(By Noriko Murata, Chief Coordinator)

I’m happy to be back again to join you for the new semester after the long hot summer of record high temperatures. There are a few changes for the 2006/2007 school year, and I’d like to address the new structure/management of our school. In order to have a smooth transition, and for the enrichment of the Japanese education for our students, I also need to ask for your help more than ever.

1) New Structure: Due to some changes in our personnel, we now have a position of Office Manager, Mr. Kakinoki, who will be handling the administrative side, including public relations and management of our staff and school data. As for the teaching side, I, Mrs. Murata, will be the Chief Coordinator, working together with the Coordinators, Mrs. Liou and Mrs. Inoue, handling all educational matters. If you have any questions, please inquire with our Office Manager for clerical matters and our Coordinators for educational matters.

2) Admission/Graduation: There is only one requirement in order to admit your child to the SFVJLI, and that is “to be older than 4 years old.” This definition was made based on consideration of the toddler’s mental and physical developmental ability and the content of our curriculum. However, the graduation qualification has changed. It used to depend only on the number of years the student has studied, but it has changed to be whoever passes the graduation test after completing 2 years of the Advanced Class. For those of you who have already graduated by June, 2006 and are still currently taking the Advanced Class, you will receive a Certification of Completion, instead of another Graduation Diploma.

3) Message to Parents: I appreciate you for volunteering your time to help out our school and continuing to send your child to learn Japanese. I’d like to ask just one more favor from you that will help your student greatly. For parents speaking Japanese, please use Japanese at home on a regular basis. In some cases, it may not be easy to communicate with some family members with different language backgrounds. However, it would be a great help to a student who is studying the language, which would otherwise be used at school once a week. After all, language is only a tool to communicate, and a student would not be convinced if he or she were forced to study the language without knowing the purpose. Therefore, it is very important that your student understand the reason for studying, whether it’s because mom or dad speaks the language, or because grandparents in Japan would like to communicate with him or her. For parents who do not speak Japanese, please be there while your student reads Japanese, practices a speech, or writes and memorizes vocabulary. You don’t need to understand the meaning; it is very important that you are there to observe the progress and praise his or her hardship and effort, and that he or she understands that you care.

I will be working hard together with the staff, involved in management with a new solid structure. Let’s have some fun together! I appreciate all of your cooperation.