German School of the East Bay

August 6th, 2011

Dear Students and Families of the German School of the East Bay,

I would like to welcome new and returning students as well as parents, grandparents and friends to the fall semester @ Gseb.

We are located on the beautiful grounds of the Altenheim in the Excelsior Building, which we are renting from our sponsors the “Excelsior German Center”. Together we are working on promoting the German culture through our school as well as other cultural events.

School starts on September 10th 2011 with our morning classes from 9:30 am until 12 noon and our afternoon session beginning at 1:00 pm until 3:30 pm.

Nancy, our head teacher, is currently working on class placements. We want to ensure that every student is placed in the  best possible class.

Our registrar and vice president, Ela and Radek, have worked on our on-line registration (paper forms are available at registration for those without access to the web), and - we are excited to offer for the first time on-line credit card or PayPal payments (we gladly accept check or cash also).

Payments are due by or on the first school day!

Our goal is to be fully registered by the second week of school. We appreciate your continued effort in helping us with this by submitting forms and tuition in a timely manner.

Please take some time to look at all the available information on this including our class schedules, holidays and extracurricular activities.

Registration: Registration is completed when the registration form is submitted and tuition is paid in full. This year we combined all the forms into one for your convenience.

Tuition: The first student pays $270; additional family members (and teacher family) pay $200. the toddler group tuition is $160. There is $30 material fee for all students besides adults. We grant a few need-based scholarships every semester. Please contact us BEFORE the first day of school if you wish to be considered for a reduction in tuition(please e-mail me directly @ president@gseb-school.org)

The volunteer deposit is $50. We require a separate check for this with the provision to be returned to you as you have fulfilled your volunteer obligations.

Toddler Group: Our “Sing und Spielgruppe” takes place from 9:30am-10:30am or 11:00am-12:00noon for children age 18 months to 4 years. The classes are exclusively held in German, a parent or guardian who fluently speaks German needs to attend.(It is not necessary to fill out emergency forms as the child will be supervised by a parent/guardian at all times, but it is highly recommended that you provide us with the child’s birth date as only with this information we can automatically reserve a space in the Kindergarten or Hamster class.)

Volunteer Obligation: Every family is required to provide three hours (this is a change from two hours) of volunteer time each semester. We need your help, without your support the school could not exist! I suggest you make arrangements for your volunteer opportunity by the 8th week of the semester. Please find a board member to get your “volunteer certificate” signed after you have fulfilled your obligation to ensure that you will get your check returned to you!

Please check out our volunteer option form and sign up for ALL the tasks that appeal to you. (Providing snack for the Kaffeekasse does NOT count as volunteer task, working in the Kaffeekasse however does.)

Kaffeekasse: Every family is obligated - once a semester - to provide homemade (if possible) or purchased snacks (25 portions) for sale at our coffee break. Keeping in mind that this is what we are selling to the students this could include savory or sweet items (we are trying to offer healthy choices!), cut-up fruit, yoghurt, cheese/sausage sandwiches. Please provide us with nut content as allergies are more common!

The Kaffeekasse schedule will be available the third week of school and is send via e-mail. (This is another reason why we require timely registration so that we have an updated enrollment roster.) Please let us know if you need a hardcopy. We will also post the schedule on the bulletin board in the hallway.
Please make a note of your assigned date, for changes please e-mail kaffeekasse@gseb-school.org.

I hope this information helps you to better navigate through our registration process and prepare for a successful school year 2011.

As always, we thank you for your support!

Petra Kübler
President of the GSEB School Board