Four Valleys Community School

By Briana Sullivan
Special to the Glacier City Gazette

Indoor Track Free for You and Me

Calling all Adults! This Saturday is a night just for you. Come as you are because we like you that way. A.N.O. Adults’ Night Out! is this Sat., Oct. 15 at Challenge Alaska. Enjoy friends, tasty hors d’oeuvres and cool beer on tap from Midnight Sun Brewing Company. If you cannot make it, consider buying a ticket and revel in supporting FVCS, wherever you are.

Last article was loaded with new and upcoming classes, many of which are underway now. Soccer began last week with 61 registered kids for the six-week program. Two separate leagues are composed of four teams each, with teams playing each other on Saturdays. An additional Kindergarten soccer team meets once per week to play and develop soccer skills, with their Saturdays free to do other fun activities. Basketball begins immediately following the indoor soccer program. Register today.

The Girdwood School gym is transitioning into a recreation center feel each night of the week. With adult soccer on Monday evenings, basketball on Wednesdays, Tuesday and Thursday exercise classes, that leaves Friday nights for Junior High and High School gym games. The gym is alive with a heart-beating active atmosphere, and it will get even better this week.

The track is now open for free to all users. As you drop off kids for soccer and need to take a walk, catch a glimpse of your kid score the goal or critical pass while getting in out of the dark. Come step on the clean indoor track this month and next. Upon entering the school, sign a waiver form and get moving.

Did your child enjoy the assembly with guest Arthur Lee Land? If learning the technology of loop stations to create music sounds interesting, this workshop is perfect. Loop stations can be used with instruments or just the human voice. Recording and multiplying one’s own artistic ideas with this device offers limitless possibilities to budding musicians. Two Music Looping classes will be offered Nov. 13 for different age groups in the Community Room. Prior knowledge of music or experience with loop stations is not necessary for this workshop.

Learn the Thriller began last week, Halloween crafts is coming up, even pies in time for turkey day, plus painting and pottery classes are aplenty in the upcoming weeks. For Pre-School kids, Romp-n-Snore returned to the gym last Monday and Music and Move with Melanee begins Oct. 10 in the community room. Visit us online for a full list or explore the colorful and organized bulletin board outside our office next time you come to the Girdwood School. Do you have an idea for a class or would you like to organize one? Let us know. Locate us at fourvalleys.org

A Blast from the Past

What is our FVCS office? Our office represents the community school. “A community school is not a building. It is not an agency. It’s not a school for kids only, for women only, or men only. It’s an idea – an idea that works when people get involved. That idea is to provide ongoing educational and recreational opportunities for all ages, using the resources of our own community. To make this idea happen, we have to get involved, decide what types of programs we want, find our own teachers and open the doors to public facilities. We can do it!”

This quote is from the first edition of “The Local News” in January 1981; the very first days of the Four Valleys Community School. FVCS was publisher of “The Local News” from 1981-2000. Thirty five years later, we are still here and stronger than ever. Today we are the only community school left in Alaska. If you’re a part of this community, you’re a part of FVCS. We may be small, but we are mighty, and most important, we are local. Pulling a piece of the statement above, the idea only works when individuals get involved. Get, stay, and be involved. We are proud to have Girdwood, Bird, Indian and Portage in our DNA.