It takes a village to run a school auction! Our wonderful Auction Committee needs a little help with a variety of tasks: 

•    Are you good at emails?  Following up with a list of individuals and checking their names off when you receive a response?  We need a parent volunteer to help follow up with our QAE staff and teachers on their Sign Up Parties.  Can you say Yes to 30 mins a week for the next 3-4 weeks? 
 
 •    Do you like a puzzle?  Do you like seating arrangements? Our awesome 5th grade parents, who have done this for years, would like to train and pass the baton of how to arrange the QAE Auction seating.  If you are able to commit to learn this year and arrange seats for next year please let us know.  Sign up with a friend!  And you can work on seating arrangements over a glass of wine.
 
 •    Printing Contact?  We are looking for in-kind donation or deep discount to help print our Auction brochure.  Do you have a contact or would your company be able to help donate their copier services?  

 •     Student Photos - Natalia Dotto, QAE parent and photographer, need help shuttling kids to and from their classroom.  We need one more parent helper on Feb. 7th.  Sign up here to help...

 •    Digital Photo Organizer?  Do you have a 2-5 hours at the end of February to help rename and organize the pictures with the students LAST NAME, FIRST INITIAL of the student. Cari Lui of Yuen Lui has generously agreed to print all of the photos for us, but it is imperative that they be organized by class and last name prior to the printing process.
 
 •    Production Assistant to Auction Video?  Need volunteers to help with the auction video.  Kelly Essmeier, awesome QAE parent, is producing our video this year. Can you help support our video, brainstorm, assist with messaging?  A team of creative parents is better than one. 

Any of the above sound interesting or need more information?  Contact the auction team at auction@qaeptsa.org to learn more or access our Fundraising page where we will continue to update our asks:
http://www.qaeptsa.org/fundraising.html

The PTSA Legislative Team issued the QAE Bell Time Survey to poll our community on the existing and potential upcoming changes to the Seattle Public Schools Bell Times. There were 121 responses, thank you QAE! We hear you and your contributions to the ongoing discussion of Bell Times is valued! SPS has received our Survey and it has been sent to our School Board and to Pegi McEvoy (Assistant Superintendent of Operations) who are working on the Bell Times for next year. 

View the results from the survey here.

Some details on the complexity of the Bell Time Issue and where it currently stands: 
Pegi McEvoy has been diligently working on the Bell Time issue for families and the District is working on a goal to move from the current three Tier system down to a two Tier system. The current three Tier system has three different bell times with 50 minutes between each start and end time so that transportation works across the 98 schools of the District. In order to switch from three Tiers down to two Tiers there was originally a one time 3.7 million dollar cost. By making transportation changes and cost reductions, Pegi McEvoy has gotten this number down to a one time cost of 2.3 million. This current one time cost of 2.3 million to achieve the switch to two Tiers and potentially be able to offer better bell times as a result must be completed with outside funds. (Due to a current tough budget year and the potential for the Levy Cliff next year.)

Pegi McEvoy is working very hard at trying to secure this outside funding, with a deadline of May 1st. Two Tiers across the District has the potential to have great positive change for families, kiddos and schools. (and also may avert the necessity for an earlier Tier 1 bell time) If you have any leads on helping the funding issue or want to offer any other help toward this issue, please contact:

Pegi McEvoy
Assistant Superintendent of Operations
pmcevoy@seattleschools.org
206-252-0707

The PTSA Legislative Team would like to thank QAE parent, Christina Thibault for her wonderful help in crafting this Survey and for the PTSA Board and Ms. Roy for being in collaboration on this effort to have our voice heard.

Grab some FREE pizza and let's focus on parenting topics that are timely and important to YOU. Sibling rivalry? Getting out the door in the morning? What’s your parenting challenge lately? Bring it!

ParentNet is an open space for Kindergarten through 2nd grade families to discuss everyday parenting topics or challenges in a supportive community.

And if you bring a parent who’s new to ParentNet, you’ll both be entered to win a $15 Menschie’s gift card! See you Wednesday, Jan. 25th from 6:30-8:30 at the QAE Library!

Learn more on the QAE ParentNet website.

Six teams of 4th and 5th grade students will be participating in QAE’s first annual Global Reading Challenge! Among the goals of the GRC are to motivate children to read, develop teamwork and cooperative thinking skills, and have fun. Each year, students from across the city read up to 10 books selected by Seattle librarians and participate in weekly meetings to study these books with their teammates. After several months of hard work and preparation, our teams are ready to compete in a quiz-show style contest at QAE! Our winning team will advance to compete with teams from other schools across the city. The program will end with an All-City Final that will take place at the downtown Central Library.
 
If your child is participating in GRC this year, please join us for our In-School Competition, which will be held in QAE’s cafeteria on Tuesday, Feb. 7th beginning at 8:30 a.m. We are so proud of all of our 4th and 5th grade participants!

On January 26th, children's author Javaka Steptoe will be visiting Queen Anne Elementary as part of the Multicultural Children’s Literature Celebration week. Javaka’s latest book Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean Michel-Basquiat has received many starred reviews, has landed on multiple year- end, best-of lists and is widely considered to be a strong contender for ALA awards.  

If you'd like to pre-order signed copies of any of Javaka's books, please fill out and return the order form to your child's teachers by January 19th (available below). 20% of book sales will be used to purchase multicultural literature for several low income, high free & reduced lunch schools in Seattle that have no library budget.