It was snowing when I was driving to Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School in Verona for another school day on Saturday, 10/29/2011.

“Yes, our school is open and all classes will be on schedule except the out-door tennis. However, whether coming to school today is the parent’s own discretion,” I answered a student’s parent on the cell phone while looking out to see the snowing status and testing the break action of the road surface, which showed nothing too bad.

Not long after arriving in school, I was told the snowing would be on until 11:00pm and our area might have an accumulation of several inches. Now the snow had become so heavy that everything in the open air had turned white. According to some parents’ suggestions, we decided to close earlier so that people could get home without being stuck in traffic. But more people would come in for the 3rd and 4th periods. “Call them,” a firm voice filled the hallway. Without hesitation, Lily Tu, Xinxin Jiang and Xinjie Song started making phone calls to spread out our decision of early dismissal while inviting people around Yihong Shu, Yanan Liang and Jun Lei to join the “Emergency Team”. Suddenly, the whole quiet check-in area turned into a “telephone exchange center” full of nothing else but telephone conversations. Time was short but the notice had to be sent to several dozen of people. Each of the “operators” was talking in a separate corner with great concentration. Not everyone could be reached with the first call, and then more calls had to be made. Thanks to the timely help and assistance of the “operators”, all those having classes for the last two periods had been informed and saved a trip. I was so grateful to my fellow team members and the other volunteers who had helped to accomplish the communication and saved time and efforts of others.

I took me one extra hour to get home because many streets had been blocked by fallen trees. The first thing I wanted to do from home was to call and see if everybody else was all right. But it was too bad that the power off had killed my home phone and my cell phone was running out of battery. I couldn’t afford the only little battery left on my cell phone shown in red, which might be of some top urgent use, when Xinxin and Lily called in to check if I was home and safe. In fact, they were trying to contact all our teachers concerned. At about 6:00pm, I heard Lily’ voice again: “All the teachers are home and safe.” That’s the very news I wanted to hear at that moment. Nobody could imagine how nice my feeling was and how proud I was of my team members.

Date

Event

Location

Backup Location

Third weekend of Oct. 16, 2011 (Sat)

HX Mind Games

Bridgewater

Dec. 10 and 11, 2011  (Sat and Sun)

Chinese Teaching Symposium: Radisson Hotel Valley Forge, King of Prussia, PA

Second weekend of Jan, 2011 (Sat or Sun)

HX Speech Contest
(1st - 3rd Grade)

Region North:    New York
Region Central: Livingston
Region South:   Cherry Hill

Region North:
Region Central: Morris
Region South:   Montgomery

2/26/2012 (Sun)

HX Star （&Parent Performing programs）

Edison

Montgomery

March 18, 2012

HX Graduation Test (HSK)

Region North:   New York
Region Central: Edison
Region South:   Plainsboro

Region North:
Region Central:
Region South: East Brunswick

Third Weekend of April, 2011 (Sat or Sun)

HX Debate Contest
(4th - 6th Grade)
(7th - 9th Grade)

Region North:   New York
Region Central: Northern
Region South:   Montgomery

Region North:
Region Central: Edison
Region South:  Marlboro

5/5/2011 (Sat) (Rain or Shine)

HX Track & Field Meet

Plainsboro

 East Brunswick

6/16/2011 (Sat)

