Please join us on Tuesday, June 11th at 6:30pm at the QA Community Center for the final PTSA meeting of the year! We'll be voting on next year's budget and hearing from Janine about our move back to Queen Anne. Help us us plan for a great year at our newly expanded campus!
------- As we move back to Queen Anne into our expanded building, it's time a great time to get involved in the QAE community! Are you an accounting wiz? Experience doing social media or marketing? Or eager to find out how the WA Legislative decisions affect QAE? No matter your interest, the QAE PTSA Board would love to hear from you! No PTSA Board experience is necessary, and this is a fabulous way to get involved in shaping the future of your children's school. Thanks for considering! Please contact president@qaeptsa.org or talk to any of the current officers if you're interested or have any questions! Here's where we could use help, but we can find a role that works with your interests and schedule!
Like many of you, we as the QAE PTSA Board have been processing the news of the group of Queen Anne Elementary teachers leaving for Magnolia Elementary. We recognize this is a wonderful opportunity for these teachers to be part of a starter school. As one parent shared – these teachers are seeds going into the world to grow these communities and children. And we will certainly miss them, celebrate them and wish them tons of success.
But, honestly, we are a mix of emotions. We’re wondering some of the same things you may be – what this means for our school, whether we’ll be able to find teachers as wonderful as those who are leaving, why teachers and families would want to leave QAE. These are complex issues, but we want to highlight a few things we’ve been thinking about:
There is a lot to process, but we feel excited about the long-term future of QAE. Maybe it's because we see Janine's dedication on a daily basis, the strong teachers who are staying or the truly incredible candidates who have been applying. We see new teachers eager to join QAE and drive it into its next phase as a learning community while honoring our Five Pillars and SEL approach. If you have questions or would like to talk, please consider coming to a Caffeine with Janine after Monday Morning Meeting, reaching out to her directly or speaking with a PTSA Board member. Best, Ian, Reem, Sandra and the rest of the PTSA team PS - If you have additional questions you can email them to vp2@qaeptsa.org (this will go to Sandra to consolidate) PPS - If you know you are not returning to QAE next year, it would be tremendously helpful if you did the following:
Rescheduled to Tuesday, March 12th due to the Snowpocalypse! (Our apologies, we first had it listed as happening on Wednesday. It will happen on Tuesday, March 12th!) What is Positive Discipline? Will it work for my child/family? How are teachers using it at QAE? Please join us on the evening of Tuesday, March 12th for a brief PTSA General Meeting followed by an Introduction to Positive Discipline workshop by our new school counselor, Paulina Cuevas-Vega. This is a great opportunity to learn how to teach our kids important social and life skills based on encouragement and mutual respect. Please join us to hear the latest from the PTSA about our budget, updates about our move back to the expanded Boston St. campus and more. We'll keep the meeting short and jump right into learning about positive discipline! Get to know our new counselor and learn how you can apply Positive Discipline at home. When: Tuesday, March 12th, 2019. 6pm - PTSA General Meeting; 6:30-8pm - Positive Discipline Workshop Where: Queen Anne Community Center, 1901 1st Ave W Reserve a spot for Games Club during the meeting: https://qaeptsa.wufoo.com/forms/2019-positive-discipline-workshop-games-club/ About Positive Discipline Positive Discipline is a program based on Adlerian Psychology principles, and designed to teach young people to become responsible, respectful, and resourceful members of their communities. Based on the best-selling Positive Discipline parenting books by Dr. Jane Nelsen, the program teaches important social and life skills in a manner that is deeply respectful and encouraging for both children and adults. Parenting with Positive Discipline means being kind and firm at the same time, which is effective long-term and helps children feel a connection — a sense of belonging and significance. About Paulina Paulina joined QAE in Fall 2018. Originally from Chile, Paulina most recently lived in China for 5 years teaching positive discipline. She has a psychology degree, a MA in Educational Psychology, a PK-12 school counseling license and 15 years of experience working as a School Counselor in local and international schools in the USA, Chile and China. We're looking for a QAE parent who would be interested in helping out with our treasurer work. If you have experience in finance, great, but anyone who is interested can learn the ropes quickly! The position would be responsible for:
If you're interested, please contact our Treasur Kelly Essmeier at treasurer4@qaeptsa.org As we settle in to the school year, we thought it'd be useful to have a reminder about numbers to call and other helpful resources for QAE families.
