Dear KIS Community,

November is here!

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the QSI Director's meetings. The focus throughout these meetings was resilience and hope. Chris O'Shaughnessy was a keynote speaker at this event, who grew up as a third culture kid (TCK). He will also be joining our staff professional development in November. We discussed five different types of resilience and I wanted to share them with our KIS community, as I could not help but think of our school.

Cognitive Resilience - What is my plan to get through difficult times?
Behavioral Resilience – What habits get me through hard times (Actions taken/habits in place) 
Motivational Resilience – Why do I get back up? What am I working towards? 
Relational Resilience – Can someone help me back up? Can I help someone else get up? What are the support networks in place?
Emotional Resilience – How do I tolerate and deal with negative feelings and events? 

I can't think of a more resilient and optimistic community than our KIS community. Everyone continues to show up, join in, and take part of every opportunity despite the many challenges.

Thank you, for being such a resilient community.

Sincerely,

 

 

Luke Woodruff
Director
Kyiv International School

 

Dear Elementary and Middle School Families,

The students and teachers had a great time during Spirit Week! It was fun to see the creative and silly side of our school community. Thank you to our Student Council and PTO for organizing.

Passion Project Showcase:
Students, with help from their mentors, will create a post on our Passion Project Showcase. Some students are nearing the end of their first project and will be starting a new one. Other students are deep into the progress of their first project and will prepare an update to share. There is no set timeline for how long a project should take – each student and project are unique. Each week, starting December 2nd we will share posts from our Passion Project Showcase in the Kozak Korner.

Thank you for your flexibility and communication as we continue to navigate power and internet outages in our community.

As always, please feel free to reach out with questions or concerns:
Elementary Office: kiseloffice@kyiv.qsi.org
Middle School Office: kismsoffice@kyiv.qsi.org

Best regards,

Mrs. Carla Grossman

 

 

Carla Grossman
Director of Instruction
carla-grossman@kyiv.qsi.org

What’s Going on In Secondary:

Coming Soon: Block Schedule
In response to both student, parent and teacher requests we are moving to a Block Schedule on Thursday and Friday. We feel this new schedule will allow for more flexibility and opportunities in the classroom and less homework. On Monday, during Morning Mindset, students will have a chance to ask questions or voice concerns about this new schedule. We will also make individual schedules for students to ensure that they know what their day looks like. This schedule will start on November 17th

If you have questions or concerns about this, please let me know. I am happy to meet with you to discuss this!

Sincerely,

 

 

Rachel Geary
Director of Instruction
rachel-geary@kyiv.qsi.org

 

DO YOU LIKE READING? IF YES, THEN THIS IS FOR YOU!! 

Secondary CAS (Creativity and Service) Students will be putting a review for the books that stand beyond the regular school program, but make an explicit impact on the world outlook in individual's mind. 

Numerous students frequently want to broaden their views. But most believe that reading classics written by white American men is the only reliable and knowledgeable reading they can undertake, which is just not true. CAS Book Club intend to encourage students to read about subjects—such as race, gender, BIPOC LGBTQIA+, and many other topics—through books for middle-grade and young adults written by different authors. 

You can trust that books recommended within the borders of this project are written by people who were either significantly affected by issues of global assistance or were writing about issues of global significance.

First CAS book recommendation / review is already in this newsletter!! 

 

Persepolis is the memoir book of Marjane Satrapi, telling the story of her growing up in Iran in the times of the Islamic revolution. In this book Satrapi describes her life as a young girl, witnessing the fall of the Shah's government, the triumph of the Islamic revolution, and the devastation caused by the Iraq war. Simultaneously, the reader follows a regular middle-class family and observes the consequences and repercussions of every governmental decision. 

Thanks to the black-and-white styled graphics, the novel is easy to read and understand even for a beginner on the history topics of such kind. The story is a perfect balance of history and personal narrative. The novel also gives a voice to a perspective we often do not learn from in history class - a young girl’s. Finally, it provides a basic overview and foundation of the reason behind the protests for women's choice that are happening in Iran today. 

Trigger warnings include mentions of torture, war, police brutality, governmental oppression, religious intolerance, and displacement.

- Sasha F.