Newsletter Blog

June 15, 2023 - from the board president, Sara Fender

We have arrived at the end of another school year! 2022-23 has been a pivotal school year for 91 School PTO. As I wrap up my term as board president, I am encouraged and excited for the future of our PTO. 

• What's happening this month

We just wrapped up another Field Day partnership with the school. Thank you to all of the volunteers who signed up to help, teachers and staff, and a special thank you to our PTO parent coordinator, Tiah Sigler, who put on another fun field day! 

PTO held it's final general business meeting of the school year on June 6th. We had the best attendance yet this year! Formal PTO board transitions happen at the end of this month. The new executive team will be in place July 1st. Business meetings will resume in September. 

• Funding Highlights

PTO sponsored the Kona Ice Truck that made an appearance at Expo Night. We happily purchased 340 hawaiian shave ice for students and their families! 

PTO provided a modest refreshment budget for the 8th grade promotion reception. With the help of creative parent volunteers, we were able to provide dessert options (including gluten free and vegan) and beverages for the crowd in attendance. Thank you, parents!

• Gratitude - Thank you!

One, big final thank you to any and all PTO volunteer participation this past school year. Whether you signed up to provide food, ran a shift at a PTO event, coordinated something, served on event committees, or attended business meetings, we thank you for your part in PTO's efforts to enhance educational opportunities and build community through parent involvement. PTO can't exist without you.

We so appreciate the team of staff that PTO gets to partner with. Thank you, teachers, administrators, support staff, facilities staff, kitchen, staff, and more! Enjoy whatever summer break may look like for you!

• Looking ahead

Back to School Night will happen before school begins this fall, usually on the Thursday before the first day of school. PTO partners with the school to put on a fun and informational evening for families to connect with the school community and celebrate the return of the school year. If you are interested in volunteering to help at Back to School Night, please contact the PTO Vice President, Shirine Kernan, at 91ptovicepresident@gmail.com to be added to a list of interested volunteers. The executive board will be in touch for planning sometime in the month of August.

Please check out the rest of our website for general information about PTO, our projects, all the ways to support and be involved, contact information, and more! The site is a work in progress!

Have a safe and happy summer!

May 26, 2023 - Jog-a-thon Success!

By now, you may have heard the news! Thank you, 91 community, for your amazing support for PTO's Jog-a-thon fundraiser! We exceeded our fundraising goal! Together we raised $23,153.46. We are excited to continue to carry out the mission of the PTO through enhancing educational opportunities for our students and building connection in our school community. These funds will be applied to the PTO budget in the coming school year. 

Students had the opportunity to dunk Principal Pauls, and get bonus dunks with Ms. Scott and Mrs. Read during the Jog-a-thon awards assembly.  What troopers! Check out some of the fun photos below!

A big thanks to the team of volunteers that organized this event: Angie Miles, Sara Magenheimer, Amanda Young, Alysia Hubbard, Chelsey Nealeigh, Shirine Kernan, and Liz Alley. A shout-out to our incredible staff who helped out and coped with the disruption of the school day, and to the team of additional volunteers that showed up to help at the event. Aurora Dental (The Youngs) donated a snow cone machine, which PTO will be able to use at events in the future! THANK YOU, community and staff, for all of your support! 

May 2023 - from the Board President, Sara Fender

This has been an exciting year for the PTO. As we get ready to say good-bye to another school year, I am encouraged and assured, knowing that our organization has turned a corner and we are growing again! 

One of the areas that has fallen short since we've been building back from the pandemic shutdown is regular communication with you, our school community. We have been slowly trying to build new and consistent ways of communication. This new website and this Newsletter Blog is one of those ways we hope to improve commuication, provide a one-stop shop for information, and enable a way to look back at previous communications in an organized and easy fashion. We will be experimenting with content and formats. For the time being, we have listened to parent & staff feedback and added the following highlights to be included in a monthly communication from PTO. We will continue to use the Remind system and our social media pages for announcements, reminders, and specific updates.

