Author: Kathy Austin

Volunteers Needed – Roller Skating in PE

Kathy Austin

From Mr. Adams – Health & P.E. Specialist

We are roller skating in my PE classes in the gym, January 13-31. Students are welcome and encouraged to bring their own helmets and/or skates/rollerblades . They will need to mark their equipment with their names before they bring it to PE. Student helmets and skates cannot be left in the gym.

Parent volunteers are especially needed to help with Kindergarten-1st grade classes from 12:15-2:25 p.m. 

We are looking for anyone that would like to donate Small or X-Small Helmets ( new or used) to the P.E. department at Bryant Elementary. 

Thank you for your support.

Seussical News–Week 1

Kathy Austin

Greetings Seussical parents!

This is your first installment of our weekly newsletter. Please read all of it. This is how we will communicate important news for the coming week.
 
Monday’s rehearsal is for both cast and crew, and from here on out, cast and crew are expected to be at every Monday and Thursday rehearsal. Everyone should bring their script (crew will get theirs on Monday, performers got theirs last Thursday), a pencil, and a water bottle. There is no formal snack break. Please make sure your students are fed before rehearsal. 
 
Rehearsal Attendance Please try to avoid your student missing rehearsals. However, we know kids get sick and we know that there are some upcoming conflicts for the 5th graders. Seattle Performers staff will take roll at the start of rehearsal and names of those absent will be given to parent chaperones. We will call you if we didn’t hear from you about your student being out. Please remember to email bryantschoolplay@gmail.com as soon as you know that your student will miss a rehearsal. 
 
If your 5th Grader is going to be playing at the Eckstein band concert on January 23rd, please let us know. If it works for your musician to be at rehearsal before or after (depending on how long the concert goes) please consider allowing them to attend part of rehearsal. 
 
We will assume all 5th graders will be attending the Eckstein open house on January 30th, so there is no need to email us about that absence. 
 
Rehearsal Check Out: No parent let indicated that their child should be met in the lunchroom and formally checked-out of rehearsal. Because there is no formal check-out process, please make sure your kiddos know where to meet you/ who is picking them up/ what they are supposed to do after rehearsal. 
 
THANK YOU PARENTS!  All current slots for rehearsal chaperones are filled. Who’s the best? You are. Don’t worry, if you didn’t get to sign up, we will have more opportunities coming up. 
Rehearsal Chaperones: 
 
  • Timing is everything—  Please be in the lunch room a little before 6:00pm. Check in with Seattle’s Performers staff. Plan to stay until all students have been picked up. Hopefully this will be shortly after 8:00pm (PLEASE BE ON TIME TO PICK UP YOUR KIDS). Seattle’s Performers staff are not responsible for the kids after 8:00pm and will not be staying on site after that. 
  • Chaperones, it is your responsibility to stay with any stragglers until they find their grown up. We recommend one chaperone waiting in the lunchroom and the other 2 leaving out of separate doors (playground door and front doors) with an eye for lost children. If you see kids who aren’t with a grown up or don’t know where they are supposed to be, send them back into the lunchroom and the third chaperone waiting there can help problem solve. 
  • Absent students— Please come to rehearsal with your cell phone (if you don’t have one, email us and we can problem solve). After Seattle Performers staff call role they will give you the names of those who are absent. Please text these names to Liza on Mondays 206.240.4818 and Traci on Thursdays 206.816.2362. That’s all! We will text you back only if there is follow up. 
  • All of this info is in the attached hand out.
Bryant Play Webpage: The webpage is up and running for Seussical! This is a handy one stop shop for all your Seussical needs. These newsletters will be posted there, so no need to sift through your email– just bookmark this webpage! You can also find such hits as: Suessical rehearsal calendar, play fee payment link, Sign Up Genius link, link to vocals and more! 
 
 
Email with questions, bryantschoolplay@gmail.com 
Stay tuned for next week’s installment of Seussical News. 

Popular Author, Zetta Elliott, to Visit Bryant!

Kathy Austin

Author Zetta Elliott will be visiting with all of Bryant’s students on January 22 in the library. Her popular fantasy novel, Dragons in a Bag, is one of the Global Reading Challenge selections this year, and she’ll be telling us about the next installment, The Dragon Thief. Zetta visits us from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she has a lively career as a Black feminist writer of poetry, plays, essays, novels, and stories for children. Additionally, she has taught at several outstanding colleges, including Ohio University and Mount Holyoke.

Third Place Books will be here to sell some of Zetta’s titles. Click HERE for an order form and return to us by 8:00 AM on January 22.

WELCOME, ZETTA!

Build community and have fun!

Kathy Austin

We’re bringing back the grade-level grants!

The Bryant PTSA is offering grants for you to hold an event for families in your grade level. Bryant PTSA will grant up to $500 to each grade level to build engagement among its families. The money is intended to help fund events for families to meet and form connections with each other, in the hopes that stronger social relationships will translate to a stronger school community for our children.

