The Column

There will be no PALCS or CPFA classes on Monday, October 11 for Indigenous Peoples' Day / Columbus Day.

Progress Check 2 is on Thursday, October 14. If you need academic support, please email CPFA Guidance Counselor Ms. Mazzio (lmazzio@palcs.org)

Unity Day is on Wednesday, October 20. Wear orange to show unity for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion and to show visible support of bullying prevention.

The CPFA Middle School Fall Festival Celebration will be on Wednesday, October 27 from 1:30-2:30 p.m.

The CPFA High School Fall Festival Costume Party will be on Friday, October 29 from 7-10 p.m.

Pursuant to the governor's order, masks are required in all schools. If students are unable to comply, they may be asked to leave the program.

After reviewing your feedback, the next Pillars Meeting will be held virtually at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 12 in Mr. Allen's Zoom room.

All month long, CPFA will focus on recognizing and spreading kindness with activities like our Random Acts of Kindness Daily Challenges and our Caught Being Kind Wall. CPFA will also celebrate Unity Day on Wednesday, October 20. Unity Day is an annual event that promotes joining together to create healthier communities through kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

Read more about Bullying Prevention Month here!

Ms. Mazzio will be hosting a Life After High School Informational Workshop on Friday, October 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the Atrium. This is the first in a series of workshops designed to support students in their transition beyond high school. This workshop will focus on the college search and application process. Students and parents are encouraged to attend! If you have any questions, please email lmazzio@palcs.org. Make sure you stick around afterwards for the Friday Night Cafe!

Tri-M Music Honor Society is proud to present the first Friday Night Cafe of the 2021-2022 school year! It will take place in the CPFA Atrium on Friday, October 8 from 7-9 p.m. Masks are required indoors onsite at all times. It is free and open to the public. FNC is CPFA’s “open mic night,” with a variety of performances by both middle school and high school students. All kinds of acts are encouraged: music, dance, photography slideshows, even stand-up comedy! This year, Remote Access students will be able to perform live on the new video wall in the Atrium! Look for an online performer registration form on the CPFA Homepage and be sure to sign up no later than Wednesday, October 6. All acts must be approved by CPFA faculty prior to being added to the program.

After school events and activities at CPFA are only made possible by our student, parent and family volunteers!

Please take a look at our *SIGN-UP SHEET* for Friday Night Cafe and the middle school and high school Fall Festival Celebrations.

The Tri-M Shoe Drive continues! Help us fill the collection box in the CPFA lobby every single week from today until November 12. We are accepting gently used or new shoes of any style. All funds raised from this drive support activities of the CPFA Music Department, and the shoes go to micro-enterprise entrepreneurs in Haiti and other underdeveloped countries. Clean out your closets and support two good causes by filling up the donation box in the lobby!

Tri-M has decided to turn the drive into a CONTEST! Beginning this week, shoes deposited in the collection box on Mondays and Wednesdays will be credited to the Middle School, while shoes deposited on Tuesdays and Thursdays will be credited to the High School. Whichever collects more shoes by November 12 will win the contest!

Photographer Jeff Reeder will be onsite at CPFA for picture day! Come dressed in your "best" outfit!

Middle School pictures will be on Monday, October 18.

High School pictures will be on Thursday, October 21.

For more information about the photographer, visit jeffreeder.com.

The Space Between Us

This is a yearbook from a year you do NOT want to miss! Did you already order one? Amazing! Books ordered ahead will be given to students during lunch end of Sept/early Oct. No problem! Bring $60 cash or check payable to “Balfour Publishing” to Ms. Severson at the CPFA front desk. (Ms. Severson will also have Venmo information.)

Remote Access students should reach out to Ms. Severson (sseverson@palcs.org) with their shipping address in order to receive a yearbook in the mail.

The next meeting for the National Honors Society for Dance Arts (NHSDA) is scheduled for Tuesday October 5 at 11:15 a.m. Location will be announced during morning announcements. This meeting will be for all members.

All photo lab fees ($40) are due by Thursday, October 7 by cash or check, to "Pillars of CPFA," in a marked envelope with the student's name, delivered to Ms. Severson or Mrs. O.

The photography class supply list can be found right HERE. This list will be shared and reviewed with all high school photography classes.

The National Portfolio Day Association is hosting National Portfolio Day on Saturday, October 9 in Philadelphia. Receive feedback and helpful critique to best prepare your fine arts portfolio for college applications. Acceptances have happened for CPFA students “on the spot” at this event. It is a great opportunity and highly advised for anyone applying to colleges as a fine arts student. To attend this event you must register HERE.

National Art Honor Society (NAHS) is holding its first informational meeting this Thursday, October 7 during lunch at 1120 a.m. in the 3-D studio. This committee is for high school students only, for new and returning members. If any CPFA Remote Access students would like to attend, please email supervisor, Mrs. O (dokcuoglu@palcs.org) to prepare you to attend via Zoom link.

We have a Wish List of donation requests. Thank you students, families, and our greater CPFA and PALCS community for considering donating these items.

