We'd like your feedback! ​Please take a few moments to provide input on spending priorities and let us know how the PTSA is doing. Want to see more (or less) of certain type of events? Want to know what the PTSA is considering funding next year? Take the survey now and let us know! Your input will help us understand your perspective on the 2017-2018 school year, help make the 2018-2019 year at John Marshall even better, and help us finalize the 2018-2019 PTSA budget.

Take the PTS Priorities survey now...

We'll finalize the 2018-2019 PTSA budget with your feedback and present it at the June 6th 6:30-8pm PTSA All Membership meeting for a vote. Be sure to join us!

Can you name all of the Kardashians? Is an avocado a fruit or vegetable? What's the elevation of Queen Anne Hill? If you know the answer to these, or many other random questions, QAE needs you!

The Targy’s Queen Anne School Trivia Battle is back and $500 for our school is at stake!

We’re putting together a team of 6 QAE parents/teachers that will battle parents/teachers from other Queen Anne Schools (John Hay, Coe, McClure, Little Friends & St. Anne) for intellectually superior bragging rights and to take home the grand prize!

• Games are on Wednesdays at 8pm at Targy’s.
• The fun begins on Feb 21st as QAE takes on McClure
• Our 2nd game is on Feb 28th vs. Hay
  
  

It’s a lot of fun and it supports a great cause...QAE!

Contact the PTSA at communications@qaeptsa.org if you're interested in taking part or just want to hang that evening.

Families and Friends ... Our QAE Community

As the holiday season approaches, stresses and strains we might otherwise dismiss can overwhelm us. The holiday season can place additional strain on many families in our community who are already working hard to keep their children fed, clothed, active, and hopeful.

The purpose of the QAE Families and Friends program is to strengthen our school community by giving all families the opportunity to:

1. Ask for assistance this holiday season
or
2. Offer assistance this holiday season

If you would like assistance or offer assistance, please download the .pdf form below, fill it out and return to the school office in a sealed envelope by Friday, December 1st. Mark it "FAMILIES: CONFIDENTIAL – ATTN: Jennifer Connolly"

We will contact you shortly thereafter. Questions? Contact Jennifer Connolly at 252-2480/252-2521 or by email at jaconnolly@seattleschools.org

Thursday, November 16th - 6-8pm
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Blue Highway Games will be visiting QAE with awesome games that have a math focus. Enjoy pizza, drinks and getting together with friends for a true gamer experience. Games will be available for purchase and a percentage will go to funding wonderful programs at our school. A great way to get a jump on the holiday shopping! See you there! 

Please RSVP so we know how much food to provide. See the Game Night page to RSVP and get other details!

Questions or want to help with this event? Contact Christa Winquist at community1@qaeptsa.org

Monday, November 6th, 8am and all day!

After you drop your Minions off at school, head over to the 5 Spot for a QAE "Breakfast After the Bell" parent & family social. The PTSA will have some fun surprises for families in attendance and 25% of all 5 Spot food sales that day will go to QAE! So, hey you're helping our school while enjoying tasty pancakes. Win, win! 

The event will continue all day, so if you can't make breakfast you can stop by for lunch or dinner. It's an easy and delicious way to help our school! Spread the word so friends and family can enjoy as well.

​Can't wait to see you there!

Passing along a notice that may be of interest:

Ballard Girls Basketball Fall Clinics on days with no school 
Registration is now open for the Ballard Girls Basketball Fall Clinics on Friday, October 13 and Friday, Nov 10 from 9am-3pm. For girls 3rd through 6th grade (beginner to advanced), this clinic is a fun way to improve your ball handling, shooting, passing and defense. Lots of games and inspiration provided! Register at: http://www.ballardgirlsbasketball.com/

Questions? Please send email to Sara Wetstone at wetstonesara@yahoo.com

The QAE PTSA is hosting a Back-to-School BBQ at Golden Gardens Sunday, Sept. 10th! All QAE families are welcome!

Let's relax by the beautiful Puget Sound and have BBQ lunch while our kiddos enjoy sand, play and hanging with their school friends or making new ones! We will have a reserved covered space near the playground at Golden Gardens from 10am-2pm. Look for the orange and purple decorations!