HX Graduation & Awards （Rutgers Student Center）

An Opening Speech at NHXCS Year-end Celebration

Girls & Boys,
Ladies & Gentlemen,
We’ve come to the end of the 2010-2011 school year, and all the students will move up to higher grades soon. Congratulations to all the students and many thanks to all the teachers and parents! While all the students are moving up to higher grades, our school is ready to move up to another level of efficiency and excellence.  
The past school year was very hard for us. Some committee member had left just before the school year started, quite some students had dropped out at the beginning of the year, and the budget was extremely tight, actually, it was in red. And that’s where I started to be the principal of the school.
I’ve never had so much pressure like that in my career, but I’ve come to it in my volunteer job. I knew I couldn’t quit and I couldn’t give up. Our school had to go forward, and the students were waiting to learn. I just couldn’t disappoint the students and their parents. I had to keep the promise I made to the Board. Fortunately, the collective wisdom has kept me on track. Members of the leading bodies of our school, the parents and the teachers are the mighty source of power to push me ahead. I was deeply moved by their support, and their voluntary donation and contribution to our school. I was also inspired by their suggestions and recommendations regarding the development of our school.
I’m very proud to say that we have a very well united Administrative Committee, a highly devoted Board of Directors and a whole-heartedly down-to-earth PTA. All the three leading bodies of our school are encouraging one another and helping one another. All their members are taking the lead in running our school and supporting our programs. They are all working so hard for nothing else, but a bright future of the kids.
Our school is run by all the members of the “big family”, and we solve all major problems collectively. No matter it’s the school relocation issue or it’s the selection of Ma Liping textbooks, we don’t make any one-man decision, but rely on the collective wisdom by calling meetings, doing investigations, and carrying out detailed analysis. We only do what we collectively think is the best for our school and our students.
We encourage talking, discussing, and negotiating among ourselves, but we never witness any unfriendly fight or unhappy attacks against one another in our school. Friendliness and harmony are the tradition of Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School, the first member of the whole Huaxia family.
Our school is small, but it’s elite. We’ve been actively participating in all the activities organized by HX HQ. And our teams have won great honor for our school though they didn’t get many first prizes. The Central Area Speech Contest was sponsored by our school, and it’s considered by our sister schools a very well managed event in Huaxia history.
We’ve established the right channels of communication between our school and the families, and northernnjhxcs@yahoo.com has become a favorite of all the families. Thanks to Xinjie Song and Jerry Lei, our website www.hxcs.org/north and the Newsletter have grown into the period of maturity. I hope more people will visit our website, and our own people will check our school emails more often.
Now, more and more people have come to know our school, our school phone is much busier receiving phone calls from new families, and we also have new students transferring to our school from others. Our account balance has started to look better. I’m proud of what we’ve done, but it’s far from what we’d like to achieve in a long run. We need to work even harder. Let’s move up! Please join me in saying “Move Up” three times.

George Meng – Principal

Dear Teachers,
I'd like to remind you that all the teachers are requested to read the Newsletter and check our school website on time (Thursday evening) so that you will know what’s going on in our school and be able to pass the school’s notices and activity plans to all the students in your respective classes.
As you can see, from the beginning of this semester, our school manages to issue a Newsletter every week, sends out special notices by email when it’s necessary, and up-date the website timely.
However, some parents are not used to checking the emails routinely, and some others seldom log onto our website. And there are too many families for the administrative committee to communicate one by one. Therefore, I hope all the teachers will help to accomplish the internal communication with the families of your classes as many teachers always do.
Messages or notices can also be brought home by the students together with their homework. And teachers should also follow up either by phone or by email to see if every family of your classes is informed.
Thank you for your cooperation,

George Meng – Principal

The PTA meeting was held on Oct. 30, 2010 at our Chinese school. As the open remark, PTA chairman Dr. Hongjun Wang expressed the importance of the PTA meeting to our school. He then reviewed the school activities for this year. Holiday potluck and Chinese New Year celebration are big events for us.

Principal Mr. George Meng was invited to report the school operational status. Firstly, he reported the work done so far. These include the keeping a good relationship with the local school district, uniformalized the teaching material, refreshing the Bylaw and school rules, updated the website, setup the newsletter and proper communicating method such as Yahoo group and direct phone line, enhancing the management such as teachers’ signing in, well connected communication among team members, as well as clear responsibility. Secondly, Mr. Meng expressed the current difficulties. The major worry is the less than expected student enrollment, which leads to our financial shortage and deficit. To overcome the problems, Principal Meng specified several things to do: to improve education quality to attract more students, to broadly advertise our existence in local community, to carry on fund raising and encourage donation, to prepare well ahead for our activities and registration next year.

During free discussion section, parents talked about the donation issue and how to increase the attendance for next PTA meeting. Getting more parents involved is the key to improve our school and was agreed by all participants.

School board chairman Mr. Steve Chen introduced the new members to the parents and appreciated Dr. Wang for organizing this meeting and other upcoming activities.

To close the meeting, Dr. Wang promised to setup next PTA meeting in a more suitable time and will provide more detailed responsibility information for parents to take part in.

Recently, Principal George Meng met with Mr. Charles Sampson the superintendent of Verona Board of Education in the latter’s office. The friendly meeting between the two was very successful and meaningful.

On behalf of the Administrative Committee and faculty of Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School，Principal Meng expressed the heartfelt thanks to the superintendent and Verona Board of Education for their support in meeting our classroom needs.

At the meeting, the relationship between the two organizations has been recalled, and future cooperation has been discussed between the two educators. Mr. Sampson said whatever happened in the past has happened, and he’s so glad to know that NHXCS has taken great measures to keep good orders on the property during Chinese school days, and very satisfied with the situation in the new semester when everything goes smoothly with no accidents at all so far. He hopes the nice condition is going to remain.

