We're re-sharing some information Janine sent out about this very unique start to the school year. We'll continue to add updates to the PTSA website and share via Rocket Reader and on the PTSA's Facebook page.

September 4-11: Strong Start Days
September 4-11th are considered “Strong Start” days for fall of 2020. We will focus on supporting students social and emotional well-being, culturally responsive community building, family connections, and making sure students know how to use their technology tools to access learning. What does this look like?

• Teachers will email your family a Teams invite and an activity suggestion
• 8:30 am daily: explorers will join their classmates on Teams for a Monday Meeting
  • Teacher and children will be together for an age-appropriate length of time.
  • K – 2 students will need adult help throughout these initial activities. Expect to be sitting side by side with your child helping them through these new online learning experiences.
  • 3rd- 5th graders will need adult help to join Teams. Expect to be sitting close by and directly supervising at the beginning of the year to support and encourage. They will build independence over time. 
• Activities will include: getting to know one another, playing games, listening to a story, and doing culturally responsive activities to help us build relationships and our classroom community.
• After the whole class gathering ends:
  • Teachers will be meeting online with each family between Sept. 4th – 11th. Expect a Teams invite!
  • Students will have time to do an activity, train on new software, etc. Stay tuned for details.
• Full instructional schedules will be implemented and followed once devices are equitably distributed.

Overall School Schedule
The district and the Seattle Education association came to an agreement that includes the following details

• Common start time — 8:30 am: Students begin each day in a whole class synchronous (all together) Morning Meeting
• Common lunch time -- 12 – 1 daily
• Common recess breaks
• Common end times:
  • M,T,Th,F: School ends at 3pm.
  • On Wednesday, school ends at 1:45 pm.

Instruction Schedule

• Every week, teachers will send home weekly calendars, so parents know plans in advance. Weekly calendars will provided detailed information about schedules for whole class and small group online times, assignments, and support links.
• During each instructional block of time, learning may be:
  
  • Synchronous: whole class online
    
  • Asynchronous:
  • Small groups working with teacher
    
  • Viewing a pre-recorded lesson
    
  • Working offline with adult support
    
  • For older students, working offline independently
    
• Teachers will plan instructional times that are: age-appropriate, student-centered, culturally responsive and differentiated to meet student’s needs.

Example Daily Schedule
This image is an example of what the daily division of time may look like. You'll get more precise details from your teacher.

Sharing Principal Roy's most recent update: 
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I hope you and your family are safe, well and continuing to enjoy some family time during this extraordinary summer.

We are each trying to meet the needs of our children as we navigate health issues, economic and racial inequity challenges, and childcare. Whenever I am faced with many unknowns, my husband Robert always begins with, “What do we know for sure?” Here is what I know for sure right this minute:

• More than ever before, QAE will continue to align our work with our pillars: o We are self-directed learners.
  
  • We encourage each other to think critically and learn more.
    
  • We are concerned, confident and compassionate citizens of the world.
    
  • We learn everywhere; we learn together.
    
  • We are creative.

•
We are in the midst of two pandemics:

• Pandemic #1: COVID-19
  
• Pandemic #2: Racism and racial inequities

To ensure student, staff and family safety, SPS will begin 2020-21 in remote learning. SPS is intensely working on plans, schedules and details for the fall. We are all literally ‘building the plane in the air’ in the midst of both COVID and racism turbulence. Continue to monitor SPS Planning for Fall 2020 for the latest information.

SPS will provide devices to each K – 12 student in September:

• K – 2 will receive iPads
  
• 3 – 5th graders will receive laptops with touch screens
  
• These will likely be distributed at our 26 SPS lunch sites. More info to follow.
  
• SPS is working hard to ensure all families have equitable access to reliable wifi.
  
• SPS is paying for all elementary schools to use Seesaw as a standard communication platform.

Lunches will continue to be served at 26 SPS lunch sites. SPS Board of Directors will vote on August 12th on Superintendent Juneau's recommendation to prioritize the
health and wellbeing of students and staff by starting the 2020-21 school year remotely. Latest info here.
 
