December potluck postponed

Alas, too many of you already have family and other obligations for Saturday, the 19th of December. Thus, we will postpone the PTA Volunteer Appreciation potluck to a date in January. Please submit your suggestions for a date/time to PTA President Brian Morgan.

Thanks so much for what you volunteers do for Mt. View and PTA!

It's Okay to Be Different

Mountain View second graders teach others "It's Okay to be different!": When Jessie Dunnam, a second grade teacher at Mountain View, read "It's Okay to Be Different" (loaned to her by team member Valerie Harris), she was struck by the sweet story and decided to share it with her students during transition time after recess.

"The personal connection that they made with it was much greater than I had ever expected, said Dunnam. "The kids decided that we needed to share the message with the school." Working together, they developed a performance, posters, and quotes which they shared with nearly every class in the school.

They designed and hung 26 banners throughout the school with their "It's Okay" message. Dunnam said she saw students, teachers and staff stopping daily to read the messages on the posters. "I think it is because the messages the students shared are real and true for all of us…my students truly inspired and amazed me with their thoughtfulness and sincerity."

Here are some of her favorite quotes:

• It's okay to live in a different country. (Sonny)
• It's okay to have different colors of skin. (Mary)
• It's okay to be shy. (Cody)
• It's okay to have four fingers. (Darren)
• It's okay to be yourself. (Will)
• It's okay to make mistakes. (Anya)

From the NTPS Success post - 12/04/2009

All,

Where has the fall gone?! I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful and safe Thanksgiving with your families. I know many Mt. View families have a parent deployed overseas with the U.S. military and I join you in waiting for their safe return.

PTA is only as strong as its volunteer base and membership. Thank you so much if you have been able to join PTA, volunteer at events or both! But we frankly need more support and involvement if we are going to succeed in making a difference at Mt. View. The number of people actively supporting PTA right now is very small.

Our fundraising efforts each year allow us to help fill in needs for the students, whether it’s technology for teachers, resources and books for kids, or programs and events. So thanks very much for supporting the fall and spring fundraisers each year. Sure, we can write a check for many things without much effort on your part. But I’m hearing over and over again that you and other Mt. View parents value the family events, especially our hugely popular Fun Nights.

We would love to have more of these events and expand on them, to have pizza parties or other dinner socials, maybe a father/daughter dance or Muffins with Mom… Well, we will not be able to have these events in 2010 if we do not get additional support and volunteers. In particular, we need one or two people to step forward in order to help coordinate the Fun Nights or any other event you want PTA to host. There are many details to this type of event but they are manageable with the right amount of help! Think about what you can do and then contact me.

What would it take for you to attend the January meeting? Think about it and put this date on your calendar:

Tuesday, January 12th – 6:30-7:30 p.m. (Mt. View library)

I know many of you have obligations outside of Mt. View and PTA. I know that many of you are single-parent households or have a parent deployed overseas. But what would it take for you to be involved with PTA in some small way? Did you know that you can bring your children to our meetings? Absolutely! We don’t currently have “day care” provided during meetings but if we have a few parents or teenagers available to corral the children for an hour… voila! Think about how you can help solve our “day care dilemma”!

Please join us in January so you can see how your PTA works and so I can greet and thank you personally!

Take care,
Brian Morgan
Mt. View PTA President 2009-2010
360-970-9513 (c)

What are your thoughts, suggestions?

What feedback do you have about PTA, positive or negative? We can use your constructive criticism as much as your kudos throughout the year. We are trying to communicate with you and the rest of Mt. View by as many methods as possible. We keep the website current, update our Facebook profile frequently, send out emails about three times a month and send out a monthly newsletter. I hope that at least some of these communication tools work for you! If you want to be added to the PTA email distribution list, let me know!

Take care,

Brian Morgan

Mt. View PTA President 2009-2010

360-970-9513 (c)

November meeting minutes posted

Here are your November meeting minutes, courtesy of Secretary Shawn Smith. It's a large Adobe document (almost 4MB) due to the many reports and attachments. Please let me know if you have trouble opening or viewing the minutes.

Brian Morgan
PTA President 2009-2010

360-970-9513

Adopt-a-road - who is going to support?

