Get Ready! The Schmitz Park Team Spirit Auction 2015 is coming Saturday, March 21, 2015. Please see the Save-The-Date flyer below for more information.
Join Ms. Noreng, Ms. Aylesworth, and Mr. Wuth for an afternoon of bowling and pizza! Sunday 1/25/15 from 2-4pm at the West Seattle Bowl. 2nd-4th graders only please.
You can signup here: http://www.signupgenius.com/
The cost is $45 per student. You can pay via PayPal here or if you would like to pay with cash or check, please contact Karen Kasameyer at karenkasameyer@gmail.com.
We are excited to report we have over 130 parents and staff signed up as Schmitz Park PTA Members for the 2014-2015 school year! Everyone who has signed up to be a member should have received an email today welcoming you to the PTA and confirming your membership. If you did not receive a Welcome email and you signed up to be a PTA Member, please email secretary@schmitzparkpta.org.
And if you still want to be a PTA Member, we accept memberships all school year. You can signup via the blog and submit your $15 (individual) or $25 (family) PayPal payment here.
We also want to encourage everyone to join us tomorrow, December 3rd at 6:30pm for a Winter Social at Feedback Lounge. Everyone is welcome so please join us for a fun adult-only event. You can RSVP here.
We’ll be meeting at the Feedback Lounge on Wednesday, December 3rd at 6:30pm to celebrate the start of a successful school year. Come meet new parents and enjoy a beverage with old friends. The band Love will be performing at 8pm should you want to hang out and dance into the evening.
Please note this is a no host bar and childcare is not provided. Please RSVP via the signup genius link if you can make it!
Interim Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland is hosting a West Seattle Community Coffee Chat on Monday Dec. 1, from 6:00-7:00PM at the Neighborhood House High Point Center in West Seattle (6400 Sylvan Way S.W. Seattle, WA 98126). This is an opportunity for Schmitz Park families to meet him and help the District better understand the issues that matter the most to us. At the meeting, our concerns about boundary implementation will be raised and we encourage any family impacted, be it through attendance area adjustments or simply the overenrollment at Schmitz Park, to come and have a voice in the conversation.
Questions, or to confirm you can join us, email Emily Giaquinta & Angela Cough, Legislative Co-Chairs legislative@schmitzparkpta.org
Our Enrichment Winter Session will begin the week of January 5th and registration begins now! Some important things to keep in mind about registration:
*Registration deadline is Wednesday December 10th at 3:00pm. Please bring your forms to the main office.
*Registrations will be processed December 10-14, you will receive email confirmations of enrollment or waitlist placement by Tuesday, December 16th.
*Classes with a stated maximum limit will be determined by lottery of the registrations submitted by the deadline. Registrations received after the deadline will be processed on a first come/first served basis as space allows.
*Some classes will offer priority to students who were placed on the wait list for the Fall Session.
*Please read the registration forms carefully; while there are classes open to all grade levels, some classes are limited to certain ages, some classes have different end times.
*As always, please contact Jen Schill with any questions: enrichment@schmitzparkpta.org
The Growth Boundaries Plan will not be on the agenda for the Board Meeting this week. Due to some loose ends in the Board Action Report (BAR) it will be introduced at the December 3rd Meeting instead. Since the community meeting, Enrollment Planning has made it clear that the shift in maps is necessary to mitigate the spike in enrollment at Alki. We are working on a joint letter from PTA Leaders of our fellow elementary schools detailing the short and long term impacts to our students and community. Watch here for more details.
Seattle Council Parent-Student-Teacher Association makes a formal request that District Staff and School Board delay the vote scheduled for Wednesday November 19th on the “P-5 Schools aligned with Seattle Preschool Program and Collaboration Grant/Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” (P-5 Alignment) action item until AFTER a formal Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) has been agreed upon between the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools (SPS).
