Third Grade Mosaic

This mosaic mural of Portland had been growing year by year, with lots of help from Anna's third grade class, and Mark, our mosaic guy!

Murals: Space Whales

This mural lives in the entry to the Commons and to Jeff's office, at the end of the high school hallway.

Yearbooks Are Here!

Hello, friends!  Grab your excitement hats, because the MLC yearbooks are here!

The yearbooks have finally come in, and are ready for sale!  They are $20, and can be bought outside of the Main Office before and after school.  You can buy a yearbook any day, as supplies last.  We already sold 17 on Tuesday, the very first day they were available, so get your yearbook ASAP.

I already have mine (I got the 9th sold) and it's SNAZZY!  They're super fun, and colorful, and are also hard-cover.

I repeat:  HARD-COVER.  This is awesome!

So, bring your wallet when you come to pick up your kids, or send them with money or a check.  Make checks payable to Metropolitan Learning Center.

Here is what the front and back covers look like.  The front was done by Tom E., and the back by Audrey L. Aren't they amazing? Here's the inside cover, designed by Ashley B.:

Get your yearbook before they're all gone!

Murals: Hikers

This mural lives in the high school hallway outside of Mike's room (rm. 204).

Murals: Tree Women

This mural lives in Bianca's room (rm. 108).

Lunch Options

MLC students have an hour-long lunch period. Starting in sixth grade, with parental permission, students can go off-campus to buy food at one of the many restaurants and grocery stores that are nearby.

Choices include:

• Trader Joe's
• Blue Moon (a McMenamin's)
• Pizza Schmizza
• Ken's Artisan Bakery
• Fred Meyer's
• Portland Bagel Co.
• Pepino's
• Laughing Planet
• Escape From New York Pizza (owned by MLC family)
• Mio Sushi
• Cha Taqueria
• Moonstruck Chocolate
• Starbucks
• Fat Straw
• Pizzicato Pizza
• Coffee Time
• Love Via Crepes
• and many more!

GSA!

 Okay, you know the GSA is cool if it has a dragon as part of its logo. There's no going wrong with that. The GSA meets every Tuesday during lunch in Steve's room (rm 300). Snacks provided!

MLC's GSA group sits for a yearbook photo.

Egg Drop

The Egg Drop is another long-standing MLC tradition. Students (and staff) of all ages are invited to submit contraptions invented to keep an egg protected in the three-story drop from the roof of the building. Ten lucky students and a few staff members coordinate the event roofside, while a couple of students emcee. The whole school comes outside to the staff parking lot to watch the crazy contraptions fly off of the roof. If the egg breaks, the student rings a bell; if it's still intact, they honk the horn (of course, we switch it up every now and again--sometimes it's vice versa). It's a great spring activity to get everyone outside for an afternoon, and teaches everybody a little something about physics in the process.

All-School Mosaic

Every student in the school is helping to make a huge mosaic to be displayed in the Commons. It will be a giant yin yang, surrounded by a gradated rainbow square with the five character traits (courage, respect, integrity, self-discipline, and compassion) around the edge. Each student created two fused glass squares that will be included in the mosaic, and one to take home. We have all been helping to put it together, and so far it looks awesome! Thanks so much to Mark, who is making this all happen!

Nathan Sadowsky

Nathan Sadowsky is a sophomore at MLC, but next year, he'll be leaving us for college!  When Nathan moved from Chicago to Portland two years ago, he skipped the eighth grade and jumped straight into the community.  There was a wonderful article written about Nathan, which can be viewed here.  Nathan is a great kid, and one of my best friends in the world, and I can't wait to see what he does next.  Congrats, Nathan!

Michael!

Michael Sosne has been a fixture at MLC since he first started teaching in September of 2006. Since then, Michael has become one of the best role models and teachers MLC could ever have. We are so sad that he is leaving us at the end of this year! Frequently seen wandering the halls with a box of dry cereal or a guitar under his arm, popping into classrooms to explain adverbs or teach calculus, Michael always has a smile on his face.

More Senior Power...Not To Brag, But....

Seniors at MLC are required to design and complete senior projects in order to graduate. These projects can vary widely, from choreographing a dance piece, to writing a blog like this one, to volunteering at an organization. It has to benefit the community in some way. Seniors write proposals which are reviewed by a panel of staff members and are approved or tweaked until they are satisfactory. We fill out time sheets, and at the end of our projects, write a three page reflective essay. Here's a few examples of what seniors are doing this year:

• Choreographing and directing an original dance composition
• Casting and directing plays
• Writing a blog that explores a social issue
• Writing and creating a graphic novel
• Holding a secondhand clothing sale as a fundraiser for Loaves & Fishes
• Taking a solo backpacking trip through the Oregon countryside
• Drafting and creating a costume for a fellow student in one of the high school plays
• Designing, producing, and selling event teachers to raise money for the school
• Teaching art classes to younger students
• Raising money to pay for wells in Bangladesh

Ashland!

This last week, the entire high school had the privilege of visiting Ashland, in southern Oregon, for three nights and four days.  Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is famous throughout the country as an amazing company.  OSF produces eleven plays a season, and we were lucky enough to get to see three or four of them, depending on our itinerary for the trip.  All of the students on the Ashland trip saw Animal Crackers, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, and Romeo and Juliet; while some also got to see Seagull.

A group of students on "the Bricks," the brick area that connects the theaters of OSF (the Angus Bowmer, the Elizabethan, and the New Theater). It's a common meeting place for school groups before and after shows, and a great place to hang out!

Students were put into three large groups: Theater, Outdoor Adventure, and Wild West. The Theater group focused on workshops and backstage tours, and got to see Seagull. The Outdoor Adventure group got to go on some amazing hikes and visit Table Rock. The Wild West group focused mainly upon history, and spent half a day in Jacksonville seeing the historic sites there.

From these groups, students were also split into ten strands, making things even more complicated with timing and chaperones. On Thursday afternoon, students embarked on many different adventures, everything from visiting a creamery, to a hike in Lithia Park, to meeting Matt Damon (not THE Matt Damon) and his class of third graders. This was a ton of fun as well, and provided a great opportunity to experience something beyond the normal "Ashland-Theater" experience.


Students and Lewis taking a quick rest on the Lithia Park Hiking Adventure, one of the many amazing activities we did!

All in all, the Ashland trip was a huge success, and everyone had a fantastic time adventuring through Ashland!

Make sure to thank the high school teachers if you see them, they put a LOT of work into this trip!

Yearbooks!

According to Jostens, our yearbook publishing company, our contracted ship date is May 21st. This means that the MLC yearbooks should be here soon! They will be $20, and even more important than that, they will be AWESOME! We've worked really hard to make sure that the books contain every student at least twice, and should be a lot of fun to page through and look at the year. MLC students and parents will be able to buy the yearbooks from the table next to the main office before and after school, and during the day from Kathleen in the main office.  Don't be the last one to get your yearbook!

Update:
Here's a little taste....