The fine arts teachers still have a few sketchbooks and portfolios left for sale for $10 in cash, please. Sketchbooks are a MUST for all middle school and high school students to bring to EACH class EVERY DAY. If a student is enrolled in more than one fine arts class, it is suggested that they use the same sketchbook for all the classes. Portfolios are optional. Please refer to the Fine Arts Handbook for suggested retailers.

Advanced Placement (AP) class students, please listen in class for directions on how to sign-up for the AP Test, linked HERE. If you miss the deadline to take the test, you cannot take the test or receive the possible college credit for these classes.

2021-2022 Fine Arts Handbook can be found HERE and on the CPFA Homepage in Fine Arts section where the 2021-2022 Calendar of Events can also be found.

Student Art Exhibit artwork from the 2019-2020 school year will be available for return in the CPFA main lobby from Thursday, October 7 - Thursday, October 14. “Original” artworks only will be returned including: sculptures, ceramics, paintings, and drawings, and some darkroom prints. All digital media should have been backed up by each student such as photographic files and digital software graphic design imagery…(in some cases, students can retrieve digital prints if available).

CPFA FALL HIGH SCHOOL & MIDDLE SCHOOL MUSICAL OLIVER!

Rehearsals are in full swing for our first ever CPFA fall high school and middle school musical, OLIVER! Consider yourself at home with Lionel Bart's classic musical based on the Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist. The Tony and Olivier Award-winning show is one of the few musicals to win an Academy Award for Best Picture and is widely hailed as a true theatrical masterpiece by actors and audience members alike. The streets of Victorian England come to life as Oliver, a malnourished orphan in a workhouse, becomes the neglected apprentice of an undertaker. Oliver escapes to London and finds acceptance amongst a group of petty thieves and pickpockets led by the elderly Fagin. When Oliver is captured for a theft that he did not commit, the benevolent victim, Mr. Brownlow takes him in. Fearing the safety of his hideout, Fagin employs the sinister Bill Sikes and the sympathetic Nancy to kidnap him back, threatening Oliver’s chances of discovering the true love of a family.

Oliver! is a musical theatre masterpiece, perfectly showcasing the talents of a large ensemble cast as they bring these classic characters and score to life. The show opens Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - Sunday, December 12, 2021. Tickets will be made available online in the coming weeks!

The Theatre Department needs your help hanging lights and raising our risers! Thespians are called for a CPFA Atrium Theatre lighting drop & hang session and a tutorial on the new lighting board on Friday, October 8 from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. The Thespians are also called on Friday, October 22 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. to reconstruct the audience risers. Our goal is to improve audience site lines by raising the height of each row of platforms. We will have a brief Thespian check-in meeting during the riser build which will act as the monthly meeting. Any non-thespian high school students wanting to participate in either of these events needs to email Mr. Greenfield at jgreenfield@palcs.org.

Any student that wishes to participate in Tech Theatre or Production Teams at CPFA must sign and submit this form to Jason Greenfield (jgreenfield@palcs.org) to be eligible.

CPFA THEATRE DEPARTMENT TECH THEATRE & PRODUCTION TEAM - LIABILITY WAIVER

We are moving the CPFA costumes from our off-site storage unit back to CPFA on Friday, October 29 from 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. Any parents interested in helping out can contact Jason Greenfield at jgreenfield@palcs.org. We greatly appreciate any parent assistance you are able and willing to provide.

CPFA will resume participation in the Greater Philadelphia Cappie Season this year! Any high school student interested in being a Cappie Critic is asked to write a one-page review of any theatre production they have seen. It can be a review of a filmed production. Please submit the writing sample to Mr. Greenfield at jgreenfield@palcs.org by 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 7. This year the CPFA Fall Play Hamlet will be reviewed by the Cappie community and be up for award consideration.

CPFA’s Covid pool testing will begin October 6th and 7th. Testing will only be for those students who already have completed consents. Please see previous emails sent out by our school nurses for more detail and instructions on how to sign up for testing if interested. If you have questions or would like to be a parent/guardian volunteer for testing days, you can contact jgrablewski@palcs.org.

It is state law that we have emergency health records on file for every single student. This year, we have asked for your assistance while we transition our medical information into our new electronic database called MAGNUS. Our previous electronic database was outdated, and we now use Magnus to assist our nurse with emergency contacts, questions regarding your child's health, permission for your child to receive over-the-counter medications, and most importantly permission for our school nurse to assist your child if needed. If you have not completed the necessary questions in Magnus, please do so now. Families that do not have this completed may not have their children appropriately treated by our school nurse and could be sent home resulting in a school absence and not excused. We must have this information completed ASAP!

Thank you all for doing your part in keeping CPFA healthy and safe!

Last month we asked you to share your favorite pet photos for National Happy Cat Month! Ms. Bianca Lee would like you to meet Prince, a British Short Hair Silver Shaded Chinchilla NS1133. How fancy ! You can even follow Prince on Instagram: @White_sapphire_cat

Send in your pet photos to Ms. Severson (sseverson@palcs.org) for a chance to be featured in the next edition of The Column

Check out the September edition of The Column here for more information on...

• Department Handbooks
• A "thank you" note regarding the CPFA Back to School Icebreaker BBQ
• Get to know our new staff
• A message from our new School Nurse
• Honors Societies
• And so much more!!