PTA Weekly
Important Upcoming Dates
November
Monday, Nov. 5: PTA Food Drive begins
Monday, Nov. 5, 6:30-8 p.m.: PTA board meeting
Wednesday, Nov. 7: Move-a-thon
Friday, Nov. 9, 1:40-2:20 p.m.: Veterans Day Assembly
Monday-Friday, Nov. 9-16: Scholastic Book Sale
Friday, Nov. 9, 6-8 p.m.: Fall Dance and Food Drive
Monday, Nov. 12, Veterans Day observed (no school)
Tuesday, Nov. 13: Reflections Art projects due
Thursday, Nov. 15: Make-up Picture Day
Monday-Wednesday, Nov. 19-21: Parent Teacher conference (no school)
Thursday-Friday, Nov. 22-23: Thanksgiving holiday (no school)
The Move-a-thon is next Wednesday, and we need you!
Your kids still have time to reach out to family, friends & neighbors for sponsorships before they move next week! The more we fundraise, the more we can do for our kids at Wedgwood through the PTA. Your student should have received an envelope for collecting pledges from family, friends and neighbors. Please help your student reach out for donations!
Parent volunteers – come join the fun! Thanks to everyone who signed up, but we still need a few more volunteers! Please sign up today! For all volunteers, there will be a sign-in table across from the front office, then report to the covered area on the playground.
Here’s what your Marmot needs to know about the big day:
Bring your pledge envelopes to school on Wednesday morning. Students will need to turn in their pledge envelopes so their laps can be recorded. Pledge envelopes will be returned to students to take home and use to collect per lap pledges from sponsors – due the following Friday, November 16 to be eligible for prizes!
Dress for the weather. No rain is predicted for Wednesday, but be prepared. We will move rain or shine! Ensure they are wearing good walking/running shoes and have extra socks and shoes if needed for the rest of the day. Rain jackets with hoods or rain ponchos will be a must if we get rain, as the kids will be outside for 20-30 minutes.
Raffle and classroom prizes: Any student who fundraises will be eligible for prizes, with some super special offerings for those kids who collect $100 or more in pledges.
Want to come support your kids? Here's the schedule for each grade level:
8:05-8:35 Third Grade
8:35-9:05 Kindergarten
9:05-9:35 Fifth Grade
9:45-10:15 Second Grade
10:15-10:45 Fourth Grade
10:45-11:15 First Grade
2018 PTA Pledge Drive update!
The 2018 Pledge Drive is on a roll! Seventy-six families and 3 staff have contributed a total of $18,447 this year with $290 in matching funds. With just three weeks until the end of the pledge drive, let's keep up the momentum and reach our goal of $23,000! Remember, donations of $150 earn 1 ticket to the 2019 Auction, $300 earns 2 tickets to the Auction and every donation earns Wedgwood Marmot decals. Please consider donating today, every contribution helps and is completely tax-deductible.
Oh, snap! It's that time again, all you fly Marmots
Come to the Wedgwood School Dance on November 9, from 6–8 pm!
What you need to know:
Dancing and games for the entire family
No admittance fee
90’s themed swag for your purchase Thursday after school and during the dance (while supplies last)
We will hold the annual Wedgwood Pantry Food Drive the night of the dance, please bring canned food (soup, meats, fruit, vegetables), beans, pasta, rice & kid-friendly (raisins, mac n cheese, crackers, etc.). If you'd like to donate cash or grocery store gift cards please contact shimomurayoko@gmail.com
Volunteers needed: Dude, if you would like volunteer at the dance, please sign up.
Questions: contact Nancy Blackham or Shidan Greene
Marmot readers giving back: Help support our neighbors at Olympic Hills Elementary
Greetings from your Librarian!
Did you know that all money for books in our library come from the generosity of our PTA? We recognize that not all schools have a PTA or parent community that is able to raise enough money to give to their librarian. Friday, November 9 marks the start of our Scholastic Book Fair and, this year, Wedgwood families will have the option to donate either $1, $5 or $10 for Olympic Hills Elementary during the sale.
In addition, 55% of all book sales at our fair will come back to our school library! Additionally, through its “All for Books” program, Scholastic will match all funds we collect for Olympic Hills Elementary’s library and donate that amount to another school within the US that is in need of books.
The book fair will kick off during the '90s dance on Friday, November 9. Stop by the library from 6-8 pm – or the following week – and check out books for your child, and please consider giving to Olympic Hills!