Attendance/Sick Kids Always let the school know if your child is going to be absent. Contact Catie Coyle, our new attendance/office assistant via the main QAE office phone number 206-252-2480 or at cmcoyle@seattleschools.org. It's also useful to let your child's teacher know, particularly if it's a longer term absence. Transportation Issues and Questions Contact the SPS Transportation department at 206-252-0910 or visit their website. They have the most up to date info of buses and can actually access the drivers. Principal Roy also sends out regular updates via email and there's often discussions in the Facebook QAE Community Discussions group about bus status. Lunch and Meals Contact our wonderful Nutritionist/QAE Chef Nancy Buran at 206-252-3589. You can also view your child's balance and add money to purchase breakfast and lunch on the SPS's PayPams site. You can view the current menus for breakfast and lunch. Lost and Found Our lost and found located directly inside the main doors of QAE. Have your child take a look if they're missing something. You can also contact the main QAE office number if you have a question - 206-252-2480. Building Availability The main QAE Office should be contacted if you're hoping to use space in the building for something outside of regular school hours - 206-252-2480. QAE Communications There's a number of ways you can keep up with everything that's going on at QAE. Some of it is managed by the school, others by the PTSA.
All these methods have you confused? We get it, there's a lot. If you're not receiving the information you need, feel free to contact the PTSA at communications@qaeptsa.org and we'll try to help. If you aren't hearing from Principal Roy or your teacher/coordinator, contact them to make sure they have the proper email for you. The first General PTSA Meeting of the school year will be on Tuesday, October 9th from 6:30-8pm at the Queen Anne Community Center. It's open to all parents and the community -- please come to hear about what's going on at our school. We'll talk about plans for the year, review what's getting funded, the adventures of busing, adjusting to John Marshall and more. There will be time for questions and anything else you want to discuss. The PTSA is planning to make childcare available at the meeting. Reserve a childcare spot here: https://qaeptsa.wufoo.com/forms/2018-fall-ptsa-meeting-games-club/ Hope to see you there! New Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau is embarking on a district-wide Listening and Learning Tour to better understand the concerns of our families. Given the recent reductions in staffing that left QAE (and other schools) scrambling, the listening tour is a good opportunity to share our concerns. The closest to our area is Ballard High School on October 4th, 7-8:30pm. See the Superintendent Juneau's Listening Tour site for more information and other dates. As families have seen on various outlets, including the email sent today by Janine – SPS enrollment was low and many schools are being impacted in losing teachers and reorganizing classes. QAE is one of the many schools being impacted. We would have had to say good-bye to Ms. Bonnie as our newest 2nd grade teacher and it would have impacted all of our classrooms through a reconfiguration of 2nd grade (would have need to created many split grades that would have had a cascading effect from K to 5th).
