Warren Hills Elementary PTA

Membership:

• We are a little under the membership count from last year.  Please encourage anyone you know to join our PTA!  Membership is only $10!
• 5th grade teacher Mrs. Riffle won the membership pizza party for her class!  Congratulations!  They received the pizza this past Thursday!
• We reviewed and approved this year’s budget

Fundraising:

• Boosterthon/Fun Run is in full swing!  The pep rally was last Tuesday and the actual Fun Run is this coming Friday.  A sign up genius is going out to volunteer to help at the water station.  Please watch for this.  And, please encourage your children and any families you know to help raise money for this fundraiser.  It’s our largest fundraiser of the year and we have a goal of $20,000!  This fundraiser pays for all the school field trips throughout the year!
• Restaurant night-Chipotle didn’t make as much as it did last year, but with a 33% kick back to our school, we’ll continue to use and support them!
• Our next one is Oct. 9th from 5-8 p.m. at Culvers!  Please plan to attend and have dinner or get it to go.  10% of all sales goes to our school!
• Spirit wear–You’ll see winter and additional spirit wear for sale soon.  There will be a table available at parent/teacher conferences in October!

Upcoming events:

• Trunk or Treat is Sunday, October 27th from 2-4 p.m.
• There will be a sign up genius that will go out October 1st for people to volunteer to do a trunk.  Prizes will be awarded for 1st and 2nd place trunks! This event was huge last year so more details will come soon!
• The 5th grade teachers are doing fundraising to support the United Way.  They’ll have an auction table set up at our Trunk-or-Treat to support this 🙂
• Book fair will be set up again at parent/teacher conferences.  Sales from books earns us “scholastic dollars” that the school can spend.  This past year we earned $4000 in scholastic dollars and the school purchased STEM teaching materials with this money!

Hi PTA parents!

Membership (Officers/Committee Leaders Announcements):

• It was a meet and greet!  We introduced the new officers.
• Tara Stigall will be our treasurer and Marianne Horstman is our secretary.  Additionally, Erin Shonkwiler will remain VP of fundraising and Ali Moore will be VP of Membership.
• We introduce the committees the PTA has and opportunities for you to help out.  If you have the ability to help, these are the committees that still need help:
• Membership– we need 1 more person to help promote membership throughout the year.
• Nominating- we need 2 people to send out emails/flyers etc at the beginning of the year to promote officer positions that will become available effective next school year.  Voting happens at our March meeting so we would need to know candidates by that time.

Fundraising:

• Book fair- we could use 2 more people to join the book fair committee–set up , take down and run the book fair during parent/teacher conference nights.  You will not need to work the entire book fair–just help coordinate volunteers so it’s staffed at all times!  (grandparents and older children can work this as well!)
• Spirit wear- we need 3 people to help our current spirit wear person continue to promote and sell spirit wear at events.

Hi PTA members!

We had our January meeting this past week and I wanted to update everyone on what we discussed! Here’s the main highlights:

Membership: 

We will make our next big push on March 26th during kindergarten round up! We talked about getting our popcorn machine out and making it more “inviting” to visit our table. We will just pass out information, popcorn and membership forms but won’t take payment until the fall. We don’t want to overwhelm the kindergarten parents with everything they have going on that night!

Fundraising:

• Panera didn’t do so well as a restaurant night so we likely won’t add them to our monthly nights next year. We made less than $100 that night.
• We’ll have the amount earned off Raising Canes at our next meeting! It happened last Thursday night!
• You should have received the second semester restaurant calendars home in your Friday folders. Please try to support these nights! We started so strong but have had less participation each month. Every meal counts so please mark your calendars for these dates! Next one is Culvers on February 21!
• Trash bags and cookie dough fundraiser is getting ready for spring! Please see the attached calendar for some important dates. Just so you know, for each tub of cookie dough sold ($15 for 3 lbs), Eileen’s will give us $6 back and trash bags make us $4.40 per roll! So this should be a great fundraiser!
• We also talked about SAVERS. As you do your spring cleaning, please save your clothes and bedding donations for our school! When you pick up your cookie dough and trash bags, we’ll ask you to drop off your donation clothing as well. Savers will give us a portion back per pound we donate! More details to follow soon!
• May 1-7, we will do a fundraiser with Green Lantern car wash. If you get your car washed that week and show them the flyer, they will give us 1/2 of whatever you pay to have done!

Box tops:

• Please remember to turn in your box tops soon! The last collection date is February 13th.

