PTSA Chili Cook-off:  Wednesday, Oct. 5th
The PTSA is sponsoring a Chili Cook-off. Join the PTSA at the Queen Anne Community Center from 5:30-8pm on Wednesday, Oct. 5th.

Curriculum Night:  Wednesday, Oct. 6th
For new QAE families, Curriculum Night is an annual SPS evening information session for parents.  This year, QAE parents/guardians will begin in the cafeteria at 6:30pm for staff introductions and an overview of our five pillars and QAE foundational elements, such as Project Based Learning (PBL), social emotional learning and innovative technology. Then parents/guardians will move to your child’s classroom where your child’s teacher will provide a presentation from the grade group team on academic programs, social emotional learning and supporting your child at home. 

Teachers are providing presentations planned by the grade group team this year so that parents can learn about the academic programs, activities and events that are being offered in all classrooms in that grade.

We will begin in the cafeteria at 6:30 pm for staff introductions and an overview of our QAE pillars.  A 20-minute presentation will be offered by each classroom teacher at 7 pm and repeated at 7:30pm to accommodate families with more than one child.  Beginning at 7:30 pm, Janine Roy will be available in the cafeteria to answer any remaining questions. 

The PTSA will be providing childcare. More details will be available soon.

QAE Updates:​

​​Jog-a-Thon Update
Huge thanks to QAE parents Michele Lisenbury Christensen and Marna Metcalf.  This was a highly successful event today, and we want to thank these fabulous parent organizers for this impactful event for our students. 

We would like to thank our generous sponsors for their donations:

• SYNC Fitness
• Holley Ring/Russ Katz Windermere Real Estate
• Danielle Williams with Lake & Co. Real Estate, Seattle Home Savvy
• Queen Anne Dispatch
• Stoneburner
• Bastille
• Snout & Co.
• Cleft Painting Company
• Menchies
• Black Magic DJ
• Once Upon a Time
• Blue Highway Games
• Umpqua Bank

Monthly Assembly:  Thursday, Sept. 29th at 1:45 pm
Our first Monthly Assembly was a great success!  5th grade students served as greeters and ushers, and we greatly appreciated their leadership with seating younger students.  QAE Explorers were fabulous global citizens as they modeled respectful listening throughout the assembly.  Our assembly focused on citizenship and goal-setting.    Thank you to those parents who were able to attend.  Our Monthly Assemblies will be the last Friday of each month, so our next one will be Oct. 28th at 1:30.  The exact start time will be confirmed the week before the assembly.

Traffic Updates: 

• If you need to park your car and come onto the school grounds to pick up your child, please park on the street. Drop off/pick up zone on Bigelow is for quick stops for parents remaining in their cars.
• A friendly reminder from a QAE parent to please park in designated parking spaces. Please do not park close to crosswalks or on the corner as we want to ensure that all of our children are safe at all times.
• Please be mindful of recycling/garbage day when parking, as we want to model being good neighbors for our children by not parking too closely to refuse containers.  We want to make sure they get picked up!
• Our QAE parent crossing guard is being trained to be a crossing guard at Boston and 4th Ave. This is fantastic news! 

The window for referring students for Advanced Learning testing closes October 6.  Referrals in English are done online, using the Source (which is the parent portal for individual student information.) More information on the referral process and translated versions of the forms are available on the Advanced Learning site.
 
If you have questions, please contact Mary Mills (mamills@seattleschools.org, 206-252-0182) or Matt Okun (mjokun@seattleschools.org, 206-252-0033).

New to the Source or having trouble logging in? Check out the About Source page on the SPS site. You can also email sourcesupport@seattleschools.org

Heads up: registration for Fall enrichment classes begins at 10am today!


Check out the Enrichment page for details on all the classes and to register.

It's Sunday... Take 5-10 minutes TODAY to help your student register with PledgeStar, our new Jog-A-Thon online fundraising platform. It's SO slick and easy.

Each student who has signed up and entered email addresses to request pledges from friends and family by Tuesday, Sept. 20th will receive a cool QAE prize later this week! It's going to be fun to see these prizes clipped onto backpacks and in kids' hands. Don't miss out!

It's easy and will only take a couple minutes:
http://pledgestar.com/qae

Questions? Visit the PTSA Jog-A-Thon page or email jogathon@qaeptsa.org

The first meeting of the Families of Color group is taking place on Tuesday, Sept. 20th at from 6-8pm in the QAE Library.