Some ideas for FUN ways to spend your grant:

  • Hold a potluck cookout at a local park where you provide the burgers/hot dogs
  • Host a game night at a community center or at school
  • Host a movie night with free concessions (the PTSA has movie licenses that would cover this!)
  • Put on a talent show
  • Host a summer-time event to get families together outside of the school-year

Download the grade-level grant info sheet, or email ptsaexec@bryantschool.org for info today.

Bryant PTSA Board Meeting Minutes – December 2019

Kathy Austin

December 10, 2019

Welcome / Approval of Last Meeting’s Minutes Whitney Griesbach Ann Sonnen
The minutes from November’s meeting were approved.

Region 6 Presentation Heidi Bennet, Region 6 Advocacy Director
Rescheduled for next meeting.

Treasurer’s Update Nick Barrett
Updates about the Annual Campaign:

  • $184k pledged, $157k collected. This is in line with what we raised last year, and covers this year’s budget.
  • We also had a high participation rate (7 classes got 100% participation). We did keep the campaign running longer to help several classes get to 100%. However, we did hear anecdotally students were mixed about the free recess—we may add additional incentives next year.

Additional treasurer updates:

  • We filed an extension for our taxes (officially due Nov 15).
  • Notable funds: instrumental music has raised $5000 and is targeting $8000.
  • Update on use of unallocated funds: from a starting point of $10k, $5400 have been now allocated (for multicultural night, teacher subs for teacher evals, math books, new embosser, and Quickbooks).
  • School supply funds need to be kept separated.

Principal’s Update, Heather Snookal, Assistant Principal
Thank you for the funding allocation for the teacher release. Kindergarten took ½ day Monday and went through every student with academic support, and first grade took second half of day. By the end of the week all grades will have received ½ day to work with academic support. There has been a very positive teacher response.

Recently contacted the district behavioral support department to help us for some situations where we’ve tried everything and it still is not working. We are therefore entering a 6 – 12 week partnership, beginning this Friday, with the district behavioral support department. They are going to help us with some targeted support for a case load of students, and these learnings can translate to other students.

The district has selected us to be a pilot for how to run the advanced learning program, specifically how we can help highly capable students who stay are their schools (since Bryant has a high population of such students). We’ll know more Friday. No timeline for implementation.

Art supply ask from Ms Whipple: $2000 (itemized list). This ask will be discussed further, both for how to do it this year and planning for next year (roll it into supplies? Art budget?). We currently have $4600 left in unallocated budget. Partial approval of the request: $1000 from unallocated to fund art teacher supplies was approved.
New traffic patterns are working well.

Committee Reports

  • Fundraising (Sara/Allison)
    No update
  • Membership (Tara/Rebecca)
    No update
  • Volunteers (Renee/Kathleen)
    • New leads found for several positions (yea!)
  • Advocacy (Sam/Adele)
    (Not present—at conflicting meeting with politicians)
  • Teacher Representative (Jessica/Chara)
    • Report cards are going to look different this year. Both content and format have changed.
  • Equity (Kim)
    • Four co-chairs. 25 other people have also expressed interest. Very early stages (no mission statement yet), but we want every family to feel like they belong and welcoming.
    • Bryant equity facts: 15% of families identify as
      multiracial, 14 languages are spoken, there has been a racial equity team (comprised of staff) for the past 3 years. We’re hoping to help bridge what’s happening at the building level with what is going on with families.
    • Thursday night there is a North End PTSA partnership meeting with other groups working in this space. We hope to bring back learnings from other groups for what is working. We’ll have a signup sheet at the Multicultural night on Friday.

LASER Update (from Kevin)

  • Discussions about repurposing the main LASER room. We serve 165 kids, with a waitlist of 60 kids, so hoping we can remain part of the school. Historically LASER has been around 90-120 kids, but we were able to bump it with repurposing.
  • District is projecting higher enrollment. Overall this is good. But this impacts the space needed for classrooms. This might not happen next year.
  • This will be discussed at January’s meeting.

New Business

  • Art Docent Program, Whitney Griesbach and Ann Sonnen
    The new website has been taken down and there are discussions happening at the board level.

8:25 Adjourn

Seussical Rehearsal Sign Up!

Kathy Austin

Greetings Seussical parents!
Please click on the Seussical Sign Up Genius to volunteer for rehearsal chaperoning. We need 3 parents each rehearsal, one to be with each cast as they rehearse and one with the crew. We need you from 5:55 until 8:10 (or until all students have been picked up and are out of the building), unless otherwise noted in the sign up genius. 
We very literally cannot do this without you, as the SPS required adult/student ratio is not adequate with only Seattle’s Performers’ staff. Sign up early and often! As a reminder, your student’s ability to participate in this extracurricular activity depends on each family committing to at least 5 volunteer hours– which works out to about 2 rehearsals. Can’t make the rehearsal times work with your schedule? Never fear! There will be more opportunities to volunteer as we go along, and we will add those to the Sign Up Genius and notify you via email.