a great first week of school. In fact this completes week three for me and my family. Sarah, Jackson, Ella and I are extremely happy to be here. It has been a long time since we have found ourselves in the midst of so many friendly and positive people. We have never felt so warmly welcomed into a community so quickly and by so many. Country Day School Guanacaste is a wonderful little school on an amazingly beautiful sprawling campus that allows its students not only the ability to take risks and grow academically, but it also provides incredible opportunities for social and physical growth due to our location and incredibly diverse population of international students and their families.
I have spent the first three weeks meeting and greeting new families and getting to know the teachers and other staff members at CDSG. It has been fun to see the excitement in the eyes and expressions of every new family that comes to meet me, tour the campus and register their children. They all seem so excited about the possibilities that this area and CDSG inspire. But I think that the best part for your kids, besides living in such a beautiful place, is coming to a school with such a great teaching staff. I have no doubt that from this is one of the best groups of teachers that I will have ever worked with. Already in the first classroom visits/observations I have been extremely impressed. After visiting the high school classes I wanted to be back in high school, but without the homework.
I plan to write you a weekly letter updating you on things happening at the school and probably some personal silliness and insights into what we do and where we plan to go as we think strategically about the future. As you may or may not know, I am the Director of Country Day Guanacaste. In the past Mr. Brown has had principals from the Escazu campus lead the school under the supervision of the Director of the Escazu campus. This is no longer the case. CDSG is now a separate school from the Escazu campus where Gloria Doll is the new Director. I will work closely with Mr. Brown while Mrs. Doll and I will continue to seek common experiences and activities whenever beneficial and/or convenient. This means that although we will still share a common mission, philosophy and vision, CDSG will have the opportunity to form our own strategic plans and shape a vision that might be more influenced by our geographic location and parent community. But we will always be guided by our theme that we are “An American School Serving the International Community”.
I hope you will find that I am an open communicator and someone always willing to listen and consider the input of the parent community. Your input is important and whenever a change is needed that also falls in line with our mission, vision and philosophy as an American school with American and international students, then change will be welcomed. In the mean time we will continuously reflect and assess our curriculum and program in general as a way of always seeking to improve and better meet the needs of our students. It is my job to support our teachers in order to provide our students with the best opportunities to learn and prepare for their futures, not only in education, but in life. Our school should be the most challenging and yet most nurturing and supportive learning environment in all of Central America. From what I have felt and witnessed in the first week, I have no reason to believe otherwise. This is going to be a great year and I’m really looking forward to meeting all of you.
Cheers,
Jeff Haun
- Friday, August 29, 2008
Renaissance Man Takes The Reins At CDS
By Ralph Nicholson
When Country Day School went looking for a new Director for their campus in Brasilito, Guanacaste, they unwittingly found a real renaissance man.
On paper, ...read more
- Friday, August 29, 2008
Renaissance Man Takes The Reins At CDS
By Ralph Nicholson
When Country Day School went looking for a new Director for their campus in Brasilito, Guanacaste, they unwittingly found a real renaissance man.
On paper, 47-year-old Jeff Haun was a teacher with more than 20 years’ experience, most recently as the Director of a small school in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In reality, Mr Haun is a school director, a teacher, a traveler, a baseball player, a painter and a cook, and this week he took over the reins of the eight-year-old, Guanacaste campus.
“What’s really important to me is building a community within the school, making teachers feel they are being supported, making parents feel like they are being listened to,” Mr Haun said of his new job this week.
“I like having a very positive atmosphere at school,” he added. “I like having the feeling that the kids like the school, the teachers seem happy, and the parents as well.”
The Hauns (his wife Sarah has also taken a position at CDS, as first-grade teacher) first came to Costa Rica as newlyweds and backpackers, honeymooning in the country for a month back in 1999.
Then the traveling began in earnest, first to Morocco in 2001 where the pair taught at a small school in Ifrane, a mountain town between Fez and Meknes, for four years. From there they swapped the Atlas Mountains for the northern climes of Lithuania, where for at least four months of the year they counted no more than six hours daylight.
In some respects Mr Haun was born to teach, he just didn’t realize it until his sophomore year.
He was in college on a baseball scholarship, helping out in his little brother’s third grade class, when the teacher pointed out his obvious skill. It was then he declared his major.
What followed was 15 years of special education, teaching emotionally-disturbed kids.