What's Families of Color? A group of parents, children, caregivers, and educators who are dedicated and passionate about creating a culturally competent community. During this first meeting, we'll meet new families, talk about plans for this year and other opportunities.

We hope to see you there - all are welcome! See the Families of Color page for more details.

Your kids will get a few chances to flash their pearly whites on QAE Photo Day on Thursday, Sept. 22nd. A few details to help you prepare:

School Pictures
Your student should have received a printed form to order photo packages from Yuen Lui on the first day of school. You can view a copy with the price list here. You have a couple options for payment:

Pre-pay Online
The easiest way to pay for pictures is to pre-pay online with a credit card. Go to the Yuen Lui Pre-pay for Picture Day site and enter your email address to get started. If you have more than one child, you'll have to go through the (quick) process again for each child. Then no need to worry about the form disappearing on the way to school!

Return the Form
You can fill out the form sent home on the first day of school or print out the PDF version here. You'll need to fill out one form for each student and include a check or exact cash with each form.

Whole School Photo
The tradition continues! Now that our students have settled into their routine and kindergartners have started, we'll take our annual whole school photo. We'll be taking all-school photos at 7:55am. Please plan on arriving at school by 7:45am so that we can get assembled and organized. We only have 15 minutes to take the all-school photos and don't want anyone to miss out!

The first whole school photo will include parents. Then parents will step away and we'll take more photos with the students and staff. Afterwards teachers will lead students calmly into class.

Our beloved unicycle club needs a little parent love for the fall session: are you able and willing to lead a Monday afternoon club with our favorite single-wheelers? Class runs October 3 through January 30 with no classes during school breaks.

Please contact the Enrichment Team for more information!

Now that the school year is up and running (zing!), it's time for the annual QAE Jog-A-Thon. The kids will be doing laps on Friday, Sept. 30th at the lovely Queen Anne Elementary. It's our only kid-powered fundraising event of the year and it's a ton of fun for everyone involved.

New this year: Families will be able to reach out to friends and loved ones through an online system called PledgeStar. Each student will have a private online page (only accessible using your unique private link) where friends and family can learn about our amazing school and how they can encourage the student’s Jog-A-Thon efforts. The system makes it easy to ask and easy to give.

Getting pledges before the event is serious business, but the day of will be fun. Every student at QAE, the teachers, and staff and a bunch of parent volunteers will be out there moving - there will be music, snacks & drinks, some friendly competition, prizes and a lot of fun and enthusiasm!

Learn more about the Jog-A-Thon and set up your student's personalized page. 

Thursday, September 22nd, will be photo day at Queen Anne Elementary. In addition to the regular student photos, we'll be taking the traditional whole school photo.

School Pictures
Yuen Lui will be taking school photos again this year. You can view a PDF with the price list. Forms were sent home in the manila envelope on the first day of school.  Please return photo forms as soon as possible.

Whole School Photo
Traditions are important, and they will continue to evolve with our ever-growing school population each year.  This year, we didn’t have a whole school photo on the first day of school as we didn’t have our Kindergarten students with us and staff were concerned about gathering over 400 children and families together on the first day with many new students and many wee ones. So we'll be doing the whole class photo on the same day as school pictures. This will allow us to have all students present and have this be a calm experience for our Kindergarten and new students as they will be more familiar with teachers, classmates and routines. 

And here we go! The 2016-17 school year officially begins bright and early tomorrow. We'll see you on the playground! In the meantime:

First, a correction: There will be NO all-school photo. Since kindergartners don't start until next Monday, we've decided NOT to do the traditional school photo. You may have seen an email yesterday saying it was happening. Our apologies for the confusion. We hope to schedule it sometime later in the year.

Here's what will happen:

7:50am Welcome Bell - Teachers will be standing outside on the blacktop to greet students.  Students can line up in front of their teacher.  Please prepare your child that you will drop them off with their teacher, say goodbye and students will remain with their new teacher.  

7:55am School Starts - Teachers will escort students into the building and our school year begins!

7:55am Parent Reception - A short parent reception will be held in the cafeteria (brick building). Stop by for coffee, breakfast pastries and high-fives about the school being back in session.

If you haven't yet, but sure to visit the Back-to-School Checklist page to pay student fees, choose your directory preferences, and get some answers to common back-to-school questions.