• What's happening this month

Jog-a-thon is Friday, May 19th! This is the PTO's largest and primary fundraiser. Our goal this year is $23,000, which will go towards the PTO budget for the coming school year. Students will not only participate in a fun community event, but they'll compete for some pretty neat prizes and try to work together to get Mr. Pauls in the dunk tank! 

The funds we raise each year go to support the ongoing mission of PTO, which has included things like our community events like movie nights and Family Fun Nights, school field trips, one-time classroom grants for all classrooms, staff appreciation, and the cost of doing business as a non-profit organization. With increasing money raised, PTO intends to create a new project in the fall, where we will partner with the school to identify a building project that will enhance and improve our school environment. Current ideas include upgrading the middle school hallways, upgrading the upper library, improvements to the playground and/or playground entrance, and a new and improved school reader board. We're thinking of calling this something like the "PTO spotlight project."  Are you interested in leading a project like this? Please reach out to 91ptopresident@gmail.com. 

If you'd like to volunteer to help out at this year's Jog-a-thon, sign up here to join in the fun! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/409084baea82fa3fd0-jogathon#/  If you are interested in being a part of next year's Jog-a-thon planning team, please contact Angie Miles at angie.miles4@gmail.com. We are looking for new team members!

Other PTO projects and involvement in the month of May include Certified,  Staff Appreciation Week and 91 School Expo Night on Tuesday, May 23rd. The board continues to work on recruitment for the coming school year. We are especially in need of parents willing and able to help coordinate existing, dormant, and new projects!

• Funding Highlights

Has your child gone on a field trip this year? PTO likely paid for it. Some recent trips this spring: 4th graders just attended a trip to the Will Stauffer Farm in Hubbard. 5th graders attended Biztown in March. Kinder, first, and second grade all attended the children's theater in Portland in February! Field trips meet one of our primary mission goals to enhance the educational experiences of all of our students. 

• Gratitude - Thank you!

May 8th - 12th is Certified Staff Appreciation Week. Not only do we celebrate our incredible teachers, but our certified administrative staff, as well! PTO hosted a taco bar for all staff on Wednesday, May 10th, put on by help and donations from many parent volunteers. Certified staff also received a special thank you with a small gesture of appreciation from all of us!

A big thank you to all the volunteers that made Family Fun Night possible! A special shout-out to Shirine Kernan for heading up Family Fun Night, and to Nicole Cole and Katie Iverson for joining along with the board members to organize and host this event. Thank you to all involved! We can't do these events without you. 

We are excited to announce PTO's new board members for the upcoming 2023-2025 school year term. Both of our new board members are parents at 91 school and volunteered to be considered for these positions. Devon Heckathorn is our incoming board president and Makayla Ramirez  is our incoming board secretary. We cannot express the amount of gratitude we have for these two, who are stepping in at a vital time in our organization. We are so excited to have them as a part of our board team! They will join Shirine Kernan, our current Vice President and Jessie Kenagy, our current Treasurer. 

• Looking ahead

Field Day is in the works! This annual tradition, where students get to participate in a bunch of classic outdoor activities, will be on Tuesday, June 13th. Details soon to come. PTO pays for the cost of this event and provides volunteers to coordinate and run the event from set-up to tear-down and all that's in-between! If you are interested in volunteering to help at Field Day, please contact our Field Day coordinator, Tiah Sigler, at tiahmarie@gmail.com. 

June brings retirement celebrations and 8th grade promotion. Keep an eye out for opportunities to attend and/or volunteer to help at these events. 

Back to School Night will happen before school begins this fall, usually on the Thursday before the first day of school. PTO partners with the school to put on a fun and informational evening for families to connect with the school community and celebrate the return of the school year. If you are interested in volunteering to help at Back to School Night, please contact the PTO Vice President, Shirine Kernan, at 91ptovicepresident@gmail.com to be added to a list of interested volunteers. The executive board will be in touch for planning sometime in the month of August.

Please check out the rest of our website for general information about PTO, our projects, all the ways to support and be involved, contact information, and more! The site is a work in progress!