“It is a tough job if you don’t like it, but for some reason it was my niche, and it was never that difficult,” says Mr Haun.
“There were hard times and I saw people that tried to teach it but found it difficult and didn’t last very long. I don’t know, maybe it is just a personality quirk, where I just enjoyed it. I work well with those kinds of kids. I miss it a lot.”
It’s during those years he took up painting and cooking.
“I love to paint. I don’t sit and paint a picture of the house or the trees; I’m definitely more into the abstract.
“For the last 12 or 13 years it’s been important for me to get my studio place, some place that I can get messy. Art was something I really got into when I was teaching special education — I found it was a great release.
“And my hour in the kitchen when I got home. If I had room mates they all knew to leave me alone, I needed that quiet time at the end of the day.”
Country Day School, or CDS as it is more popularly known, boasts 130 students this year, including seven boarding students, taught by 22 teachers.
Three years ago it was granted official accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, considered one of most progressive of the six regional accrediting organizations in the US.
The re-accreditation process, which comes around every five years, is one reason Jeff Haun has his job. He went through the process in Lithuania, guiding the school through accreditation.
“They want to see that you are still doing what you said you could,” he says. “Because when you get accredited nobody gets the perfect gold star in every area, so there may be some ideas and things to work on.
“We will be setting goals and looking at what they call the self-study where you evaluate every aspect of your program, transportation, safety issues, etc...”
And since CDS is both a US college-preparatory school, as well as a business, Mr Haun will be trying to grow the business. While school leaders accept they can’t necessarily affect day-school enrolments, they do believe they can improve the boarding program, effectively bringing in more business.
This year the dormitory staff is all new, including the supervisor who worked with the new Director in Morocco.
In fact, Mr Haun says he has been given the freedom to move CDS in whatever direction, whatever personality the school needs to take on, as long as it keeps within the Country Day School philosophy.
“In some ways, yes, I am a traditionalist a little bit, just in my approach to things like basic skills,” he says. “But I also believe we need to take full advantage of this area, in any way that we can, getting out, incorporating the culture, include the landscape and the environment in what we do.
“They can go together, there is nothing that says you can’t have traditional learning; with the outdoors experience,” he adds.
“There is no doubt that experiential learning is deeper than traditional learning, but we are not going to be the rote learning, you go to the local schools that just don’t have the funding and they have to do that.
“Schools all over the world have that, but every time students from those types of schools walk through the doors of a school like this, it is like nothing they have ever seen.
“It’s not just teacher attitude and people wanting to get to know you as a person not just as a student, it’s not just the freedom to express yourself. We really believe in the philosophy that if you question, you are learning. You just don’t take your teacher as the ultimate authority; if you question them, you question them, and it is up to the teacher to prove it.
“You ask questions and you learn for yourself, it is trying to teach other cultures about that, that aren’t used to it, that we teach kids how to learn, how to find the information for themselves.
“They [the students] should go away from the American experience in education, knowing how to learn what ever it is they want to learn, or to find the information, and be excited about it. In any subject.”
Mr Haun says a good teacher knows to guide a student through the learning process, and is there to support them.
“The more a teacher lectures, the less learning is going on in that classroom.”
- CDS Guanacaste Weekly News #2
August 29, 2008
We had another great week. We even introduced a new school song titled: CDSG…The Place to Be! You can hear it every Friday at the elementary assembly. Feel free to come by and listen. Maybe you’ll want ...read more
- CDS Guanacaste Weekly News #2
August 29, 2008
We had another great week. We even introduced a new school song titled: CDSG…The Place to Be! You can hear it every Friday at the elementary assembly. Feel free to come by and listen. Maybe you’ll want to join us and sing along. The words are as follows:
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
We learn a lot, and have some fun
There’s something here for everyone
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
From different lands, we gather here
At Country Day, our school so dear
CDSG, the place to be
One family, that’s you and me
CDGS, the place to be
One,two, one, two three!
CDGS, the place to be!
The elementary had lots of fun today learning and singing the song at the end of the assembly.
August Elementary Students of the Month: We also had our first student of the month awards for each grade, and the Spanish classes as well. It is our way of rewarding students for being positive, contributing to classroom discussions, and completing academic assignments. We want to recognize what great kids we have here. Look for the pictures of the students holding their certificates to be displayed on a wall near the office by early next week. Be sure and let them know how proud you are of them.
Our
August Students of the Month
Congratulations!