JumpStart will be remote this year. SPS has provided some resources and staff and I are working on a plan for how this will look so that we can begin to build relationships with students and families. Teachers and I will provide updates to Kindergarten families over the next few days.

QAE staff are incredible! They have continued to work hard during the summer, connecting with me and each other to ensure we stay focused on our school goals:

• Welcoming environment
• Culturally responsive teaching and learning o Improving student reading and math

QAE BLT (BLT is a school-based team made up of teachers and parents) are creating a survey of QAE families to identify needs. This will go out shortly. As plans, schedules and details emerge, I will update QAE families ASAP.

Next Steps:

• Continue to check SPS Planning for Fall 2020 for the latest SPS information.
• Stay tuned for weekly QAE updates on Seesaw and email starting this week. (New families, we will get you on Seesaw ASAP. Meanwhile, expect your info to come via email.)
  
• Stay tuned for the QAE Parent survey.
  
• JumpStart families will be updated over the next few days.
  
• If you EVER have any questions, email me at jbroy@seattleschools.org. I’m happy to set up a call or remote meeting throughout the summer. We will get through this together!

Take care, mask up and stay well,
Janine Roy, Principal
jbroy@seattleschools.org
Follow on Twitter: @janineroy3 #QAE

To say this year has been unprecedented is probably an understatement. Our current parent volunteers did a wonderful job helping guide our community through the move to at-home learning, our cancelled live auction and much more. We're looking for some parents to join the Board. It's a great time to bring some new ideas — be it on how to best support our kids and staff during online learning, how to continue to build on our school's work supporting social justice and more. 

No matter your background, availability or skillset, there are plenty of ways to help. Below are a few highlighted positions, but the Board is happy to chat about any ways you can help. Interested? Write to board@qaeptsa.org

Officers — we likely will have openings for a co-President and Assistant Treasurer. Help lead the PTSA!

Families of Color Director — Kay Dumlao, who has led our FOC group, can use some parents to help with FOC. Looking for a way to help build our students' commitment to social justice? This is a great way to help continuing building cultivate a compassionate, welcoming culture at QAE.

Communications Director — have a background in marketing, communications or design? Help with our Rocket Reader, website and more.

Fundraising Director — help us shape what supporting our community looks like in a post-COVID world. Do we keep doing the auction, Jog-A-Thon and Fund Drive? Or do those evolve?

A quick reminder — if you have expenses for this school year that you need to get reimbursed by the PTSA please submit your expense report by this Friday, June 18th. Here's the link to the check request form.
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At this point, we don't know if school will start in-person in the Fall, but we do know the teachers and classroom organization for Queen Anne Elementary. We will have 11 classrooms as we had in 2019-20 and we're happy to share that all our teachers are returning. 

Here' s the breakdown that Janine shared:

• Kindergarten – Ms. Jayanthi, Ms. Scannepieco
• 1st Grade – Ms. Dickerson, Ms. Kessel
• 2nd Grade – Ms. Belcher, Ms. Scheer
• 3rd Grade –Ms. Dudley, Ms. Thruelsen
• 4th Grade – Ms. Hartmann
• 5th Grade - Mr. Backman, Ms. Goldman: 5th grade returns to a departmentalized model next year, so Mr. Backman will teach Math and Science to both classes, and Ms. Goldman/Mr. Stevenson will teach Language Arts and Social Studies to both classes.
• Resource Room – Ms. Manno, Ms. Brownstein
• Library – Dr. Valdez
• Visual Arts – Ms. Appel
• PE – TBD in September as this will be a temporary assignment until classes are finalized.

Staffing Updates:

• Office Assistant Ms. Catie Coyle is moving to California in July. We wish her and her family the best of luck in her new locale.
• Ms. Goldman and her partner are expecting their second child in July. During her Sept – Dec maternity leave, Mr. Trevor Stevenson will be teaching 5th grade. Mr. Stevenson was at QAE all year as our enthusiastic PE Specialist, and he has extensive experience teaching elementary and middle school.
• Ms. Dickerson and her husband are expecting their first child in July. During her fall maternity leave, Ms. Caroline Ginder (Ms. Scannepieco’s sister) will be teaching 1st grade. Ms. Ginder was a regular substitute teacher at QAE in 2019-20, knows the children well and has experience teaching Kindergarten and 1st grade.

