Congratulations to student Natalie Stark!

Lacey Loves to Read 2010 Bookmark winners:

Congratulations to the following students whose artwork was selected for the 2010 Lacey Loves to Read bookmarks. They had surprise visits last week from Lacdey Loves to Read reps and Lacey City Council members. Thanks to the hundreds of students who participated this year. The top 12 winners will have their artwork published to help publicize the Lacey Loves to Read events and 2010 Native American author Jospeh Bruchac. To learn more, visit http://www.nthurston.k12.wa.us/read.

Grand Prize winners:

• Richelle Jones, North Thurston


• Regan Rudy, North Thurston


• Lashay Jimenez, Nisqually


• Natalie Stark, Mountain View


• Owen Carroll, Evergreen Forest


• Tristan Johanson, Pleasant Glade

Honorable mentions:

• Maddelin McElroy, Faith Lutheran (Community Winner)


• Nicole Parsons, Lakes


• Miles Thibodeaux, Horizons


• Briana Scheffer, Lacey


• Sammi Minter, Meadows


• Amy Conklin, South Bay

We need you in February!

Mt. View PTA members and friends of Mt. View,

I am sad to report that we were unable to conduct our important January business at the last meeting. We failed to draw a quorum (minimum of ten, per our rules) of members and thus could not elect our Nominating Committee. For this reason, we have shifted the 2010 meeting schedule and will have another general membership meeting in February, rather than a Board meeting.

Please join us:

Tuesday, February 9^th

6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Mt. View library

If we fail to draw a quorum at that meeting, then we will not have a Nominating Committee elected and will be forced to hold our election for 2010-2011 officers during the April meeting, simply asking for nominations and self-nominations from the floor.

I certainly realize that some of you simply cannot attend PTA meetings. However, if we cannot even draw ten paid members to take care of important business every other month, then perhaps the PTA does not have enough support to do its business. Please consider whether you find value in PTA and mark your calendar for February 9^th, if at all possible. The point of having a quorum requirement is so that a handful of members cannot dictate the agenda and business decisions for all of you. This is YOUR PTA, after all!

Thanks for continuing to support your PTA. We are proud to do what we can to benefit our kids and students.

Take care,

Brian

January newsletter posted

Here's your January installment of the Mt. View PTA newsletter, thanks to our faithful editor and co-VP, Tara-Lyn Poole! If you have submissions for consideration for February's edition, please submit prior to February 5th.

PTA meeting - join us on Tuesday the 12th

Happy New Year and welcome back to the swing of the school year! I hope you had some time, over the winter break, to spend time with family and reflect over the year of 2009. I admit that I did that and took off my PTA hat for much of the break! But now we’re back to work and we have our next general membership meeting next Tuesday, the 12^th, at 6:30 p.m (Mt. View library).

This is an incredibly important meeting because we will elect our Nominating Committee, which is made up of paid members and is charged with recruiting and finding eligible and interested officer candidates for 2010-2011. Elections are scheduled for the April meeting and officers serve from July through June.

In addition, we are lucky to have two guest speakers on Tuesday:

• Elke Armajo – World Language Program
• Cynthia Coble – North Thurston Citizens for Schools (upcoming levy)

Please join us on Tuesday! If we do not have at least 10 paid members in attendance, it will be a short meeting and we will be unable to elect a Nominating Committee, nor vote on any business. Please help support your PTA by attending and learning more about how PTA works for the students of Mt. View.

Click here for the agenda for Tuesday's meeting and here for the December Board meeting minutes.

As always, thanks for supporting your PTA!

Brian Morgan

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