Book Fair Hours:
11/9: 6-8 pm
11/13: 7:30 am-3:30 pm
11/14: 7:30 am-2:30 pm
11/15: 7:30 am-3:30 pm
11/16: 7:30 am-10:00 am
Musical news!
Cast parents: You should have received an invitation to subscribe to the new Wedgwood Musical website on 10/30. Please accept it and then you can view the site. Check your spam folders for the invite as well. If you didn't get the invitation, please email wedgwoodmusical@gmail.com.
All key information about the musical will be posted to the Announcements page of the site. The site is for current year cast and crew only.
Interested in tech crew? Look for tech crew applications to come home in kid mail starting on Monday, 11/5. Once tech crew sign-ups are complete, tech crew parents will also get invitations to subscribe to the site.
Note that auditions are over and the musical is now fully cast. Thank you to all the wonderful kids and parents who are already working hard to make this year’s musical a success. If your children want to volunteer to help out with costumes, sets, props, or backstage, have them fill out a tech crew application.
PTA Reflections art program
Let our imagination fly and unleash your inner artist! Students can choreograph a dance, produce a film, write a poem or story, compose a song, take a picture or create a piece of visual art and tell us what the theme: “HEROES AROUND ME” means to you. PTA Reflections Entry Forms will be distributed to classes this week and contain the entry form and rules. Entries are due on November 13th in boxes located in the school lobby.
Questions? Contact Renee Davis at rireton@hotmail.com or Sara Hoofnagle at sghoofangle@gmail.com.
Help Wedgwood be more inclusive: Diversity and inclusion meetings
Please join us in the library next week, Thursday Nov. 8 at 6 pm or Friday Nov 9 at 8 am, as we explore:
What does diversity and inclusion mean for PTA at Wedgwood?
What can we do to make parent/family participation and engagement equitable and inclusive for every Wedgwood family?
Also, we’ll kick off our D&I “book club” with our first selection, “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.”
The PTA Diversity and Inclusion committee is co-chaired by Aki Carroll and Liza Rankin, and we encourage anyone to participate in the committee. We are here to support you! Questions? Email us at wwdiversityinclusion@gmail.com.
Submit your Walktober walking logs!
Thanks to everyone who participated in Walktober/Walk to School Month! Turn in your mileage logs by Monday, Nov. 5 to have all the miles you walked in October be counted for your class. Don't forget to count your Halloween miles, too! You can drop them in the brown-and-white box in the hall by the front office, or email an image of the log to deirdregregg@yahoo.com. We'll announce the class that walked the most soon.
Vote yes for kids! Legislative update
Washing State PTA Legislative Assembly Summary: After convening Oct 21 and 22 and approving several resolutions, WSPTA has announced the top 5 legislative issues for 2018-2019 (here’s a printable version). The top 5 issues are: social-emotional
learning, school construction, preventing gun violence, the teacher shortage, and closing funding gaps.
Fall Election Endorsements
YES on Proposition No. 1 on your November ballots: Seattle Council PTSA endorses a "YES" vote for the City of Seattle's Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy. The proposed FEPP levy will make seven years of investment to:
Double the number of children in quality preschool, who are from low-income homes,
Fund K-12 and community investments, including critical school-based health services, Family
Support Workers, dedicated resources for the 4,280 K-12 students experiencing homelessness in Seattle, and increasing teacher diversity;
Expand access to college for all Seattle high school graduates through the Seattle Promise College Tuition Program.
National news
According to the New York Times and also summarized by NPR, there are potential federal plans to define sex based on biological sex at birth. Tolerance.org has responded with potential guidelines for schools to affirm students’ gender identities. Persons interested in helping craft gender-affirming policies at WWE are welcome to contact their legislative chair to help organize.
You can always find the latest news on legislative actions from the WA State PTA advocacy page:
To join the 2018-2019 WWE PTA as legislative representative, email Amalia Magaret at amalia_magaret@hotmail.com.
Submitting to the Weekly
Got a news item you want the school community to know about? Send your news item (that's either related to Wedgwood or our local community) in 200 words or less by Monday at 5 p.m. to wedgwoodPTAweekly@gmail.com. Please include your text in the body of an email and remove all formatting. Please do not submit PDFs, flyers or images.
Wedgwood Weekly | WedgwoodPTAWeekly@gmail.com