We will see how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts SPS which, as always, SPS plans to review staffing allocations across the district in late September. If you have any questions on QAE's staffing for next year, please contact Janine.

QAE was built from a belief that we are concerned, confident, and compassionate citizens of the world, that we learn everywhere; we learn together. The ongoing examples of racism are devastating and unacceptable and calls to all of us to live our pillars.

As our school year starts to wind down, our role as parents, educators and learners continue. The pillars of QAE will be ongoing pillars to live by each day even after the school calendar ends.  

We are thankful to our:

• QAE staff for sharing resources of how to talk with our children, no matter the age/grade
• QAE teachers for incorporating anti-racist and Black Lives Matter learning into the curriculum
• QAE PTSA for funding anti-racist and anti-bias education 
• QAE Families of Color Director who drives the everyday conversation of race and people of color in all aspects of our decision making and community
• And our QAE students, past/present/future, for finding their voices to advocate for Rainier Beach High School Freedom School in 2016, hosting the annual Black Lives Matters Week that goes beyond the study of history but to acknowledge the present climate of racism, in 2018 for a group of students of color coming together each week to share their thoughts in a safe space. 

We are thankful for all that we’ve done, but also acknowledge that we have made mistakes and missteps. What we have done is not perfect, but we are committed to learning, growing, and doing better. We know our school and community comes from a place of many different privileges. We know these privileges require us to do the extra work for ourselves, our children, and our community. We must do this extra work for everyone. We need to ask ourselves, how can we do better at centering, amplifying, and uplifting Black lives and Black voices? How can we do a better job of supporting and uplifting Black, Indigenous, and all People of Color? 

A Call to Action
We know that this means moving past our own discomforts. We understand we must be actively intentional to undo racism and dismantle racial oppression and use our privileged voices and spaces to demand a more equal world. 

The QAE PTSA is committed to doing this work by continuing our support of the QAE Families of Color (FOC). We encourage all QAE community members to engage with the QAE Families of Color and their efforts to support an anti-racist and anti-bias culture at QAE. QAE FOC’s goals are centered around community, curriculum, capacity, and culture. 
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• Cultivating community – Support for students of color and parents of color, so that our children can see and connect with other children of color. Encourage and support efforts to increase diversity in the student body and recruiting staff that reflects society at large. (QAE Students of Color)
• Curriculum/Pedagogy in QAE – Develop language for QAE students to use in order to have discourse on topic of discrimination and equality. Support culturally responsive instruction.
• Capacity Build Capacity for FOC – Engage in QAE parent education and cultural awareness and anti-racist development.
• Culture - Meaningful and active engagement at QAE, where we are intentional of our presence in the culture of the school through being present and representing our voices and in an environment grounded in anti-racism and anti-bias. 

The FOC sponsored events, parent trainings, and teacher trainings are intended to further these goals, but QAE FOC needs your help! We invite all families of color to connect with other families of color to create community, uplift our students of color, and continue QAE FOC’s efforts.  We invite white families to connect with and support QAE Families of Color to ensure that the needs of all students are met. We know the future seems uncertain with COVID-19, but planning for the future starts now. 

If you’d like more information on how you can engage with the QAE Families of Color, please email Director Kay Dumlao Doherty at foc1@qaeptsa.org 

The PTSA is looking to our community for new volunteers to join our Board in a variety of positions. Whatever your background and availability, we would welcome your help—we truly believe this is a way YOU can make a difference in the lives of our kids and support our community. Interested? Write to the PTSA Board at board@qaeptsa.org

Resources
We’ve also provided some suggested resources below. Please note, this list is not exhaustive, as there are many others out there, but it can be a starting point for your student’s and family’s journey.

For the Kids
See this resource for Distance Learning Activities related to Black Lives Matters.

