School: 2 Hours Late

Posted: Monday, Jan. 5 -- The Edmonds School District has delayed the start of school by two hours because of the snow. The announcement can be found here.

Disappearing Web site?

Many of you may have wondered what happened to the Bear Facts Web site earlier this week. The Web hosting company that provides our service for free decided to pick Sunday night to move the Web site (and many others hosted on the same Web server) to another Web server. The migration from one box to another box was supposed to take little more than a half day, but there were some issues. This was extremely frustrating, especially at this time when there is a lot of emergency weather information to pass on to the Madrona community. I wanted to let everyone know the site is now working fine. Please continue to visit to get the most recent information about Madrona.

Allan Townsend / MIT Communications Director

Madrona Stormwatch!

You've all seen the weather forecasts. If weather affects the school you will find closure information on this Web site, both here on the home page and on the Emergency page, which is tied to the school district's announcement system.

Be sure you are familiar with the new version of the emergency procedures. You can find it linked on the Bear Facts Web site's District news page, or download it here.

Extra Flyer Posted

Art for Kids in January, I9 Sports League and more ...

See the flyers in the Extra section today!

 Big thanks goes out to Web team member Dana Nakashima for her help!

Remember to submit all outside Madrona events and opportunities to the school office for consideration for posting on the Web site.

Dec. 10 Edition of Notes Posted

It is  now posted and available here. Thanks Lori Elliott for producing the Web page!

Bear Facts Newsletter

The December edition of the Bear Facts Newsletter is now live. Thank you Web team member Chris Steed for your help.

Click here to see it.

Beauty and the Beast

Check out details on this year's production here.

BEAR SCARE pictures posted!

Pictures from the awesome night of games, ghouls and gasps can be found here!

VIDEO:

• Bear Scare Overview has now been posted.

• Haunted Hospital has now been posted.

Keep watching for more video - coming soon!

Online Calendar Updates

The Madrona Bear Facts Web team is constantly updating the online Calendar with district and school events. Please check it often.

(Big thanks to team member J.Paul Fridenmaker for making sure this is always up to date!)

Teachers and staff please e-mail info@madronabearfacts.com if you need access to the calendar to add your events.

Bear Facts Web Team Assembled

I’m excited to announce the creation of a  new team of people who are committed to bring parents, students and teachers all the information they need about the Madrona community. After developing the new look and feel of the site a few years ago, it was clear the breadth of content that was being offered was way too much for one person to handle. When the call for help was sounded at the end of last year, I was overwhelmed with the response from parents and teachers alike willing to step forward to contribute. We’re now to the point of enacting a deployment plan that will insure timely publication of the weekly Notes from the Office, and the monthly Bear Facts Newsletter. That means if you didn’t have the chance to read the hard copy, or if it got lost in your kid’s backpack -- or if you just want to check the date of the next concert  --  it’s all here, anytime and anywhere you have access to the internet (work, home -  even on your mobile). If you’re new to Madrona, please explore all the links you see in the top navigation and beyond. Please join me in thanking and welcoming our new team: Lori Elliott,  J.Paul Fridenmaker, Dana Nakashima, Chris Steed, with staff support from  Monica Edwards and Brad Proffitt. If you have any suggestions of any content you’d like to see on the site, just drop us a note at info@madronabearfacts.com.

-Allan Townsend

MIT Communications Director

New SCRIP Order Form

The new order form for 20008 is available to down load on this page.

Problems Opening Stuff?

This year the Web staff has upgraded to using Word 2007 for some of our downloadable documents. If you haven't upgraded to Microsoft Word 2007 (and why not says the Microsoft employee :-) ? ) you can download and install the converter, which will allow your Word 2003 program to view Word 2007 documents. Here is a link to the free download.

New School Start and End times

• Start Time: 9:20 AM
• End Time: 3:50 PM

Getting To School

• Driving ? Please know the rules of the parking lot!
• Taking the Bus? More Info here | District Bus tool

Teacher/Staff Updates?

Madrona teachers and members of the staff please mail us any changes to your e-mail address, phone number or class Web sites to info@madronabearfacts.com.

Bus Tool

The Edmonds School district has launched a new tool that will help parents find where they can take their child to use bus service to Madrona. Here is the link. It is also on the School Transportation page on this site (see the "Getting To School" link on the left navigation, which also details the proper drop-off and pick-up procedures if you are driving your child to school.

SCRIP Online Store is Back! Use a credit card!!

The SCRIP Online Store is back!  Now you can buy your SCRIP with any credit card, with payments processed by PayPal. Remember, you earn Madrona valuable funds, just by doing the shopping you would normally do! Learn more about SCRIP here.

All For Kids - New Option!

MIT has just launched a new feature allowing parents to donate to the All For Kids fundraiser by credit card. Click here to read more about the convenient new payment option.

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Calling All Parents

How are you going to get involved with Madrona this year? Madrona was founded with the expectation that teachers and parent volunteers would work together to provide a terrific learning environment for our children. Remember to contact your child's teacher or classroom volunteer coordinator. There are also many MIT events you can get involved in. Keep reading this page for new opportunities to give back and have fun while your child learns and grows at Madrona!

New Bear Facts!

There are a lot of new features in this new version of the Web site, but the main focus of being your reliable source of information about Madrona has not changed. The site has been rebuilt from the ground up using strict Web standards, which should make the content quicker to access and available to you no matter what browser you use. Some of the structure has changed, so if you bookmarked a page from the old site it may not work with the new. Please contact us if you have suggestions or concerns about the Web site. One of the new features is a Frequently Asked Questions page, which will grow and change as we get inquiries. That means we need you to participate – as every parent should at Madrona!
- Allan Townsend, MIT Communications Director