COMUNICADOS IMPORTANTES

RESERVA DE HORÁRIOS - FÉRIAS E AUSÊNCIA PROFISSIONAL / PESSOAL



Prezados (as) Srs (as),


Comunicamos que desde 01/12/2005, está disponível o Serviço de Reserva de Horários para períodos de férias e/ou ausências justificadas.
Será cobrado antecipadamente, 50% do valor das aulas não freqüentadas por motivo de férias ou ausências justificadas , a titulo de reserva de horário.
A reserva de horário deve ser comunicada e efetivada mediante ao pagamento do valor, 10 dias antes da paralisação.
Existem duas grandes vantagens para o aluno que optar pela reserva; ele terá disponível o seu horário quando retornar as aulas e ainda terá a certeza de continuar pagando os mesmos valores de hora/aula da época em que saiu, portanto, não será enquadrado na tabela de "Valores Para Novos Alunos" a qual pode ou não contemplar aumentos. (vide http://ifsc.blogspot.com/2006/09/ateno-valores-para-novos-aluno.html)

Periodo máximo de reserva de 01 mês/ano em caso de férias + 15 dias para eventos extraordinários (profissionais e pessoais)

OBS: Válido também para o período de final de ano, quando a IFS , fecha as suas portas para um merecido descanso de sua equipe.

Atenciosamente

IFS Ensino de Idiomas Ltda.
Coordenação Administrativa e Didática dos Cursos.

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COMUNICADO - CANCELAMENTO DE AULAS


Campinas 01 de Setembro de 2006

Prezados Senhores (as)

No intuito de melhorarmos a organização e o atendimento a todos os que se utilizam de nossa estrutura, comunicamos que desde o dia 01 de novembro/2005, deixaram de existir os cancelamentos de aula por quaisquer motivos, mesmo que previamente avisados.
As aulas perdidas não serão descontadas do valor devido pelo aluno, conforme já é de conhecimento de todos (vide informativo inicial, assinado por Vsa.), mas serão repostas conforme cirtérios abaixo.

Reposição de aulas perdidas - Critérios

1. Reposição máxima de 01 aula perdida por mês para alunos que contrataram uma aula por semana.
2. Reposição máxima de 02 aulas perdidas por mês para alunos que contrataram duas ou mais aulas por semana.
3. Alunos com aulas em duplas e trios não têm direito a reposição ( somente na ocasião da falta de todo o grupo, observando-se os demais critérios )
4. Somente terá direito a aula de reposição (respeitando os critérios do item 1 e 2) o aluno que avisar do não comparecimento, com antecedencia minima de 24 horas.
5. A reposição deve ser feita no máximo em até 15 dias após a data da aula perdida.
6. A reposição não poderá ser feita em hipótese alguma no horário normal do aluno. O agendamento da aula de reposição, ficará subordinado à disponibilidade de horário do professor, sempre procurando atender a conveniencia do aluno e respeitado o prazo de 15 dias (vide item 5)

Certos de seu entendimento, colocamo-nos para eventuais esclarecimentos que por ventura sejam necessários.

Boas Aulas

IFS Comunicação Ltda
Coordenação Administrativa e Didática dos Cursos.