Lunch will feature hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers along with the sides! Please use the link below to RSVP for the BBQ -- this helps us plan for how much food we need! To help us defray the cost of the rental, food and drinks, the PTSA is suggesting a donation of $5 per attendee. Please note -- this is completely optional, all families are welcome!

RSVP now for the Back-to-School BBQ

Lots of fun sand toys, bubbles and surprises provided, but please feel free to bring any sand toys your kids love.

Note -- all food and drink will be provided. Just come, eat and help us build our QAE community! If you have questions, contact our Community Outreach & Events Coordinator, Christa Winquist at community1@qaeptsa.org

To help us defray the cost of the pool rental, food and drinks, the PTSA is suggesting a donation of $5 per attendee. Please note -- this is completely optional, all families are welcome!
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Flip flops, friends and fun! We'd love to see you at the Queen Anne Elementary "Summer Nights" Pool Party Saturday, August 5th 7-8:30pm at Pop Mounger Pool hosted by us, your friendly QAE PTSA crew!

We've reserved the entire pool specifically for QAE families! Swimming, a cute little water slide, two pools (3ft. Kiddie pool & deep end pool) food, soft drinks, and great peeps will create a chill evening and build memories to take into the Fall. Lifeguards will be on duty and life vests available for swimmers that need safety flotation.

It's free to attend, though we'd ask for a $5 donation per person to cover the cost of food and drinks. Check back soon for our online registration form!

The QAE PTSA and other parents from our school attended the June 19th community meeting on the Magnolia School Boundaries. There was a large crowd including parents from all the schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia. Here are our notes from the meeting:

Boundaries Survey - Great Response from the QAE Community!
SPS sent out a survey at the end of May to all families who attend schools in the Queen Anne and Magnolia areas. Queen Anne Elementary had 287 responses, the second most amongst all the schools. Thanks to our community for being so involved! QAE's overwhelming choice amongst the 13 options was Scenario C with 71% of our families selecting it as one of their top three options.

Top Boundary Options from the Survey
Ashley Davies, Director of Enrollment Planning at SPS, presented the scenarios that received the most votes in the boundaries survey. She said that nothing was final, but the original 13 options were likely narrowed down to these 5 or 6 options. She did mentioned that any of them could be tweaked as needed.

• Scenario C - one of the original six options. No change to QAE or John Hay boundaries. Portions of the current west and north Coe area are re-zoned for Magnolia and Lawton. (The QAE PTSA recommended this as one of the scenarios that does the best at adding capacity for growth while minimizing disruption across schools).
• Scenario D - one of the original six options. Similar to C, but with slight change in Blaine/Magnolia boundary dividing line. (The QAE PTSA recommended this as one of the scenarios that does the best at adding capacity for growth while minimizing disruption across schools).
• Scenario H - Switch to all schools becoming attendance area schools, no option school in Queen Anne/Magnolia cluster.
• Scenario J - Magnolia becomes the option school, all other schools are attendance area schools.
• Scenario M - Blaine becomes a K-8 option school, all other schools are attendance area schools.
• Scenario K - while this wasn't one of the top options, it appeared that they were also considering this.  In this scenario both Blaine and McClure are middle schools, all other schools are elementaries. QAE remains an option school and no K-8 at Blaine.

Impacted Students by Scenario
After the meeting, SPS published details on the number of students affected by each scenario (A-M). It ranges from a low of 306 (for J) to 816 (for M).

Magnolia School Construction Costs & Potential Delay
SPS received bids on the Magnolia School construction that were approximately $5 million over budgets. The district will likely re-look at the project and see where they can cut costs and get new bids in the fall. This likely means that the opening of Magnolia may be delayed from the beginning of the 2018-19 school year to the 2019-20 school year. This change to timeline might take away some of the sense of urgency in drawing new boundaries.  There was a concern from the audience that if new boundaries are drawn this Fall, they might have to change again prior to the school opening.

