Dear Parents & Teachers of Fern Bluff,
The 2009-2010 PTA Officers met this weekend for a review of the survey results completed Friday, May 29. Thank you for sharing your time, suggestions, and concerns with us. There were 220 parents and 40 teachers/staff members who took the survey and we want you to know this: We hear you and we are listening.
We plan to work together with over 50 parent members on the executive board to respond to your ideas and make our school environment better than ever for our students, staff, and families. It will take us most of the summer to truly form plans as a result of your input.
Here are a few key areas we wanted to respond to immediately so you can be sure we are committed to your needs and take your feedback seriously.
We also need a few parents to take on roles in some of our programs. Read below and consider if you can share your time and talents in these ways.
Kelly Moreno
PTA President
COMMUNICATIONS
We have created a marketing communications position on the board to review how, what, where, and why we reach you or fail to reach you. We are pleased to announce that the committee will be spearheaded by Lisa Mack and will be comprised of parents from each grade level. This team will begin work immediately and will explore how to make our meetings, newsletter, bulletin board, website, and email presence more valuable for each of our FBE families.
If you are interested in joining the marketing communications committee, please contact Lisa at lisamack@austin.rr.com. In the meantime, check out the Fern Bluff PTA blog experiment at http://fernbluffelementary.blogspot.com where you will find news, notes, and more from the PTA as we restructure our communications programs. You can also use google alerts to get postings sent directly to your email. Find out more on how easy this is here: http://www.google.com/alerts.
TUESDAY FOLDERS & GREEN EFFORTS
This was a very big area of concern for many people!
Over the six months we will:
1. Work with the school administration to review the possibility of an online Tuesday folder,
2. Commit to creating a "first and only" spreadsheet so that materials sent home in Tuesday folders are sent only to the eldest child in each family;
3. Request that flyers that come from external sources (i.e., sport registrations) be posted online instead of sent home with each student;
4. Better document and publish recycling opportunities at FBE;
5. Investigate further recycling opportunities;
6. Establish a GO GREEN committee of both school staff and parent leaders who are dedicated to working with PTA & administration to achieve these goals.
If you are interested in joining the Go Green team, please contact Jennifer Jackson, PTA VP of Operations at jennifer@thejacksonzoo.com.
FUNDRAISING
Catalog Sales vs Direct Giving
Over 64% of surveyed parents would prefer a direct giving campaign to catalog sales and only 9% said they would not participate in such a program. So there it is! We will not have a catalog sales program this fall. Look for your direct giving campaign information at Back to School Night.
Bobcat Bash
The annual school carnival was ranked "Excellent Idea!" by 70% of parents surveyed; ranked Important or Very Important by 78% of parents surveyed, and the single most attended event held at Fern Bluff Elementary school with over 95% of surveyed families saying they have attended the Bobcat Bash.
So we know it is popular! What we need is a strong leader to run this event in the spring of 2010. If you would like to join the school bash team, email Alexia Thex, PTA VP Fundraising at ajthex03@thexfamily.com.
Gift Cards & Restaurant Nights
The fact is, these programs are relatively easy to administrate and they don't cost our FBE families any extra out of pocket cost. That, and the confirmation from about 72% of our parents that these are ones they can support makes these program worth repeating. This year, though, we'll let you know in August when to expect gift card order forms and when to plan your menu around a favorite restaurant that pledges profits back to Fern Bluff.
We are looking for a person to coordinate the Restaurant Nights so we can publish these well in advance. If you have time at home to work the phones on behalf of the PTA in this way, email Alexia Thex, PTA VP Fundraising at ajthex03@thexfamily.com.
STAFF APPRECIATION
There is no doubt that we appreciate our teachers and the staff at Fern Bluff Elementary. You can see it on campus daily in the way we help (homeroom, workroom, and Tuesday folder parents give many hours of their time), the programs we support (science kits, Weatherbug, literacy library donations), and in the icing on the cake --- literally. Next year we will ask our staff appreciation committee to host four events total; one for each school quarter. We will no longer provide snacks at faculty meetings, however, the staff survey overwhelmingly affirmed that this was not necessary and that school supplies are needed far more. This will enable us to cut down our budget significantly in this area and keep parent baking requests reasonable.
AFTER SCHOOL CLASSES
Dr. Wilson asked for your input on the three most important after school programs. We have already forwarded your replies to her.
Just to clarify:
Just to clarify:
- Some classes on campus are offered by community education: Mad Science, Karate.
- Some classes on campus are offered by teachers: Musicats, Geography Club.
- Some classes on campus are offered by parent groups: Drama Club, Math Club.
In most all cases, the PTA cannot dictate when programs can or will be offered. What we can do is to create an After-School Programming coordinator position on the board. This person will work as a student advocate with community education, the school, and parent groups to bring favorite programs to campus while best using campus facilities.
If you are that person, contact Jennifer Jackson, PTA VP of Operations at jennifer@thejacksonzoo.com.
BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT & WORKING PARENTS
This event was overwhelmingly scored as the most important event at school for our families with over 81% of parents surveyed scoring it as "Very Important" and 19% ranking it as "Important."
The school administration has scheduled the 2009 Back To School Night(s) as follows:
Thursday, August 20th for 3-5th Grades from 4:30-6 PM
Friday, August 21st for K-2nd Grades from 4:30-6 PM
Our survey results indicated that:
- 13% of parents cannot miss work to attend school events held during their work day, and
- 66% of parents can only get away some of the time for school events
You are welcome to voice your concerns directly to our school principal, Dr. Wilson at elizabeth_wilson@roundrockisd.org.
If you are interested in helping with school services such as Back To School Night, email Heidi York, PTA VP of Services at jay_heidi@hotmail.com.
