*News

2022-2023 Bryant Elementary School Climate Survey for Caregivers

Wacarra Yeomans
Please Complete the 2022-2023 Bryant Elementary School Climate Survey for Caregivers
 
The Bryant PTSA has established an annual initiative to compile data from parents and caregivers of students at the school through a 3-5 minute survey of the school climate.  We plan to use this data to determine future state and district advocacy and family engagement efforts.  This survey, in part, follows the approach of the SPS “School Climate” surveys that 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade students participate in during class each fall.

This survey aims to help assess the degree to which the school, the district, and the state are meeting their core commitments to students and the degree to which students have positive social relationships, are respected and engaged in their work, and feel safe and competent.  

 
The survey can be completed here. The deadline for completion is Friday, May 12th.  Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your family’s experience.

Family Art Night, Thursday, April 27, 6-8 p.m.

Lily Chan

Family Art Night, Thursday, April 27, 6-8 p.m.

Family Art Night (FAN) is a beloved Bryant PTSA event which began in 2014. This will be the first FAN since 2019.  The goal of the event is to promote the arts in the Bryant’s community through the exhibition of students’ artwork in the halls, art activities in the gym and cafeteria, and a performance showcase. 

  • Try cardboard sculpting, encaustics, rock painting, visual poetry, and more art activity tables in the gym and cafeteria! 
  • Explore the student artwork on display in the hallways and art room. 
  • Make art with Bryant’s art teacher, Ms. Kristen, and Artists-in-Residence, Ms. Elaine and Ms. Kari. 
  • Enjoy listening to the Bryant choir and watching performances on stage. 

 

This FREE event will take place on Thursday, April 27th, from 6-8pm. The theme is EARTH celebration. 

 

Want to show off your art?

CALLING ALL BRYANT STUDENTS to be a part of the 7th Annual Family Art Night!

 

For more information and instructions on how to submit your art click here: Family Art Night Information and Submission Form

* Art must be submitted by 4/19/23

Bryant After School Enrichment (ASE) Program Registration Opens April 1!

Carrie Drake

The Bryant After School Enrichment (ASE) Program opens this weekend for registration, at www.seattlease.org.

Classes are available to preview on the site before registration by navigating to “Classes by School”:”Bryant Elementary”:”Current”.  Please note that details are not final and may change prior to the opening of registration.  Please review carefully once registration opens before completing your purchase.

Registration will open at noon on Saturday April 1st and will be entirely online on a first come, first served basis.  The Spring program includes classes in:

  • Ceramics
  • Spanish
  • Found Object Art
  • Minecraft
  • Artist Trading Cards
  • Guitar
  • Art/Games for Early Dismissal
  • Math
  • Robotics
  • Taiko Drumming
  • Animutants

Classes will begin the week of April 24th and run through the last week of the school year.  Most classes are scheduled from 2:30 to 3:30 pm.  On Wednesdays classes start right after early dismissal.

Volunteers & Donations Needed for Spring Service Day this Saturday

Carrie Drake

April 1st, 10am – 12pm

We need your support to make the HIP packing party a success! Please sign-up to donate food and/or sign-up for a short, 30 minute volunteer shift. More info about all the awesome opportunities for your family to participate on Spring Service Day and Sign-Up Genius links are below. Thank you for getting involved, giving back, and helping community!

Ways to Participate:

Help put together Healthy HIP Packs for the Hunger Intervention Program

Kids and families are invited to assemble food packs in the cafeteria (no RSVP needed). Bryant’s Student Hunger Service Project is excited to bring this opportunity back for the first time since COVID!

Volunteers are needed to help the packing party run smoothly. 30 minute volunteer slots are available for adults, kids and caregiver/kid pairs.

HIP PACK VOLUNTEERS:Sign-Up Genius

Donate food items for the Healthy HIP Packs (food donations due by 3/30)

Please review the list of food items needed and sign up for the quantity you can donate to ensure we have the right amount for each pack. 

