Hello Parents!
As we wind down the first half of the year, we wish everyone a great holiday and a happy and safe New Year!
Announcements
PAP has been trying to come up with ways to get more parents and teachers involved and informed regarding events, activities and announcements about Lied MS. The following are some suggestions for how to get and stay informed.
· Mrs. Ritz contacted the district and learned that the school has 1117 parents with valid email addresses, 23 have bad email addresses, and 1202 have NO email addresses in the system. If you are not receiving emails from Parentlink, please check your SPAM folder and add the Inbox_244@interact.ccsd.net address to your contacts.
· Emails from Parentlink will be sent out on Tuesdays or Wednesday mornings from now on. This should help prevent the Parentlink messages from getting lost in the Monday clean-up of inboxes.
· Weekly phone calls are being sent on Sunday evenings with information updates. If you are not receiving these calls please contact the office at 799-4620 to be added the list.
· If you are aware of any parents that are not receiving the parentlink and/or PAP messages, please pass this information on to them.
· Parents As Partners updates the blog quite often – parents can subscribe to it and will receive an email when there are changes made. Visit http://www.lied-pap.blogspot.com/
· Parents As Partners have begun passing out fliers to the parents who are picking up students after school. Please review these fliers as they contain information regarding the events and activities that are coming up. The counselors and office staff are also passing out information to parents as they come into the office.
· We have found that providing fliers for teachers to pass out to students has not been affective in providing parents with important and useful information. This option, as a general rule, will now be a last resort of communication to parents.
Be Kind…Campaign to begin after the New Year:
a. The Be Kind Campaign is a program to help combat bullying and promote tolerance among the students. This campaign was founded by the Josh Stevens Foundation. T-Shirts will be sold for $10 to students, parents and staff. We will also be given the “caught being kind” cards. These cards will be used by teachers and staff to reward students that are observed being kind to others.
b. The teacher slogan is: Be Kind…Lied the way!
c. We are asking for student slogan ideas: The following are some ideas that have been given so far. Be Kind…
1. Lied others to happiness
2. Lied yourself to greatness
3. It takes courage to do what others are afraid of
4. Open the door
5. It’s a SNAP!
6. Gator Done!
Parents As Partners has a home!
The first week back from winter break, parent volunteers will be setting up room 628 for Parents As Partners. We are very excited to have a space to use as our headquarters, and we wish to thank Lied staff for assisting us in allowing this to happen! We will use this room for meetings, education for parents during the day or possibly evenings, a place where parents can use computers, grade papers, and other tasks to help the school and its staff.
Any parents that wish to help set up the room and decorate can contact Tricia Perna at 875-2691 or Jen Ritz at 799-4620. We are also looking for donations to help complete the room, such as: a couch, chairs, coffee table).
Adopted Families update:
d. The items that have already been received was sorted out on Monday,
e. A local church donated several items for the families,
f. We received $100 from PE to help with this cause,
g. Parents have also donated many items to the families,
h. One of the families has been covered completely, and
i. PAP will be purchasing additional items on Tuesday, December 13th to cover the other 2 families, if necessary. We have set a limit of up to $150.00 per family as needed,
j. Any parents that wants to help prepare the items on Wednesday, December 14th, is welcome to contact Jen Ritz at 799-4620 for the exact time to arrive,
k. Delivery of the items will be 12/16/11.
Barnes & Noble Bookfair Update:
The McTeacher Nights yielded approximately $600.00, Applebee’s $48.00 and Joe’s Crab Shack was $15.00. The amount from Barnes & Noble is unknown at this time.
Although the school ID is no longer valid, I will have the teacher’s wish lists online at www.bn.com. Log in with email: Bookfair@triciaperna.com with password: success1 to view the lists by teacher.
Development of Committees:
We have developed committees to help break up all the responsibilities that Parents As Partners have at Lied MS. The following categories were created and volunteers are needed and welcome to ensure their success!
o Fundraising/Donations/Activities
o Commitment on going, asking organizations, and businesses for support in the area of donations or possible fundraising events. Contact Jackie Emigh at 581-7241
o Volunteer Coordinator-Phone calls
o Commitment as needed 2 weeks before each event,
§ Calling parents to secure volunteers for events.
o The week of the event
§ Reminder phone calls to those who have committed to help. Contact Tricia Perna 875-2691
o Student/Teacher incentives- monthly teacher birthday helium balloon
o Commitment monthly for purchase and delivery of balloons for teacher birthday
o Quarterly for student incentives/recognition at end of grading periods
o May 2012 final awards night assembly. Contact Tammy Cochran at 788-7531
o Student Safety - monitor campus/lunch - streets - before and after school
o Commitment as often as possible, need volunteers in place Monday - Friday
o additional support on campus during the school day especially lunches 10 am -12:30 pm
o before school crossing guard and monitor on the streets (Bull Ring, Tropical, Bradley)
o after school crossing guard and monitor on the streets (Bull Ring, Tropical, Bradley) Contact Rick Suiter by email: suitman@cox.net
o Communication - sign, blog, emails, fliers, phone calls
Upcoming Calendar of events:
December 13, 14 & 15 PASTA dinners CANCELLED – the ticket sales for the dinners were unsuccessful and therefore the dinners are no longer scheduled for this week. We will still be having the pasta dinner for Family Involvement Night on January 12, 2012.
December 15th The Fresh & Easy Shopping Night will be held at the Ann & Decatur location. We are also looking for more volunteers from 4-8 pm. Volunteers will be standing in as greeters and baggers. Contact Tricia Perna at 875-2691 if you are able to volunteer.
January 6th Parents As Partners will be having our monthly meeting a week early to ensure that we are prepared for Family Involvement Night. All parents are welcome to attend in Room 628. Parents As Partners discussed possibly changing the time of the meetings to 1 pm on the 2nd Friday of each month. If this allows you to begin attending the PAP meetings, please contact Jen Ritz at 799-4620 or Tricia Perna at 875-2691.
January 12th Family Night from 6:30 - 8 pm – We will be selling dinner tickets in advance! Starting on December 13th at the concerts, Pasta Dinner Tickets will be sold for $5.00 per plate. Tickets can only be purchased in advance. We need donation items; for example, Adventure Dome will be donating tickets for PAP to raffle off. We also need volunteers to help with phone calls, assistance for the pasta dinner: cooking, serving and clean up, help with the booth for t-shirt sales, as well as greeters.
January 13th Crystal Palace Skate Night 6PM – 10PM $8.50 per child, which includes skates, a hot dog or slice of pizza and a soda.
January 23rd & February 21st Staff Development Day – We are looking for volunteers to serve food to teachers and help Parents As Partners build a strong relationship with our students teachers.
o Monthly for meeting updates and minutes
o Weekly reminders to be posted online
o If we can secure a sign to the building – weekly changes to the sign. Contact Tricia Perna 875-2691
We hope that everyone has an enjoyable and safe holiday break! See you back on January 3rd, 2012!
Tricia Perna
PAP President