Upcoming events:

• Bookfair- March 11-13th
• Parent/teacher conferences (and conference meals)-March 11-13
• STEAM event-Saturday, March 30th!-We allocated $2000 for this spring even and are excited to bring some amazing presenters to the school!

Next meeting is Tuesday, February 19th in the Warren Hills Library! You are very welcome to attend!

Thanks for all your help and participation! Remember, we’re doing this for our children and everything you do helps!

Have a great week!!

Shannon

Hi everyone,

Membership:

• We will do a second semester push to get more members to join the PTA.  Please tell your friends it really can be minimal participation if they need it to be.  However, they will get all these monthly updates and will be informed when volunteer opportunities arise.  It’s just good to stay in the know! 🙂

Ways & Means (Restaurant Nights):

• We are waiting to hear back from Chick-Fil-A on how much we raised that night for Warren Hills.  We’ll have that number by next meeting.
• Next restaurant night is December 13th at Panera.  No online orders accepted.  You must go in to order and can dine in or carry out.  They will give us 20% of each order!  So mark your calendars!  Erin Shonkwiler will have out the second semester restaurant night calendar soon!  Be on the look out!

Treasurer Notes:

• Ingrid went over the budget and what has been spent for the year.  So far we are on track with our budget!  I’ve attached a copy of the budget for you to look at.  The budget is discussed at each meeting if you have any questions on it!

Book fair:

• We are in desperate (might be a strong but realistic word) need of finding someone that would like to “take over” the book fair starting next school year.  If you have the time to do this, we’d love to have you help with the spring one so we can teach you all the “ins and outs”.  Please email me if you can do this.

Spirit wear:

• We’d like to introduce Wildcat Wednesdays as a fun day each week for children to wear their spirit wear and show their school pride!  You can continue to order spirit wear online as well as purchase items at the upcoming Santa day and Penguin Patch.  Also, if you have gently used spirit wear that your child has outgrown, please donate it to the office.  There are several children that would love to have this and could benefit from your donation.  Thank you!

Santa Visit:

• Santa will visit the school on December 1 from 11-1.  Santa is being paid for and sponsored by the Amber Rothermel Real Estate Team as a donation to the school.  We will have arts and craft tables as well and those will be paid for by the PTA.  Additionally, you probably saw the sign up genius go out today asking for cookie donations.  Since we don’t know how many children will come to this event, we’re trying to have options of things for everyone to do so Santa can make his way around and talk to the children.

Penguin Patch:

• The Penguin Patch will take place on December 12th from 4:30 p.m.-7 p.m.  Children will be invited to come and “shop” for their family, friends, etc.  A sign up genius will go out within a week asking for volunteers to help children shop and to help gift wrap.  Please watch for that.  This is a fun night for all the students to get into the giving spirit!  Check out the PTA bulletin board for additional information!

Bulletin boards:

• I’ll be sending out an email at the end of December asking if anyone is creative and would like to start helping with our PTA bulletin board each month.  We’re having a hard time keeping up with the PTA board.  If you might be interested in helping with this, please watch for the email and let me know!  Thanks!

Ways & Means (Family Activity):

• We would like to do a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) family night in the gym.  If you’d like to help organize this (make some phone calls), please let me know and we’ll get a group together to make this happen.  There are many businesses that will come to schools to talk to and show children ways they can use what they are learning now and apply it to their future career lives 🙂 .  We are aiming for February for this event.   Just email me if you are interested in helping!

Watch for an invitation to our December meeting.  You’ll get an evite inviting you to Conrads on Tuesday, December 11th.

Hi PTA parents!

We had a meeting this week so I wanted to recap it for those that weren’t able to attend.

Membership:

• We are currently at 230 PTA members this year. Please continue to encourage anyone you know to join. It’s only $10 and they’ll get to stay up-to-date on what we’re doing throughout the year.
• We have decided that since the “Race to PTA” did so well, we will give all the kids in the school a popsicle. These will likely be distributed this coming Thursday. Thank you to Integrity Tow Company for donating!!

Fundraising:

• We made our Boosterthon goal this year and plan to book this fundraiser for next school year too! All classrooms will benefit from 2 paid field trips this school year! Thank you for all your support with these efforts!
• MOD pizza night-We had another successful restaurant night and now have raised $1374 for the year in just the first 3 months! Chick-Fil-A is next month on November 8! Spread the word!

Spirit wear:

• You should have received the fun “holiday/winter” shirt order form in your Friday papers that came home. T-shirts are $10 and we will receive $2 from each t-shirt ordered! This will be a fun shirt for kids/teachers/PTA members/parents to wear this winter!
  We’ll also be promoting the t-shirts at conferences next week.