Well, we now know that a two-person crew can clean the debris from our 0.5-mile stretch of 37th Avenue in about 1.25 hours! So what are you waiting for? Are you able to volunteer for our 3rd installment of trash pickup? Imagine how easy it would be for a crew of four motivated volunteers!

When we polled the membership over the summer, you overwhelmingly felt that signing on with the city's Adopt-a-road program was the way to go. So now is the time to sign up and show your support!

What can you do? Two things - consider whether you can help coordinate the monthly clean-up days and contact me to suggest our third clean-up day. We need to be out there about every four weeks so that the trash doesn't get out of hand. After all, our name is on the sign and we don't want drivers to see our section of roadway looking trashy! Obviously, designating the day myself is running up against too many schedule conflicts for our volunteers. So now I would like your suggestions, please!

Call or email with your thoughts and suggestions.

Thanks!
Brian Morgan (360-970-9513)
Mt. View PTA President 2009-2010

Roadside clean-up tomorrow - time change

Since no one has RSVP'd to join me and Laura for roadside clean-up tomorrow, we are moving the time to 11 a.m. Feel free to join us then! We'll still be meeting at Mt. View, in the drop-off parking lot. Then it'll be off to College and 37th for our 0.5-mile of road!

11 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday the 14th) - see you there!

- Brian
360-970-9513

From the Superintendent

November 13, 2009

Greetings and Happy Friday,

Last night I was so grateful to be amongst friends, staff and colleagues who provided me and my wife Rana with such a warm community reception. Thank you to the Board and others who coordinated the event and for the kind words shared by many of you. As Rana and I have said repeatedly, we are so grateful to be living in Lacey. The quality of life here is so wonderful and every day we meet new people who make us feel very welcome in our new home.

I realize that November is traditionally a time for giving thanks. It makes my heart feel good to know that our staff and community are doing so much to help fill the buckets of others and help families and students in need: Lacey K-Club is having a food drive; Charlie's Safari is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for some of our families; the District Office is collecting "feather" donations to buy gift cards to help with Thanksgiving dinners for 10 district families, South Bay's special education families are doing a holiday dinner, Lydia Hawk and Mountain View schools collected over 7,000 cans of food for the Thurston County Food Bank - and the list goes on.

In the spirit of giving, I am very excited to announce that we are helping lead a new membership drive to support the very local North Thurston Education Foundation . This volunteer-run organization directly supports our students, schools and teachers through a series of learning grants, emergency funds for needs and scholarships. Since 1989 this volunteer organization has given more than $360,000 to help enhance educational opportunities for our students and teachers. I encourage you to consider helping us make an easy 100 percent participation goal to help directly support our students in need. If everyone gave just $1 a month, that would be almost $20,000 to help students . If you are considering donating to NTEF, we recommend you do so directly, through a cash donation or p ayroll deduction. Donations envelopes were sent to all the schools along with some informational brochures for staff rooms. This drive will last through December 4. To learn more about NTEF visit their website at www.ntef.org . Building principals, school counselors and the Student and Staff Support Department (360-412-4466) work with families in need to connect them with needed resources.

We also use November to promote the United Way of Thurston County's annual fund campaign. Last year our district gave more than $17,000 to help support local organizations and other programs such as Success by Six and the South Sound Reading Foundation. Forms are available at each school or district office. Payroll deductions are an option but must be renewed each year. This campaign will wrap up Nov. 25.

Thank you all again for your generosity, for your time and all the donations given from the heart.

Raj Manhas, Superintendent

November newsletter posted

Here's your November installment of the November PTA newsletter! It'll also come home via kid mail, if you actually get to see what's in that backpack!

Of particular interest to some of you... check out the information about the upcoming 31st annual Mt. View Bazaar, rapidly approaching on November 21st. There is still space available and a great need for volunteers to fill two-hour shifts.

Bazaar - space available, need volunteers!

From Tara-Lyn Poole, Bazaar coordinator:

Mountain View Annual Holiday Bazaar, November 21st @ the school (Gym). Hours are from 10am-4pm. I still have some space available. Please contact me ASAP if you are interested 455-0357 (message) or email. I also need volunteers to help the day of (2 hour shifts) I am desperate for help!!!