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Brazilian Day

Weekend in New York
The Last Samba of Summer
By SETH KUGEL
ACCORDING to the latest figures, there are some 10 million Brazilians living in New York City. Well, not really.
But you’d be excused for thinking so should you travel to the city for the Labor Day weekend. With many residents gratefully scattered, Brazilians from near and far will repopulate Manhattan and take over a broad swath of Midtown for the 22nd (and ever-growing) Brazilian Day.
That is just on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 3. Combine the celebration with the more than a dozen Brazilian restaurants in Manhattan and the more down-home restaurants, shops, salons and night life in New York’s primary Brazilian neighborhood, the Astoria section of Queens, and there’s enough going on to transform the long weekend into New York São Paulo style. (City records placed about 14,000 Brazilians in New York in 2000, the most recent figures available, but many Brazilians say the number is higher.)
In the mid-1980’s, Brazilian Day was just another ethnic-pride block party, taking over 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, part of what since 1995 has officially been Little Brazil Street. But now, it attracts more than a million people, according to João de Matos, the president of the event and a partner in several Brazilian businesses in New York, including what is probably the city’s most popular Brazilian restaurant, Churrascaria Plataforma.
The day’s centerpiece will be a continuing concert that is scheduled to feature well-known Brazilian acts, two of which, Babado Novo and Banda Calypso, will be making a DVD at the festival. Babado Novo is a band from Bahia that plays axé, a popular dance music, and Banda Calypso is a duo from the state of Pará that plays a modern mix of rhythms, including the country music popular in northeast Brazil known as forró. The other performers include the country singer Leonardo, the youth-oriented pop duet Sandy & Junior and the singer-songwriter Fagner, who will sing Brazil’s national anthem. The festival coincides with Brazil’s independence day, which is Sept. 7.
There will, of course, be food, though if the last few years are any indication, you’ll have to sift through the standard New York City fair fare to get to the deep Brazilian stuff. Look for the women in traditional Bahian white dresses who make acarajé, a black-eyed pea fritter spread with a sauce made from chilies and dried shrimp.
The rest of the weekend, you could eat yourself silly in Manhattan: Brazilian rodízio-style restaurants abound, including Churrascaria Plataforma and its downtown cousin, Churrascaria Riodizio TriBeCa, as well as less expensive choices like Brazil Grill. More standard Brazilian restaurants populate 46th Street, like Emporium Brasil and Ipanema, as well as the upscale West Village spot, Casa. The regular Samba Saturdays at SOB’s, the popular nightclub that most people forget stands for Sounds of Brazil, is sure to be packed, as is its postfestival party.
But the pulse of true Brazil is in Astoria, where every day is Brazilian Day. The fancy churrascarias may be few, but the variety is greater and Portuguese spills into the streets. What used to be the nightclub Ilusiones is now Churrascaria Pontal, where the typical rounds of meat are available for $23.99 (cheaper on weekdays). But the real entertainment comes late on Friday and Saturday nights.
Last month, Rabeka do Forró, the country band that previously played at Made in Brazil (a bar that serves a mean caipirinha), took over Pontal on Friday nights, and plans are to keep it going. It’s complemented by D.J.’s. on Saturday nights for Samba Astoria. But the act scheduled for Sept. 2 is an axé band, Pimenta Malagueta.
For an experience just as Brazilian but far less well known to Americans than are churrascarias, try one of the self-service restaurants where you pay by the pound, making it possible to stuff yourself on most of the same meats as in a churrascaria and spend less than $10.
One classic spot, the once tiny Copacabana, has expanded to half the block and is newly painted in a soothing orange. Also new is Sabor de Minas, the neighborhood’s only restaurant dedicated to food from the state of Minas Gerais, where many Brazilian immigrants are from; it is also self-service. For a more traditional setting, try the family-owned Malagueta.
Wherever you go on Labor Day or any other time, you should find that Brazilians, who seem genetically friendly, are a good group to share a weekend with — as long as you steer clear of difficult topics like, say, that recently concluded soccer tournament in Germany.
DETAILS
BRAZILIAN DAY
The festival runs from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3, on 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway and on Avenue of the Americas from 43rd Street to 57th Street. Standard dress: anything green and yellow.
The main stage is set to be at the intersection of Avenue of the Americas and 43rd Street; expect the next few blocks to be packed, so arrive early. The music should start around 1 p.m. A smaller stage for performances will be set up at 46th Street and Avenue of the Americas.
More information is at www.brazilianday.com.

Breastfeeding

September 1, 2006
On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System
By JODI KANTOR
When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after maternity leave, she learns what is behind the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation Room.”
Whenever she likes, she can slip away from her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through InStyle magazine as she holds a company-supplied pump to her chest, depositing her breast milk in bottles to be toted home later.
But if the mothers who staff the chain’s counters want to do the same, they must barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.
“Breast milk is supposed to be the best milk, I read it constantly when I was pregnant,” said Brittany Moore, who works at a Starbucks in Manhattan and feeds her 9-month old daughter formula. “I felt bad, I want the best for my child,” she said. “None of the moms here that I know actually breast-feed.”
Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.
But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.
It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.
“I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living,” said Jennifer Munoz, a former cashier at Resorts Atlantic City Casino who said she faced obstacles that included irregular breaks and a refrigerator behind a locked door. She said she often dumped her milk into the toilet, knowing that if she did not pump every few hours, her milk supply would soon dwindle.
The casino denies discouraging Ms. Munoz from pumping. “We have policies and procedures in place to accommodate the needs of all of our employees,” Brian Cahill, a Resorts spokesman, said.
Nearly half of new mothers return to work within the first year of their child’s life. But federal law offers no protection to mothers who express milk on the job — despite the efforts of Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who has introduced such legislation. “I can’t understand why this doesn’t move,” she said. “This is pro-family, pro-health, pro-economy.”
Meanwhile, states are stepping in. Twelve states have passed laws protecting pumping mothers — Oklahoma’s law, the newest, will take effect in November. But like Oklahoma’s, which merely states that an employer “may provide reasonable break time” and “may make a reasonable effort” to provide privacy, most are merely symbolic.
Public health authorities, alarmed at the gap between the breast-feeding haves and have-nots, are now trying to convince businesses that supporting the practice is a sound investment. “The Business Case for Breastfeeding,” an upcoming campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services, will emphasize recent findings that breast-feeding reduces absenteeism and pediatrician bills.
In corporate America, lactation support can be a highly touted benefit, consisting of free or subsidized breast pumps, access to lactation consultants, and special rooms with telephones and Internet connections for employees who want to work as they pump, and CD players and reading material for those who do not. According to the nonprofit Families and Work Institute, a third of large corporations have lactation rooms.
Even without these perks, professional women can usually afford a few months of maternity leave during which to breast-feed. When they return, they can generally find an office for the two or three 20-minute sessions per workday typically necessary. Even bathrooms — the pumping spots of last resort — are more inviting at an accounting firm than in a fast-food restaurant.
Wealthier women can spend their way out of work-versus-pumping dilemmas, overnighting milk home from business trips and buying $300 pumps that extract milk quickly, along with gizmos that allow them, in what seems like a parody of maternal multitasking, to pump while driving to and from work.
In contrast, said Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on breast-feeding, her patients cannot afford a basic $50 breast pump — an investment, she said, that “could prevent a lifetime of diseases.” The academy urges women to breast-feed exclusively for six months and to continue until the child turns 1.