The impact to our student community seemed too great. The PTSA started exploring options with school staff. The team dived into all options ranging from doing nothing to revising the entire PTSA budget to do something. It is with great gratitude to Bonnie, Megan and Helene for volunteering a creative solution of job sharing and personal sacrifice that allowed us to arrive at today’s solution. We are impacting the least amount of students, a class gets to have 2 great teachers, we lose no teachers from our QAE family and PTSA helps bridge a gap to continue to support our students. But this action is also met with the knowledge that many other schools are in a worse situation. Schools do not always have the resources or ability to have so many pieces come together. During the fundraising season, the PTSA may come to you with asks fo money but today we are asking for your time: please lend your voice to the other schools in our community that need our help. This is absolutely unacceptable and we need our collective voices to be heard on how this impacts our communities. Please consider editing and sending a version of the note below and spreading the word to all of your friends within SPS to write them. Any letters can be sent to schoolboard@seattleschools.org. We need to galvanize and flood them with letters to show them how displeased we are. See the SPS summary of the staffing adjustment as well as their FAQ about the process. Another way to advocate is to attend one of the upcoming Superintendent listening tours. The closest to our area is Ballard High School on October 4th. ------ Sample Letter to Send to the SPS Board This is just an example, please write your own or edit as you see fit. Note the underlined sections that should definitely be edited. To: schoolboard@seattleschools.org Subject: Unacceptable displacement of teaching staff Dear Superintendent, School Board and senior SPS staff, I am parent of two SPS students - a second and fourth grader at Queen Anne Elementary. I am incredibly frustrated to see that SPS is displacing staff from approximately twenty different schools and majorly disrupting the lives of teachers, families and communities as a result. The impact on students at Nova and Interagency is even greater given the disproportionate impact on them. I understand that there is a correlation in number of students and revenue and with the 1.4% enrollment decrease, you need to find ways to cut cost. Is there a reduction in staff or other major cost cutting efforts happening at the JSCEE? Why are schools bearing all the reductions in revenue? This is absolutely unacceptable. Also, you are already in violation of the McCleary ruling on classroom sizes which as you know should be a maximum of 17 students for K-3 and 25 students for 4th grade and up. At my kids' schools, they have more kids in their classrooms already so combining classrooms will only put SPS further away from appropriate class sizes. You need to do better for teachers, families and communities. How will you retain top talent when teachers can easily go to neighboring districts that are more effectively managed where they can make more money? How can you shuffle kids around after school has started which is hard for all of them but especially for neuro-atypical children in our system? At work, if I were to consistently miss projections and disrupt hundreds or thousands of customers regularly, I would have been fired long ago. Please take us off this annual enrollment projection roller coaster and find ways to keep communities intact. Best, [ Your name ] Earlier this afternoon Principal Roy shared the following e-mail with the student community. The PTSA wants to underscore the thanks given to Ms. Dudley, Ms. Palumbo and Ms. McCormick for helping us work through this difficult situation. We are relieved that there will be no reduction in existing classrooms at QAE!
-------- Dear QAE Parents/Guardians, Each September, Seattle Public Schools examines initial school enrollment and makes staffing adjustments district-wide. This year, SPS enrollment is significantly below projections which impacted many schools across the district. Queen Anne Elementary is one of several SPS elementary schools directed to make staffing adjustments. This means we must adjust our staffing by one full-time teacher. Our next step is to determine how to best do this while having the least impact on students. In light of losing a full-time teacher, which would force a reorganization of almost all of our classes, the staff came up with a unique approach that minimizes the impact on our children. We thank Ms. Bonnie Dudley, Ms. Megan Palumbo and Ms. Helene McCormick for their dedication to supporting our students in crafting an innovative plan. After consensus with the Building Leadership Team (composed of staff, PTSA Executive and parents; K – 5th grade teachers and Career Ladder Teachers) and QAE staff, here is our plan:
What does this mean for your child?
Ms. Bonnie, Ms. Palumbo, QAE staff and I will work closely with students and parents in the 2nd grade class to navigate this unexpected change. All students will continue to have great teachers and continue learning alongside their current classmates.
I want to express my appreciation and support to every QAE family, our incredible QAE staff, our BLT and PTSA. Collaboratively working together has been essential during this process. We will get through this change over the next few days, and most importantly, we will get through this together as a supportive QAE community. Yours, Janine Roy, Principal QAE 2018 Reorganization FAQ When a school has to reduce a teaching position, how is this done? When a teacher needs to be displaced in a school, we are contractually required to ask for volunteers and if none emerge, then the least senior classroom teacher is automatically displaced. At QAE, we had three volunteers which allows us to keep classes intact:
Are we at risk of losing any additional staff/resources? No. Staffing adjustments are only made at the beginning of the year at elementary schools. Could we have made cuts/savings in other places to save this position? No. Schools are allocated separate budgets for staffing and supplies. Supply budgets cannot be moved to cover staffing needs, nor would they be sufficient to meet these costs. Were enrollments down across all Seattle Public Schools? Enrollment at the elementary level is down across the district. Schools are impacted differently based on their boundaries, housing trends, etc. How does this compare to other elementary schools in our area? Other elementary schools in the Queen Anne community had a difference between their projected enrollment and actual enrollment as well. Did we take all the students off our waitlist? Yes, all interested families were accepted at QAE this year. Thanks to everyone who filled out a survey about priorities for the PTSA—and if you haven’t, please do! It’s open until June 5. You've got great ideas—a CPR/First Aid night, the return of ParentNet, class parent socials, and more. Come join the PTSA board and make them happen!
