The school has started on September 7, 2008. This fall, we have opened the another begining level class. We still keep four classes that are at different levels according to the students’ skill and knowledge in the Chinese language. This class will be taught by Ms. Wang.

So far our four classes are: Mr. Zhang's class, Ms. Shi's class, Ms. Leung's class and Ms. Wang's class.

Since Petaluma Chinese School was founded in 2001, school tuition has kept at $40 per month. However, in current economic situation, school's spending has exceeded the incomes from tuition. The school board members had a meeting last week and the meeting has decided that school will increase the tuition to $50 per month start this fall. Due to the late notice of this decision, the $50 per month will be effective in October 2008.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call the principal Perry Zhou at (707) 775-3238.

9/1/2008

Please note that in order to reduce the classrooms renting cost, starting this fall, the Chinese Class schedule has been changed.

New Class Schedule: 

• Every Sunday Afternoon 1:00 pm - 3:30 pm  
• Bible study is available from 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm  
• Mandarin Class is scheduled from 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm  

The fall class will start on Sunday, 9/7/2008 at the same location:

Petaluma Valley Baptist Church
580 Sonoma Mt. Parkway, Petaluma, CA 94954

If you have any questions, please feel free email to Dongfen Gao at gao@speakeasy.net or call the principal Perry Zhou at (707) 775-3238.

Have a great and safe summer!

By now, everyone already knew about China Sichuan's earthquake. We are all as distressed as the rest of the world over the terrible catastrophe in China. Here are some information about how you can help:

RECA Earthquake Relief Fund for China

REDWOOD EMPIRE CHINESE ASSOCIATION (RECA) is collecting donations to aid in the recovery of the devastated areas. 100% of donations to the RECA Earthquake Relief Fund will go directly Cheng Du University Nursing Department in Du Jiang Yan, Sze Chuan Province, PRC.

Please make checks out to RECA with a note in the lower right corner that it is for the China Earthquake Relief.
Please send checks to RECA, PO Box 7854, Santa Rosa, CA 95407

Via KTSF 26

Please make check payable to American Red Cross and with a note in the check that says: IRF–China Earthquake. Please send check to China Earthquake, KTSF 26, 100 Valley Drive, Brisbane, CA 94005

Donate online directly to China

Hotline: (8610) 65139999 Online donations: Red Cross Society of China website: www.redcross.org.cn

As interest rate is getting better, home owners are thinking about refinance and renters are thinking about purchasing a house. The most important issue is how to get a best program and best rate. To answer your question, Jenny Yuan will give a series of seminars about financial plans in our school.

Jenny Yuan, one of our parents, who is a loan officer working in financial field for many years.

Seminar 1 was held on March 1, 2008. And Seminar 2 will be given at 10:30 pm on March 15, 2008 (this coming Saturday).

Sorry, we have cancelled this seminar. We will re-schedule the seminar and will post the date and time when it is set.

Want to know how to become a U.S. citizen? Petaluma Chinese Church offers a citizenship class to our students and their parents. Click here to see the flyer for details.

The Petaluma Chinese School was founded by the Petaluma Chinese Christian Church since March 2001. It is a non-profit organization and is dedicated to the education of Chinese language and culture. We focus on teaching children from age of 6 years old and above for reading, writing, and speaking Chinese. There are 4 different classes from beginning to advance level. Size of class is 10-16 students per class.

Class Schedule: 

• Every Saturday Morning 9:30 – 12:00 noon 
• Bible study is available from 9:30am - 10:00am 
• Mandarin Class is scheduled from 10:00am - 12:00pm 

Class Tuition: $40 per month 
Materials (one text book and two exercise books): $10 

Location: 

Petaluma Valley Baptist Church 
580 Sonoma Mt. Parkway 
Petaluma, CA 94954 

To register, please complete the registration form ( http://www.pcccs.org/registration.asp) and email to: gao@speakeasy.net  

Closing date for registration: August 20, 2007 

Spaces are limited. Please act now to reserve your spot. 

For more information, please visit our web site: http://www.pcccs.org/general_info.asp 

Any inquiry, please call Perry Zhou at 707-775-3238 or email to: zhouperry@hotmail.com

Note: This posting can be seen at: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/com/363218781.html

Due to Memorial Day weekend, there will be no class on Saturday May 26, 2007 (i.e. this coming Saturday).

On Saturday June 30, 2007, there will be an end-of-school year meeting. Both students and parents are required to attend the meeting.

Starting this year, school will be closed in both July and August. Class will resume on Saturday September 8, 2007.

2007 is the Year of the Pig (boar). The Chinese New Year for 2007 is on Sunday, February 18th. Since February 19 is the President's Day, most of schools have a day or whole week off, Chinese School will have no class on February 17 this year.

The Christmas party for the Petaluma Chinese School is on 12/23/2006, 9:30 am – 12:00 pm at Petaluma Valley Baptist Church (where Chinese School located). You and your family are invited to our party.

In this year's Christmas celebration, some of our students will perform at the party. There is also a gift exchange program among students. So students need to bring a gift ($5-$10). The gift should be wrapped without name tag. But please mark your gift as "For Girl" if it is only suit for girl; or "For Boy" if it is only suit for boy. If there is no mark, it will be assumed that the gift can be either for girl or for boy. If children, other than students, also like to participate the gift exchange program, please bring a gift ($5-$10).

In order to make the party successful, please send email to Dongfen Gao and let us know how many people in your family will be able to come to the party. The School will provide snacks for the party. The cost for the party is $5 per family.

There will be no classes on Saturday, November 25, 2006.

As we all know,in the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. But do you know there are seven other nations also celebrate an official Thanksgiving Day? I learnt that these nations are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Liberia, and Switzerland.

In this Thanksgiving, Petaluma Chinese School would like to thank teachers for their hard work; to thank parents for their support to make Chinese School successful; to thank our students for their best effort in school.

Thanksgiving pryer:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The school has started on August 5, 2006. This fall, we have opened the forth class (or Class 4). By now, we have four classes. Class 1 was opened in Spring 2001; Class 2 was opened in Spring 2003; Class 3 was opened in Spring 2005; and Class 4 was opened in Fall 2006.

We also made some changes to the staff members. Mr. Yee-Ching Fung is join us as Vice Principal. Teacher Ming-Jun Zhang is joinging us and starts to teacher Class 2, and Teacher Jenny Yuan is now teaching our new Class.

Our school website was originally developed by Yan Guo and Jiaxun Yu, parents of formal Chinese school students. We thank them for developing and maintaining our website in the pass years. Unfortunately, we cannot keep our domain any more. But we did get all the files. Now we have new domain for our school, www.pcccs.org. Dongfen Gao, mother of two students in the school, will take over the website. She has transferred all the files to our new website which is hosted by her own server. If you have any suggestions, please contact her at gao@speakeasy.net.

In our new website, Dongfen has been making lots of changes. You will find several new sections: School News, Homework Area, Teacher Area, and School Directory. In Homework Area, it lists every week's homework if teachers have been adding their homework to the website. The teachers can add homework to website by either click Teacher Area or Homework Area.

Mastering Mandarin 
50 students attend weekly classes in language culture 
By JANET PARMER 
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

David Lang speaks Mandarin at home, but he's just learning how to read and write in the language. 
Lang, who is 8 years old and a Meadow School student, was born in China and came to the United States when he was 2. 
He's among 50 students who spend Saturday mornings at the Chinese School on Sonoma Mountain Parkway in Petaluma. The school has three levels of language instruction, and students range from kindergartners to college level. More