HIP PACK DONATIONS: Sign-Up Genius

Plant seeds and work in the Bryant Garden

Please RSVP so we know who is coming!

GARDEN WORK PARTY:Garden Work Party Sign-Up Genius

Join the Move-A-Thon activity stations

Move-A-Thon happens on the Bryant playground in support of the Southeast Seattle Schools Fundraising Alliance. If you would like to help plan or run the Move-A-Thon activities, please sign-up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090d4eabad2ea1f58-moveathon#/

Donate grocery gift cards for our sister school

Cards will be distributed to their students for Spring Break. Bring $25 QFC/Kroger gift cards to the event or donate online. 

We are excited to come together to build community, celebrate the beginning of spring, give back, and have fun! Donut and beverages will be provided. 

Bryant PTSA Honors: Black Lives Matter in Schools and Black History Month

Carrie Drake

Join us on Tues, Feb 7 at 7 p.m. at Bryant Elementary Library (doors open 6:45 p.m.) for a screening and post-film discussion with 2 current Roosevelt High School students of “Roosevelt High School: Beyond Black & White” a documentary about race and education, based on the experiences of Roosevelt High School yesterday and today.

The film is a production of Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE), a Seattle non-profit formed to promote racial equity, with a focus on schools and their communities. Fifty years later, Seattle still struggles with race and diversity. Race is one of the burning issues of the day, but does your family talk about it? The topic is uncomfortable and complicated. Yet the conversations need to happen. Young people are entering an increasingly diverse world. To thrive, they must be prepared to work with people who look different or come from different backgrounds.

Doors open at 6:45 p.m., film starts at 7:00 p.m., and post-discussion with RARE volunteers from our community. Film is 30 minutes in length. Discussion 30-45 min.  Bryant parents, students, and community members are welcome. Bring your friends and neighbors! Watch the 3 min trailer here: https://youtu.be/-xkWV8-m9O0

 

Advocacy Update: Bryant Elementary needs parents’ voices now!

Lily Chan

Please join the Bryant school funding email campaign by sending an email to the SPS School Board Directors (an email template and contact info are below).  

Background

  • SPS and the School Board are considering balancing the budget shortfall through cuts to school funding.
  • If SPS and the School Board make further budget reductions, our school would likely continue to grow in students while staff resources are cut.  This could have have significant impacts to our school including in the following ways:
    • If changes to staffing formulas are made, class ratio sizes could increase.
    • If administrative staff, such as the Assistant Principal, are cut or reduced in hours, operational and program resources would be impacted;  
    • If funding is further reduced for specialist staff (exemplified by the librarian, music, art, and PE teachers) and other critical staff, the school will have fewer teachers and staff available to serve a significant number of students. 
  • As families seek stable school resources and a quality, competitive education for their students, we must advocate during the School Board/SPS budget decision process happening now for no further cuts to student-facing positions, impacting critical, specialist staff and classroom ratio sizes.

Action

  • Please add your voice to the message by sending an email to the SPS School Board Directors by Monday, January 23rd (or before).  A suggested email template is below. Please feel free to add your student’s personal story, highlighting impacts to them from budget cuts.  The email addresses to send your email to are below.

Send the email to the SPS School Board Directors at the contact information here:

liza.rankin@seattleschools.org

Liza Rankin, District 1   

lisa.rivera.smith@seattleschools.org

Lisa Rivera Smith, District 2   

chandra.hampson@seattleschools.org

Chandra N. Hampson, District 3   

vsmaritz@seattleschools.org

Vivian Song Maritz, District 4   

mrsarju@seattleschools.org

Michelle Sarju, District 5

leslie.harris@seattleschools.org

Leslie S. Harris, District 6   

brandon.hersey@seattleschools.org

Brandon K. Hersey, District 7   

advocacy@bryantschool.org

And CC: the Bryant PTSA Advocacy team   

———————————————————

Bryant School Funding Email Suggested Text

Dear SPS School Board Directors,

253 Bryant elementary parents and caregivers signed onto a Bryant PTSA letter to District 3 School Board Director Chandra Hampson in December, asking her to ensure Bryant receives full funding this year based on SPS policies and formulas for enrollment-based funding.  Further, we urged her to work to ensure that the projected SPS budget shortfall is not covered by cutting critical school staff and increasing student-teacher ratio sizes.

