Open House! Friday the 13th! 2-5pm! Y’all invited!

Alissa, Pixie, and Melissa (who are definitely not posing for the camera, by the way) really want to make sure that you come to our Open House on Friday the 13th from 2-5pm! The Open House is open to everyone: students, families, community members, and Hanby Lane neighbors who have spent the past two months wondering why a gaggle of teens has suddenly descended upon their neighborhood!

Ummmm…

There’s no other way to say this without telling a story (if you’re impatient and just want the spoiler, you’ll find it on the last line): Last Wednesday began like any other day. There was oatmeal eaten, compost buckets filling and dishes washing, with one classroom studying The Metamorphosis while the other classroom discussed healthy living. Then came the 20-minute break between 1st and 2nd period, and with that break came the common ritual called teachers-check-their-emails. One of those teachers-check-their-emails emails contained the subject line “G5 Notification – New Grant Award Notification S282B230004″ and it began its message with the words “The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is pleased to notify you that your grant has been selected for funding. You may access your electronically signed Grant Award Notification (GAN) documents for this new award, S282B230004 & GAN action number 1, at http://www.g5.gov under Grant Maintenance, Award Documents.” This was most peculiar, as the teachers were not awaiting a grant notification and the email did not specify the nature of the grant. The teachers-check-their-emails teacher who received this email was certain this was a scam. A scam! The teacher first googled “Is Grant Award Notification S282B230004 a scam?” but, alas, nothing popped up. So they called the telephone number listed in the email, thinking “Certainly, calling this number will reveal the scam to be a scam!” But when the automated voice on the other end of the line said “You have called the United States Department of Education,” the teacher slammed down their phone in astonishment (since it’s 2023, we all know this was a cell phone and cell phones cannot be “slammed down,” but please, if you can, keep in your mind the imagery of a phone, circa 1997, being dramatically “slammed down”). After more investigating and with increasingly shaky hands, the teacher who had received this email determined that It. Was. Real. and hearkened to a grant application that had been submitted many, many months before and which had been assigned approximately 0.00% chance of success. But thus it came to this: Kalmiopsis Community Arts High School has received a grant from the federal government for roughly $350,000 over the next three years.We are still in shock.

Read the rest of the newsletter HERE!