We ask the District and City perform their duties as custodians of tax payer dollars by disclosing the details of this partnership and ensuring the allocation of resources before signing off on this agreement. The City has repeatedly stated that this program will not take resources from the already underfunded and overcrowded Seattle Public Schools. However, as written, the P-5 Alignment Board Action contradicts this by committing District K-12 resources (facility space, Special Education, Bilingual Education, Prekindergarten professional development coaching, enrollment, and Kindergarten transition) to the City’s Preschool program. An MOU is needed BEFORE this School Board vote specifically addressing where the Preschool programs will be housed. District enrollment has been growing at a rate of around 1,000 students per year causing a severe overcrowding problems across the district. How will the District ensure that increased preschool facilities in SPS buildings actually have available classrooms (not portables) and do not encroach on already stressed lunch room and playground space for K-8 students?
The Schmitz Park PTA supports this request to see the plan and all its details before SPS signs any deals. If you do too, send a message to our Superintendent and School Board that the best way to serve our students is to delay this vote on the P-5 Alignment action item until AFTER a formal MOU is signed, and they ensure that SPS K-12 dollars and facilities will not be misdirected.
Seattle School Board board@seattleschools.org
Israel Vela, Executive Director of Schools (SW) isvela@seattleschools.org
Larry Nyland (Superintendent) superintendent@seattleschools.org
At the community meeting at Alki Elementary on Monday, November 3rd, a large group of West Seattle parents and community members voiced their concerns on the implementation of boundary changes in West Seattle for the 2015-2016 School Year. The Growth Boundaries Plan was approved by the Board in November 2013, however, the timeline for implementation only gave specifics for the current school year (2014-2015) that were tied to the re-opening of the expanded Fairmount Park facility. The remaining changes were planned for roll out as capacity became available with the new buildings being constructed at Genesee Hill and Arbor Heights. Although the Genesee Hill construction schedule has been delayed and a new opening date of September 2016 has been given, Enrollment & Planning intends to implement the new attendance areas next year. These changes will move 2 areas from Alki Elementary (estimated 37 current students, who can remain at Alki by choice under grandfathering, and an undetermined number of new, incoming students) into the Schmitz Park attendance zone and bring out projected enrollment to 630-650 students for 2015-2016.
As a PTA, we have requested that no changes be made to attendance areas in West Seattle until the new building is ready. Today, Schmitz Park has 612 students, 17 portables, 16 in-building rooms, and only 1 bathroom each for boys & girls (excluding the 3 toilets in the kindergarten wing for our 96+ kindergartners to share.) We have 4 lunch periods. We have 2 morning recesses. But the BIGGEST CONCERN is the fact we have shortened learning periods because of the time it takes to move children through the building and, in some cases, we have had to reduce PE/Music/Library frequency because we simply cannot accommodate every class in a given week. The building struggles to serve the students we have now – yet plans for next year will expand our assignments.
In addition to our physical limitations, there are other impacts to this change:
The Growth Boundaries Plan should be amended and implementation should be delayed until Genesee Hill is ready for students. A meeting between leaders and staff at Alki, Schmitz Park and Captial, Facilities & Enrollment Planning should occur immediately to evaluate alternative options that will appropriately serve both schools’ students.
To help our cause, contact Emily Giaquinta and Angela Cough (Schmitz Park PTA Legislative Co-Chairs) at legislative@schmitzparkpta.org.
Share your concerns by emailing the following representatives on the issue:
Enrollment Planning growthboundaries@seattleschools.org
Marty McLaren, Seattle School Board Position VI martha.mclaren@seattleschools.org
Israel Vela, Executive Director of Schools (West Seattle) isvela@seattleschools.org
**UPDATE – The PTA has reserved the back room at the Feedback Lounge for our upcoming Winter Social. Please use the sign up genius below to sign up if you can come. We hope to see you there!**
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0448aca928ab9-schmitz
With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, the Board has decided to push the November 21st General Meeting out and make the meeting a social, adult-only event. Please mark your calendars and book your sitters for Wednesday, December 3rd @ 6:30pm. A Sign Up Genius and more details to come in the coming week.
Also we just made the PTA General Meeting Minutes available online. You can access them on the About page or here.
Image Courtesy Etsy