I email today to echo this call, particularly as you develop the funding policies which will impact next year’s budget.  Bryant is growing in enrollment and needs more student-facing positions along with a stable budget, not additional cuts creating further gaps in education resources and instability in school administration.  Since the school continues to have significant numbers of students, cuts will only require fewer teachers and staff to serve those students.

Budget cuts are having serious impacts at the school. In the case of the library funding cuts due to outstanding funding allocations from SPS this year, student library checkouts have been reduced to half, impacting the students’ independent reading opportunities and early development of good reading habits. 

[Please add a sentence or two telling the School Board your family’s story about any impact to your student from school resource cuts (e.g. any impacts to your student/s from teacher cuts, education program cuts, and/or the reduction of the Assistant Principal to half time since last year…).

I urge that, during the current budget decision process, the SPS School Board and SPS Administration make no further cuts to student-facing positions and that the critical staff positions, including the Assistant Principals, are fully funded.

Specifically, I ask for:

  • No changes to staffing formulas so that class-ratio sizes increase.
  • No further cuts to administrative staff, including the Assistant Principal position. 
  • No further funding cuts to specialist staff (exemplified by the librarian, music, art, and PE teachers) and other critical school staff.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Add your name, your child/children’s school, and your relationship to the student at Bryant

_________

1 https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/seattle-school-enrollment-levels-off-but-district-still-faces-budget-woes/#:~:text=Seattle%20is%20projecting%20a%20budget,%24156.8%20million%20the%20following%20year

MLK Day of Service: Jan 16

Lily Chan

Volunteers and Donations needed

4th annual hygiene kit service activity

MLK day Monday 1/16 from 10:00am-11:30am

Outdoors under the Bryant Elementary basketball courts

 

What is a Hygiene kit?

Hygiene kits are new 1 gallon zip loc bags filled with a variety of packaged snacks and useful products that will bring warmth and hope to a person in need. We organize and deliver these kits to the Miller Community Center in Capitol hill, which provides shampoo, soap, and hot showers to local residents. The kits get passed out to folks after their shower. Last year, the Bryant community donated 205 kits!

What the event will look like:

The whole family is welcome. We’ll have several tables set up at the basketball courts with loads of new items ready to organize into kits. There will be music, a letter writing station, and free Starbucks coffee for volunteers.

How to help:

  • PURCHASING items ASAP directly from this registry (simplest way) or bringing some in on your own https://www.target.com/gift-registry/gift/bryant-service-kits
  •  HANDWRITING notes at the note/drawing station at the event
  • LOANING out your folding table for the event – we’ll need many tables to help organize all the items email A
  • SORTING the items out during the event with your fellow community volunteers.

Useful items include new socks, new gloves, packaged snacks, nail clippers, cotton swabs, masks, lip balm, lotion, sanitizer, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, band aids, cough drops, hand warmers. No razors. Soap and shampoo is already provided at the Miller CC. Feminine products are welcome – they will be organized separately and placed in the women’s restroom.

Thank you for acting fast! contact Alexis Landry with any questions landry.alexis@gmail.com

PTSA Advocacy Alert Update

Carrie Drake
In December, 253 Bryant Elementary parents and caregivers formally signed on to a Bryant PTSA letter to School Board Director Chandra Hampson regarding outstanding SPS funding this year for our school  In the letter, we urged School Board Director Hampson to advocate to Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to ensure Bryant elementary school receives staff funding in accordance with the current enrollment level at the school this year.  This includes funding the librarian position fully along with additional specialist teacher funding.  The letter highlights the impacts from funding cuts on the school, including reducing student library checkouts in half this year.  Additionally, in the letter, we requested information on how SPS plans to address projected budget shortfalls.  We urged that to address the shortfall, SPS does not make cuts to critical staff and services that impact school operations and student-teacher ratios.  
 
