Friday, November 8, 2013


Dear Parents,

It was good to get back to school this week. There was an excited buzz on Monday morning as the students greeted each other and shared tales of their adventures over the break. Then on Wednesday we held our annual Diwali Assembly. The middle school students joined us for a beautiful and instructive performance of Bharatnatyam dance by Ms. Preethi Ramaprasad, a talented and accomplished danseuse from the U.S., and her troupe. This was followed by a student recognition of our facilities and maintenance staff, after which the High School Student Council and the Middle School Ambassadors served them tea and sweets. It was a thoroughly enjoyable occasion.

IB Exam Registration Fees due
A reminder to all parents of students taking IB exams in May – the deadline for registration is this week. All IB candidates have received a memo from Mrs. Crouch indicating the fees that must be paid. Candidates will not be registered for the exams until the fees are paid.  If the first registration deadline is missed, an additional fee will have to be paid for late registration.

CHEMUN VII
CheMUN VII kicked off this morning with opening speeches and an inspiring keynote address by Dr. Parvati Halbe and Mr. Madhukar Mane from Maitri, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in villages in Maharashtra. This weekend more than 440 delegates from over 30 schools across India and the world will debate issues related to this year’s conference theme, ‘Disease Control and Medicine.” It is an exciting opportunity for these students to collaborate across cultures and learn more about the challenges that face the planet and humanity.

Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences
Earlier this week I sent our information regarding the upcoming Student-Parent-Teacher conferences. These conferences are a good opportunity for parents and students to meet with teachers to discuss the student’s progress in his or her courses. This is the time to discuss how your child is performing and ways we can work together to increase their success.  This is especially important if your child is not doing as well as they would like.  There are always ways we can help them improve.

The first of these conferences are scheduled for next Thursday, Nov. 14 from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 15 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The conferences will be held in the cafeteria. This year we will again be using an online system to schedule conference appointments with teachers. Information on the process was sent home via email a few days ago. You can also find information at SPT Conference Information.

SAISA Track & Field and Boys Basketball update
Please be informed that a change of venue that recently occurred for our season three sporting events. Due to a major renovation project at the American International School of Dhaka, they will not be able to host the 2014 SAISA Track & Field Meet this coming March 11-15th as planned. They requested that we switch the tournaments, to which we agreed. As a result, we will be hosting the 2014 SAISA Track & Field Meet and AISD will host the 2014 SAISA Boys Basketball Tournament.

We wish we could host basketball at the same time, but logistically this would be too difficult for us. It is our hope that we will get the boys basketball back to Chennai in 2015.

By helping one of our SAISA member schools in this way we can assure that all the SAISA Track & Field Athletes have a properly-run and rewarding meet. We are excited about hosting the Track & Field Meet this year and look forward to the excitement and community building that hosting a meet with 300 athletes can do for our school identity and pride.

If you have any questions or concerns about this please feel free to contact me at tronald@aisch.orgThanks again for your understanding.

Athletes of the Month of October
The Athletic Department would like to congratulate the October Athletes of the Month. These athletes were nominated by their coaches for their outstanding efforts in their respective sports then selected by the panel consisting of the head coaches and myself.

The recipients of this award for October are: Heewon Hwang for participation in MS Table Tennis, Katrina Nielsen for participation in SAISA Swimming, Dakota Kuhn for participation in SAISA Volleyball and Emma Berg for participation in SAISA Volleyball. These fine young athletes have all demonstrated and modeled the attributes of competitive spirit, hard work and dedication to one’s sport, leadership and the sportsmanship that we seek in all of our student/athletes.

Congratulations! We are very proud of you.

Visit the Athletic Website
A friendly reminder that our new Athletic Website is up and running and we have a lot of information regarding the sports programs here at AISC. So if you want to find practice schedules, game schedules, SAISA results, live streaming or the weekly notes from my desk, please go to the web site and surf away!

Remember to get there, go to the AISC home page, click on the Community Life tab and scroll all the way down to the bottom then click on the Activities/Athletics tab. Once you have done that click on the words Click Here and this will take you to our website. Or you can just Click Here.

Departing students – Each year some of our students leave the school during the school year, often at the mid-year break. Records from AISC are usually required by the next school. However, it takes us some time to prepare these records. If you will be leaving the school, please contact Ms. Priya Sarath in the Counseling Office at least two weeks prior to your departure so we can prepare the necessary documents to make your transition as smooth as possible.

Please note that for students leaving school at the Winter Break, we will be able to provide all required documentation, including official report cards for Quarter 1. However, report cards and transcripts showing the Quarter 2 and Semester grades will not be available until January. We will be happy to forward these to you at your next destination.

Who to See for What
I have placed a document in the sidebar, Who to See for What in the High School, to help parents understand the various roles of the team in the high school office. If you have any questions or are unsure who to contact, don’t hesitate to call or email our Administrative Assistant, SunitaSuchith (ssunita@aisch.org). If she is not available, you can contact the Administrative Assistant for the Guidance Department, Ms. PriyaSarath (spriya@aisch.org).

That’s all for this week. I remind you that school will be closed for Fall Break next week. I hope it is a pleasant and enjoyable one for you.

John McCandless
High School Principal