Maria Fernanda Mas Pre K/K
Isabella Batasch Prepa/Gr. 1
Sabastian Zarate Gr. 2
Isabella Tinoco Gr. 3
Trey Green Gr. 4
Simone Augustine Gr. 5
Makena Green Gr. 6
Bryce Anderson Spanish
Maria Fernandez Spanish
Jon Lerch Spanish
After School Activities After school activities will start next week. Please plan your schedules accordingly.
Safety Reminder #1 All elementary students waiting for their parent/guardian to pick them up after school at 2:30 will be kept in the waiting area in front of the office until an adult comes to pick them up from there. This is an attempt to keep the children safer from running out in front of a car from behind the busses. Thank you for your cooperation and support of this minor change.
Safety Reminder #2 Patrick Brown has issued this safety reminder about the bridge you cross on the road into school: The small bridge that one crosses right after passing the Commercial Center can and has been over-run by water in the past.
What to Do:
If water is running over the bridge, do not attempt to cross it. When the water is this high, it is moving very fast, and even just a foot of it can push your car off the bridge. Yes, I know it’s a very short bridge, but please believe me, you do not want to try this. Also, pieces of trees, branches, etc get washed off the mountains and these could damage your car or harm you if you happen to cross at the wrong moment.
Wait until the water level has fallen, then cross.
You can park in the Commercial Center and use the internal footbridge to get across if you want to totally avoid being stranded here.
If the water is over the bridge during morning drop-off or afternoon pick-up: Buses and cars should wait until the level has fallen. If it is not raining hard (sometimes the rain stops, but it takes a while longer for the water level to fall), they can drop off/pick-up in the commercial center and people can walk across. If it is raining hard, people should wait.
We’ll keep an eye on it and I’ll send out a warning if the water has risen above the bridge. Usually, this only happens in October, but there is a hurricane (Gustav) that as you all know is dumping tons of rain on us.
Upper School Bonding Assembly: What this picture represents is the wacky things our upper school teachers are willing to do in the name of team building and bonding activities for their students. It was our annual class bonding assembly for the upper school students. Can you guess who this is?
Pointy Foilheaded Man Chases CDSG Students with Lethal Mop!
The activities took place Wednesday afternoon and were a great success and everyone had a great time.
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| School Notes Overview: |
The Country Day School is a U.S. accredited college preparatory day and boarding school situated in one of the world’s most beautiful natural settings - the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. We challenge students with a rigorous college preparatory curriculum, balanced by a diverse offering of athletic and extracurricular offerings.
Our curriculum is based primarily on the United States system and extends from early childhood through high school. Our mission and focus is to develop the intellectual, creative and problem solving skills of our students, based on cultural, moral and social values, in preparation for their entry into college or university. The language of instruction is English, and Spanish is taught as a required course at every grade level.
The school is located minutes from the beach in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, in Costa Rica. At only 19,730 square miles, or about the size of West Virginia, Costa Rica has been likened to Hawaii for it’s incredible diversity and beauty of natural environments, habitats, and climates. Within a few hours of the school, you will find beautiful Pacific coast beaches (with hardly a soul on them), lush tropical rainforests, active volcanoes, raging rapids, dry tropical forests, and an abundance of wildlife seen in few places on Earth. Despite being so small, Costa Rica has more species of birds than all North America. You will find (and sometimes be awakened by) Howler monkeys on campus, or walk by 2-ft long iguanas on your way to class. You will also witness the entire landscape change between our two distinct seasons: a warm rainy season with lush, green rain forests, cloudy skies and the most spectacular sunsets and a very dry and warm season with African savannah like landscapes drenched by blue, sunny skies.
Throughout the year, weekend trips and activities are planned to allow you to experience Costa Rica in its entire splendor. These trips and activities are part of full-time boarding tuition and do not entail additional expenses. Trips range from volcano trekking, scuba diving (certification is included in tuition) or snorkeling, overnight sailing trips to nearby islands, camping at various national parks, witnessing Olive Ridley turtles nesting at Playa Grande, to spending a weekend at a far-away beach enjoying the surf, sand, and weather.
If you have a desire for a truly unique college preparatory boarding program experience, love nature, and have an adventuresome spirit, we hope you will join our exciting community!
You may learn much more about our school and community through our web site, at www.cdsgte.com. We welcome your questions and stand ready to assist you through every phase of the application process.
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