Fort Lawton Development Discussion
Some members of the audience brought up the planned development of new housing on Fort Lawton by the City of Seattle. This will add more children to the Queen Anne/Magnolia area. Audience members were advocating that the school district and the city consider using some portion of the Fort Lawton area for a new STEAM (science and environment, technology, engineering, arts, math) school.

The QAE PTSA will continue to do our best to advocate for our community and share the latest developments. See our Boundaries Info page for the latest as well as SPS's page about the meeting.

During the June 6th Building Renovation Meeting  we heard very consistent feedback from our neighbors and community QAE parents have NOT always been kind, safe or fair to our children, ourselves and our neighbors. We were reminded of some basic SAFETY and RESPECT procedures that you should remember when dropping off and picking up your children at school.  Please help us model good safety behaviors for our children and be good neighbors.

1) Crossing Boston St at the intersection of Bigelow.  There is a signed cross walk at Boston and 4th Ave N to use for our safety and our children.  Our neighbors have witnessed a number of situations where distracted or hurried drivers do not pay attention when driving through this area and it is further challenged by the slope of the street giving drivers some blind spots.  They reminded us that we should all be careful and safe when crossing streets.

2) Crossing the any street mid-block.  Please don't play frogger across the busy street.      

3) Parking - please respect our neighbors driveways, fire hydrants, crosswalks and stop signs.  The below is the Seattle Department of Transportations Parking Regulations in regards to How Close Can you Park?  Parking illegally, even for a couple of minutes, is unfair and unsafe to those that are sharing the roads.

Who: QAE Community, families, students, staff, faculty and friends

What: A little work, a lot of play! Help spread wood chips and hay at school. It's a labor of love and gratitude. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Post work, You and your families are invited to come hang, eat, drink and be merry. BYOB and dish to share. We'll provide the BBQ Grill, S'mores, Coolers, Music and open our home for a gathering space (although small, it will be cozy).

Where: QAE Garden and The Hildebrandt Home located at 510 W Galer St, Seattle 98119.

When: Saturday, June 24 10am- 12pm at the QAE Garden ... Potluck to follow immediately with no planned end point.

​Why: As our Seattle summer turns into drought-like weather, typically, July into September, the wood chips and hay will keep the soil moist and prevent it from turning into plots of dust. It will be a good way to indicate appropriate walking paths and put nutrients back into the soil as it decomposes over the coming seasons. We need your help spreading them!  Out of gratitude for the garden, our school community, the work our students have done and everyone that has helped in the garden, we want to gather in recognition of it all. Evan if you haven't had a change to help in the garden but are happy for it's existence and our community please come and celebrate! 

Help us plan by RSVPing to garden1@qaeptsa.org. And see our Garden page for more details.
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Sharing information with our families in case you want to share your opinion:

On Wednesday the Seattle School Board voted in favor of the shift to two start times, but it's contingent on the City Council voting to provide the necessary transportation funding. This vote is on Monday. 

There has been some contention about this vote in Council meetings. If you believe we should switch to two bell times from the current three times, you should write to your Council members by tomorrow. See their emails below.

The Council is voting whether to pay for a one-time funding request of $2.3 million so that SPS can reorganize buses to support the simplification of bell times.

Current three tier system:
Most elementary schools will run from 7:45 to 2:15;
Middle and high schools from 8:35 to 3:25;
K-8s and some elementary schools from 9:25 to 3:55.

Proposed two tier system:
Almost all elementary school will run from 8 to 2:30;
Middle, high schools and most K-8 schools will run from 9 to 3:50.

Email addresses of Seattle City Council members:
bruce.harrell@seattle.gov, lisa.herbold@seattle.gov, rob.johnson@seattle.gov, debora.juarez@seattle.gov, mike.obrien@seattle.gov, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov, tim.burgess@seattle.gov, lorena.gonzalez@seattle.gov, spsdirectors@seattleschools.org

If your child has been receiving Weekend Food Bags, they can continue to receive them over the summer. You just need to fill out the form below and return it to QAE office.

Our thanks to the Queen Anne Helpline for running the program and helping families who need it! If you have questions, contact the QA Helpline at 206-282-1540 or lbarnes@queenannehelpline.org.
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