Mr. Meng committed that NHXCS would like to offer some help to the community in learning Chinese and Chinese culture, and would also like to invite some interested people in the neighborhood to come and enjoy the students’ performance when it’s held. Mr. Sampson was impressed by the idea and grateful to the principal for his offer.

About the existing property rented, Mr. Meng hopes that Verona BOE and the high school can consider the provision of an extra room for the parents who are waiting for their kids while classes are on, and the free use of the auditorium in three occasions during the year or with a nominal charge. Mr. Sampson said he’s going to talk with his people about the issue and work out a solution.

Last but not least, Mr. Meng talked with Mr. Sampson about the promotion of NHXCS in the Verona community. The superintendent agreed to support and help spreading the news about NHXCS by posting fliers or any other promotional materials on the website of Verona Public Schools, which is under his charge, so that NHXCS will be likely made known throughout the whole community.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School has the honor to inform that the school’s website www.hxcs.org/north has been completely up-graded, and  put into operation after our volunteered technical personnel and the school management have worked for 100 days in their spare time.

The new website embodies the Huaxia spirit to work arduously for our goal despite of all the difficulties in front of us. It’s also the result of selfless devotion of the school staff for carrying on and promoting Chinese culture and running well our Chinese school. And it stands for our school’s progress in information management, too.  

Besides our internal use, the School’s website is the key channel for communications between the school and the families, the communities and all other sister schools. You’re kindly encouraged to visit our website for all the information about our school and our programs, planned events, and timely notices.

Thank you for your support!

Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School
华夏中文学校北部分校

Please contact us:
School hotline: 201 600 6262; Email: northernnjhxcs@yahoo.com
Website MGR: 973 510 1655; Email: songxinjie@yahoo.com
Newsletters Editor: 970 213 1285; Email: jun.lei@gmail.com

Dear Students & Families,
 
Please be kindly informed that the language classes will start this Saturday, 09/11/2010, and the starting date for all other classes will be Saturday next week, 9/18/2010.
 
Before you come to school, please remember to check your email or visit our school’s website www.hxcs.org/north for the latest announcement or any update about the coming Saturday.
 
Besides email account, you’re kindly requested to provide an emergency contact to your teacher and/or the teacher(s) of your child (children).
 
Each student will receive a packet folder from the teacher on the first day of school, and that folder should be well-kept by the student for future communications between school and family.
 
Please find linked the “RULES FOR STUDENTS” that both parents and students should be aware of，and “WHAT THE PARENTS SHOULD KNOW”. You will receive the same documents in the student’s folder on the first day from the teacher, and after you’ve read the documents, please put your signature (the parent’s signature) and the date at the bottom of the pages before returning them in the folder to the teacher.
 
Each class will need a volunteer to be the class parent. The school and the teacher will be grateful for the parents’ participation.

If you have any questions, please contact us by emailing to northernnjhxcs@yahoo.com or calling 201 600 6262. We’ll respond as soon as possible.
 
Looking forward to seeing you in school，

 
George F. Meng - Principal
Northern NJ Huaxia Chinese School
(212) 631 8008 / (201) 988 2898 (cell)
Email: georgemengusa@gmail.com

Date

Event

Location

Backup Location

10/9/2010 (Sat)

HX Teacher’s Conference

奔腾分校

中部分校

12/12/2010 (Sun)

HX Star （年龄不限）

李文斯顿分校

爱迪生分校

1/8/2011 (Sat)

HX Appreciation Gathering （每个分校10名）（Rutgers Student Center）

春节期间

HX Night (TBD)

First weekend of March, 2011

HX Speech Contest
(1st - 3rd Grade)

Region North:    纽约分校
Region Central: 北部分校
Region South:   东部分校

Region North:
Region Central:
Region South:   南部分校

Second Weekend of April, 2011

HX Debate Contest
(4th - 6th Grade)
(7th - 9th Grade)

Region North:   纽约分校
Region Central:爱迪生分校
Region South:  普兰斯堡分校

Region North:
Region Central: 奔腾分校
Region South:

5/1/2011 (Sun) (Rain or Shine)

HX Track & Field Games

东布朗士维克分校

普兰斯堡分校

Second Weekend of May, 2011

HX Graduation Test

Region North:   纽约分校
Region Central:奔腾分校
Region South:  中部分校

Region North:
Region Central:李文斯顿Region South:  普兰斯堡

6/4/2011 (Sat)

HX Commencement （Rutgers Student Center ）