For the Adult Reader (also available in Audio from the Seattle Public Library)

• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

Organizations to Engage with or Donate to:

• Black Lives Matter - Founded in 2013 after the murder of Trayvon Martin, this organization is fighting for change by advocating for an end to violence against Black Americans.
• Families of Color Seattle (FOCS)  - A non-profit organization that specializes in community dialogues, workshops, and consulting on race, family engagement, and anti-bias education. Over the years, FOCS has been integral in the QAE’s journey by facilitating a number of community trainings. 
• Coalition for Anti-Racist Whites – Non-profit community organization that educates, organizes, and mobilizes white people to show up powerfully for radical justice and collective liberation.
• Washington State Ethnic Studies Now - A volunteer organization that seeks to have Ethnic Studies in every classroom of WA State taught by anti-racist educators committed to centering the history and lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and people of Color. 
• Teaching Tolerance – A program emphasizing social justice and anti-bias. To help teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. (A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center)
• Black Table Arts - A home for Black artists in Minnesota, this organization holds conferences, teaches classes and leads professional development for Black communities.

We thank you for your continued support and encourage you to continue the conversations with your students, family, and friends.  It’s OK if the action feels uncomfortable – that’s part of the journey. It’s OK if our voice is not perfect - we will make mistakes! But we can’t be afraid to learn from them (remember, mistakes are welcome at QAE). But, it’s NOT OK to ignore it. In this historic movement, we want our students to remember how they were active agents of change. 

If you want more information about how QAE PTSA supports QAE FOC, please contact officers@qaeptsa.org

In solidarity,

Sandra Shu Nanney & Kay Dumlao Doherty
QAE PTSA President & QAE PTSA Families of Color Director
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Like many of you, the PTSA Board team members have been juggling managing learning at home during the pandemic and how to talk/involve our kids in taking actions around the response to George Floyd's death and protests. We are thankful that QAE has been focused on social justice and will share more resources soon on how to have meaningful conversations with your kids.

In the meantime, the Board is doing the best we can to plan for the coming year, knowing there is much uncertainty. Please join us online at 8pm on Wednesday, June 10th for our Spring General PTSA meeting. We'll be covering:

• PTSA budget for next year. We'll share how we're prioritizing when we don't know what the year will look it. We want your feedback and will vote on the budget at the meeting.
• Principal Roy updates on end of the year and what we know about QAE next year.
• Call for PTSA Board members for next year.
• Your chance to ask questions and share feedback.

Please RSVP using the form here. You'll get the Zoom meeting link after you RSVP.

Hope to see on Wednesday. If you're unable to make it, but have questions/comments please write to Sandra at president1@qaeptsa.org
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With the sudden departure from in-person school in March, we know that your student may have some belongings at school. And you may have some library books that need to be returned.

We have time reserved on Tuesday and Wednesday to drop off books and pick up belongings. To practice physical distancing, we will be handling via drive-through and there will be set time by grade. The pick up/drop off will take place in the staff parking lot on the north side of the school. Here's the time slots:

Tuesday, June 9th:

• Kindergarten:  8:30 – 10 am
• 1st grade:  10:15 – 11:45 am
• 2nd grade:  12 – 1:30 pm

Wednesday, June 10th:

• 3rd grade:  8:30 – 9:30 am
• 4th grade:  9:45 – 11:15 am
• 5th grade:  11:30 am – 12:30 pm

If you're unable to make the specified time or have other questions, email Principal Janine Roy at jbroy@seattleschools.org 
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Reminder: join us on Thursday evening, 6:30-8pm, for a free parent education event hosted on Zoom! Katie Gruver from Positive Parenting Seattle will be presenting on "Using Family Meetings to Reconnect, Solve Problems and Have Fun (yes, it's possible!) During COVID-19."

How to join:
Please send an email to Principal Roy at jbroy@seattleschools.org and she'll share the Zoom link to you.

If you feel like you’re constantly renegotiating expectations with your child(ren) about homework, chores, bedtimes, screen usage, siblings etc; if you feel like you’ve fallen back on punishments or threats and are looking for a few new ideas; if you feel like you're spending every moment together, but that very little of it is FUN; if you've been overwhelmed or disconnected or frustrated by juggling it all right now, please join us for an informative and uplifting conversation on family meetings. More details on the schedule and about Katie here...
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