In addition to sending School Board Director Hampson the letter, we also invited her to a community forum to discuss the issue and we currently await her answer.  In the meantime, over the month of January, SPS and the School Board begin drafting next year’s school budgets so it will be an important time for families to be engaged and active in this decision process.  Please stay tuned for further advocacy updates! 
 

Lion King KIDS: Casting Workshop & Parent Meeting

Jennifer DuHamel

Hello Lion King Families!

We are looking forward to seeing all of you on Monday, December 5 at 6:15pm for the Student Casting Workshops and the mandatory Parent/Caregiver Meeting. Please read this entire email which includes important logistics information for Monday and a letter from Seattle’s Performers describing the casting workshop process and deadline for solo videos.

  • Entering the building: On Monday eve, please enter the school through the doors at the SW corner of the building (through the gate in the fence on the playground side of the playfield).  You will need to sign-in your student at drop-off and sign-out your student at pick-up.  
  • Parent/Caregiver Meeting: After drop-off/sign-in, please head up the stairs to the Library for the Parent/Caregiver meeting where you will also sign-in.  The meeting will last approximately 45 minutes. After the meeting, you can wait for your student outside the cafeteria or leave and return later to pick up.  Caregivers are not allowed to watch rehearsals unless they are one of the four volunteer chaperones.  
  • Chaperones: We still need three (!) volunteer chaperones for Monday evening (12/5), and two for the second workshop (Monday, 12/12).  Click here for the Sign-Up Genius. 
  • Scripts: Your student will be receiving their script on Monday night. Please write your student’s name in their script. It is important that students do not lose their scripts — if lost, your family will need to purchase an additional script.

——————————————

Hello Bryant Play Families,

Seattle’s Performers is elated to be back in person directing the Bryant Play. We are very excited to be presenting Lion King KIDS this year! Our teaching team will include myself (Sandy Sonko) along with Danielle Rogers, Hannah Adams and Somto Mgbajiaka.

When directing a school play, we know that students will have various levels of experience in performing, and we want to make the casting process as fun and enjoyable as possible. We have been using our “Getting to Know You” style of auditions when we direct musicals at schools. In this style of auditions students get to play theatre games, learn songs and dances, without the pressure of a formal audition.  During these auditions, we are looking for the students to have confidence when acting during the games and be able to be a team player and follow instructions.

If your performer is interested in singing a solo in the production, please send a video of your performer singing a 20-second portion of a song of their choice to play@bryantschool.org no later than Monday, December 12th by midnight.

During the auditions we are going to split the students into small group stations of 12-15 and rotate between each of the teachers doing Acting, Singing, Dancing and Theatre games.

December 5th Schedule

6:15-6:45pm- Teacher & Student introductions

6:45-7:00pm- 1st group rotation

7:00-7:15pm- 2nd group rotation

7:15-7:30pm- 3rd group rotation

7:30-7:45pm- 4th group rotation

7:45pm- Closing All Group Circle

December 12th Schedule

6:15pm-6:30pm- Welcome

6:30-6:50pm- 1st group rotation

6:50-7:10pm- 2nd group rotation

7:10-7:30pm- 3rd group rotation

7:30-7:50pm- 4th group rotation

7:50pm- Closing All Group Circle

 

Thank You,

Sandy Sonko

Current (22’-23’) 5th Grade Families

Lily Chan

Hello Current 5th Grade Caregivers,

The PTSA was overjoyed that this year’s 5th graders were able to return to Islandwood camp!  A lack of fundraising last year combined with the unavailability of grant funding forced the Bryant PTSA to hurriedly pay the Islandwood fees for all 5th graders this fall. To help offset that expense, the PTSA requests 5th grade caregivers donate $360/student HERE to help cover the cost of this year’s Islandwood trip and upcoming graduation celebrations. 

We ask that families consider the recommended per student contribution, but ultimately pay what they can. Thank you for helping give back to our school!

Sincerely,

The Bryant PTSA