North Shore Elementary                                 

Parent Teacher Association (PTA)

Hi everyone!

A quick note with a handful of updates and thoughts. Please read through and let us know if you have any questions at all. We do a good deal of communicating on our Facebook page, so if you are on Facebook, please join us at North Shore Knights PTA. Even if you are not a PTA member, this is all good information related to your student's school. (Though please do join us!)

The school has had a fantastic start to the 2018-19 school year, and our Knights are already SOARing to success thanks to Ms Dawson and Ms Hall and all of the teachers and staff at North Shore. They came back to school excited for the year and ready to go!

Your PTA has been working very hard on many topics. In case you are not familiar with the activities of the PTA, I have attached our committee responsibilities and Who's Who which might help. Also attached is our Mission which guides all of our ideas and decision making. You will see that we are highly engaged in the school. Our budget this year is $107,365, and we take the responsibility of raised those funds and appropriately spending them very seriously. If you ever have questions on the financial side of PTA, we welcome them, and we welcome you to all of our general meetings throughout the year.

Here are some updates by committee.

Education.

The education committee is working hard with the teachers on Field Trips for this year, as well as on creating a matrix of Field Trips that could become customary. This way, teachers could work them into their curriculum on a routine basis and students could look forward to them such as, "when I'm in 4th grade, I get to go to St Augustine", or ideas like that.

Education has also put together the 7th Hour / After School program matrix which is amazing, and worked to establish teacher-lead activities that the PTA can pay for so they are free for students. Our stretch goal on 7th Hour is to figure out how to provide transportation home for bus riders so there are no barriers to participation.

Another note on extra-curricular programming, attached is the STEM Academy opportunity being provided this year. Please review this and respond asap so they can get the numbers they need to get started! This is free and has exceptional feedback from prior participants.

The Garden program starts soon!! Please contact us if you can volunteer teaching the garden curriculum to 3rd grade this fall, 5th grade in the spring.

On the healthy schools side, we are happy to share that the Birthday Boxes were delivered to teachers this week! This is an activity to celebrate a student's (and teacher's!) birthday in the classroom by offering birthday wishes. You will see them start coming home and hopefully your students values them. These birthday wishes are taking the place of sweet treats in the classroom. Enjoy those at home ;)

Community & Membership.

Coming soon is the Free Family BBQ at school! It is the same night as Math Night, so hopefully lots of families will attend and enjoy some social time together in our beautiful school grounds.

The membership drive is still on, and any class that gets over 50% PTA memberships by November 1st, the teacher receives an extra $25 in classroom support from PTA. We hope that families join! (We are very proud to provide all teachers with $100 in classroom support as part of our annual budget; this is extra!)

Fundraising.

Our Direct Donation Drive is in full swing and we would LOVE 100% school participation. Even $1 counts as participation! PTA spends about $20,000 on the after school programs, $5,000 on field trips, $5,000 on Literacy programs, $8,000 on training for teachers, $5,000 for those classroom supplies....and the list goes on. All dollars are direct support of the school and your student's experience, so please consider donating what you can.

Fall Festival is around the corner and the committee is getting geared up! Please do join in, this is our super lovely school community event with games, a petting zoo and an amazing pumpkin auction that is most successful with many hands involved. And you will enjoy it so much :)

Turkey Trot is around the corner and that committee is in full swing. It is not too late to join in though, please be in touch to see if you can help! See the dates below for upcoming awesome events around the Trot.

There are many nice ways to be involved like volunteering in the front office, becoming a room parent, participating in the garden classes, helping with the Fall Festival or Turkey Trot, or participating in the Coffee Pot clean-up to be held this Saturday.  North Shore needs your participation to make it the best it can be! Please see Ms. Gervais to find out how to become a Level I and Level II volunteer.

Please reach out to me, or northshoreknightspta@gmail.com with any questions or to get involved! Our board is also listed on the school's website and you can contact any of us at anytime. We would love to hear from you!

My best to all and Go Knights!!

Sincerely,

Laura Tillinghast Hine

President, North Shore Elementary PTA 2018-2019                       

Box Tops

Please keep clipping your Box Tops over the summer and just send them in with your student at any time.