School LIfe | The CCSC Scene

Reading Suggestions for February Break

Overheard in the library today: “I’ve got to stock up on books for February break.”

Following a weekend bookended by two snow days and a with week of school vacation coming up, avid readers like 8^th graders Rajai and Sandie, made a beeline to the CCSC library during lunch to replenish their supply of DEAR books.

From Black History Month and Valentine’s Day to Chinese New Year and the start of baseball spring training, February offers no shortage of themes to inspire readers of all inclinations. All CCSC students are expected to keep up, even redouble, their DEAR reading over break, and luckily librarian Barbara Post never runs short of suggestions to tempt even the most reluctant readers. All these titles were available to check out this morning; new additions to the collection get snapped up quickly, so don’t dally! Continue reading “Reading Suggestions for February Break”

Celebrating Black History Month

Each year CCSC celebrates Black History Month with a special all-school assembly that features student speakers and performances by the chorus. This year’s BHM event (“At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation & The March on Washington”) is scheduled for Friday, February 15 at MIT’s Walker Auditorium. We are honored to have Kellie Carter Jackson, of Harvard’s African & African American Studies Department, as the keynote speaker. Continue reading “Celebrating Black History Month”

If CCSC’s Walls Could Talk…

Head of School Caleb Hurst-Hiller exhorts students to prepare well for midterms.

If CCSC’s walls could talk, they’d have a great vocabulary!

Reading is the best way to build vocabulary, which is one reason the CCSC schedule includes a period called Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) four mornings a week when everyone—students and faculty—picks up a book or magazine and spends a serene* 30 minutes reading for pleasure.

Another way we help students hone their vocabularies is through the Word of the Week posters on the walls. Humanities teacher Katie Rieser selects the words from an SAT practice list and crafts humorous sentences using them for the posters, which have proliferated on campus this fall. Continue reading “If CCSC’s Walls Could Talk…”

The Weekly Shout Out Tradition

With just 360 students in grades 7-12, CCSC is a small school where every individual is well known in the community. One of the ways we support and appreciate each other is through the tradition of Thursday Shout Outs, or “Thank You Thursday.”

Each week, Lower School Principal Becki Norris solicits shout outs from faculty, staff and students who wish to recognize and thank each other for acts that exemplify CCSC’s core values of Courage, Commitment, Scholarship, and Citizenship. Continue reading “The Weekly Shout Out Tradition”

The Morning Handshake

Welcome to the new CCSC blog! What better way to begin than with a post on the CCSC tradition of the Morning Handshake?

As a relatively young school (this is our eighth year in operation), we haven’t had long to burnish school traditions, but the Morning Handshake, a ritual that began on Day One, is already deeply rooted in CCSC culture. Each morning, every student shakes hands and exchanges a greeting with an administrator upon crossing the threshold. (For those of you who enjoy crunching numbers, that’s about 1,800 handshakes a week, or 64,000 handshakes a school year, not counting the Summer Academy, which is when new CCSC students first encounter the Morning Handshake routine.)

Continue reading “The Morning Handshake”

Category: School LIfe

Reading Suggestions for February Break

Celebrating Black History Month

If CCSC’s Walls Could Talk…

The Weekly Shout Out Tradition

The Morning Handshake

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