Upcoming events:

• Book fair–book fair is Monday and Wednesday from 4-8:30 during conferences. It will be held in the library. Please come shop with us those nights. Thanks to Shalini Shankar and Ingrid Bracken for organizing this event this year!
• Conference meals–Thanks to Liza Edwards, Ali Moore, and Laci McClelland for organizing these. Also, thank you to all of you who signed up to donate something those nights! The teachers will be well fed during conference 🙂
• Trunk-or-Treat–This is tomorrow (Sunday, Oct. 21) from 4-6 p.m. in the Warren Hills parking lot. We have 35 cars signed up to participate, 11 high school students helping out and doing some fun games for the children, and 3 food trucks coming in case people want to take a good, quick dinner home (taco truck, bbq truck and donut truck!). Please plan to attend and bring your children in costume! Thank you to Tara Stigall and Jennifer Schrepel for organizing this!!
• Santa-Santa will visit Warren Hills on December 3rd in the cafeteria from 10-1. More details will come soon!

Thank you again for being a part of the Warren Hills PTA. I encourage you to attend the monthly meeting–they are quick and painless 🙂 .

And, I’d love to get to know you!

Have a great weekend and hope to see you Sunday at Trunk-or-Treat!

-Shannon

Hi ladies,

• I attached a calendar.  I will update this monthly and bring one with any changes to each meeting.  But, this is a good start!  It’s a combination of PTA and school information.  I thought it might be helpful to help us stay organized each month 🙂

August PTA responsibilities:

1. Back to school night (August 13 from 4-6 pm)

   • What we need:
     • Tables (Pam, I was told to ask you if we could have 3 tables for spirit wear in the cafeteria and 2 tables in the gym for PTA membership.  Also, if we could have one PTA table outside the cafeteria for membership as well, that would be wonderful!
     • People to work the tables–I know Jen and Kristen are planning on working the spirit wear table and many commented that they will work the membership tables, but I will also send out a sign up genius today or tomorrow so we don’t have to work the full time and everyone will know what they are working
     • PTA bulletin board.  Since spirit wear is such a big kick off at the beginning of the year, Kristen said her and Jen will take the board this month.  Ali, if membership would like to also be on this board, will you reach out to Kristen to organize your part?  Thank you!
     • Kristen said she would get table cloths and things to designate the spirit wear table so people knew what was going on 🙂
     • I will buy things for the PTA tables (balloons, tablecloths, etc) to make sure ppl know it’s our PTA stations!
     • I will make a “what the PTA does for your school” flyer to have at the table and will bring the “fundraiser” paper too.  Oh and membership forms of course!
     • Ingrid–will you bring cash register and square?  And change money?
     • Ali, please feel free to add anything you want to the membership table or completely take it over 🙂 . I know this is your “role”.
     • If you haven’t bought a PTA t-shirt, you can go online (on the WH website, there is a link) and wear it that night 🙂 . I’ve also attached the WH classroom colors list in case you want to buy one for your child but don’t know what their classroom color is.
     • Please feel free to respond with anything I’ve missed for this (could be a LOT).  But I think the main things would be tables, money, spirit wear and us to represent and make it fun 🙂

2. Teacher lunch (August 14 from 11:30-12:30)

   • What we need:
     • Emily said she would place the order for the taco bar to be delivered that day
     • If you’d like to be there, that day, can you please be there from 11 (unless Emily replies and says earlier or later)?
     • Erin will briefly talk at the lunch about boosterthon and the benefits for paid field trips
     • We will take membership fees and promote spirit wear (Kristen, I know you’re coming but is the owner of Mom of 3 coming too?)
     • I will have a wish list paper for teachers to quickly fill out to let us know if there is anything they would love to have

3. Welcome PTA meeting (August 28 from 7-8 p.m.)

   • In the cafeteria
   • All are welcome and this will be advertised on Facebook, website and on a flyer for back to school night too
   • Light refreshments will be served (maybe just cookies or something easy)–if anyone wants to volunteer to be in charge of refreshments that night, that would be great!!  Ingrid, could you tell us an amount of money we could use for this?

4. Miscellaneous information

   • I’ve also attached the agenda from last night.  Just so you can see it.  Not the typical agenda (I may have gone rogue).  If you see anything you have questions on, please don’t hesitate to ask.
   • Also, I emailed Liza and asked her to add a couple things to Facebook for us 🙂
   • And, if someone could let me know who to ask to update the website, that would be great!

Thank you so much for your participation and your support!

1. Class Colors Document
2. July 24, 2018 PTA Meeting Notes
3. Important School Dates