When my oldest daughter started kindergarten at QAE, I knew I wanted to get involved with the school and give back. I remember talking to my husband about it, and he said, “There are a lot of parents who are already really involved, and with your limited time, there are probably better places to volunteer.” I limited my involvement that first year, but then the next year, a mom in our Girl Scout troop was running the auction and put out a call to our troop moms for help. I said sure, and once I saw how much there was to do—not just for the auction, but for enrichment, for community events, for days like Hour of Code, and for administrative tasks like reimbursing teachers when they spend money on our kids out of pocket—and how few people were signed up to do it, I volunteered for a board position. While there are many people who volunteer in some capacity for the school (thank you thank you, a hundred times thank you!), and many who simply can’t, what I’ve seen over the past couple of years is that it’s the same families and people who step up again and again. This is a tricky model, as 1) those people get waaaaay burned out, and 2) when burnout happens, or when families graduate, the PTSA has to scramble to fill a bunch of vital roles at once. Which is all to say, please help us broaden the pool of PTSA volunteers. There is a role for everyone and every time limitation, and the more of us we have working together, the lighter the load will be on everyone and the easier the transitions from year to year. Here are the PTSA roles we have open for next year—please consider letting us know of your interest: Note that all below positions will receive a qaeptsa.org email address. You will receive many updates through the month in regards to activities or requests for feedback so we can brainstorm ideas and situations.
Feel free to write to me directly with your interest! Thanks, Jenna president2@qaeptsa.org 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! Please join us on Wednesday, June 6th from 6:30-8pm for the last general PTSA meeting of the year. We'll be reviewing the results of the priorities survey and voting on the 2018-19 budget. Help us prepare for next year at John Marshall, hear the latest on plans for transportation to John Marshall and much more. It's the best way to stay up-to-date and involved with what's going on at QAE!
When: Wednesday, June 6th, 2018, 6:30-8pm Where: QAE Cafeteria See you there! Queen Anne Elementary is being renovated during the 2018-19 school year! We'll return to the QAE campus in 2019-20. The QAE campus is going to be expanded to better accommodate our enrollment with a new classroom, add a full-sized gym, improve the outdoor play area and more. During the renovation, QAE will be at the John Marshall building near Greenlake. The address is 520 NE Ravenna Blvd. It's a building that's used by SPS to temporarily house schools during major projects. For example, this year Loyal Heights Elementary is using the building. We want to give families a chance to see the school. There are two opportunities coming up to take a look: PTSA General Meeting at John Marshall Wednesday, Jan. 24th, 6:30-8:30pm The QAE PTSA will be hosting this general meeting at the John Marshall School in Ravenna, our temporary home during the 2018-19 school year. Come preview the school and attend the meeting! We won’t be able to provide childcare, but intend to keep the meeting short and sweet if you’d like to come but will have a kid in tow. John Marshall School Visit Saturday, Jan. 27th, 10-11am Join us for a morning open house and tour of the John Marshall School in Ravenna, which will be our home during the 2018-19 school year. Open to all families, kids are welcome and encouraged to come check out the building! See our QAE Building Renovation Project page for more details about the remodel. On November 1st, QAE parents interested in how the PTSA supports our school are gathering to brainstorm how we raise funds. The PTSA provides support for our school's specialists, tutors, learning materials and many other programs.
Would you be willing to lend your voice, perspective, assistance? Please join us at the 5 Spot for an open discussion (and food and drinks if you wish)! When: Wednesday, Nov 1st, 6:30-8pm Where: 5 Spot Queen Anne (back dining room) If you have any questions or ideas that you'd like to share, but can't come on Nov. 1st, please contact Jenna Free and Ian Stewart, PTSA Presidents, at president@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! |
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SCHEDULE2023-24 On-Site Schedule
7:55am - School Day Begins 2:25pm - Dismissal Wednesday Early Release 1:10pm - Dismissal |