A message from our PTA...

Explorers,
Please see the message below from our PTA....

Hello Explorer Family!

I have a lot to update, so bear with me...

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend Tuesday Night's PTA Meeting.  I am always encouraged by the support of the PTA family.  We have grown in many ways over the last six months.  A lot of topics were discussed during the meeting.  Mrs. Joyce will post the minutes in the near future, if she has not done so already, on the website.  However, I wanted to hit some of the key points here.

We have a new school logo!!!  Mrs. Graf unveiled the new logo Tuesday Night.  This means we can begin moving forward with Spirit Wear and building a PTA School Store.  Our first foray will be new t-shirts.  We will have to see if the new logo will work on green and purple t-shirts.  If not, then we will probably look into the white and grey.  The plan will be to have a mock-up done and then offer a pre-sale.  This will help us to order the initial batch.  We plan to offer these for $8 for non-members and $5 for PTA members.  More to come as we have it.

Chuck E. Cheese Family Fun Night is Friday, January 22nd from 3-9pm.  This is the location on Capital Blvd., near the Hwy 1/Hwy 401 split.  Flyers will go home before the event as a reminder with coupons that can only be used that night.  Students will receive a sticker on that day that can be redeemed for 10 tokens.  The PTA will receive 15% of the proceeds from all purchases during this time.  All you have to do is mention the school or the PTA when making a purchase.

As a added bonus for the staff members, they are entitled to a FREE meal (choice of a 1-topping individual pizza or the all-you-can-eat salad bar and a drink).  All you have to do is show your School ID to receive the meal.  In addition, you will get a trip to the Ticket Blaster, so you can compete with your fellow peers to see who can grab the most tickets.  As an incentive, the PTA will be awarding a prize to the staff member who comes out on top.  The challenge was already laid down by Mrs. Graf during the PTA meeting.

The Spelling Bee for the classrooms winners is January 26th.  As sponsors of the event, the PTA is helping by providing prizes for the overall winner and runner-up.  This is a part of the Scripps' Spelling Bee that you see televised every year.  Our school will be represented by the winner at the McKimmon Center on the county level on March 12th.

We had some checks sent our way over the break.  We received $547.10 from Box Tops For Education.  This is for all the box tops that we turned in before the Fall Submission Deadline.  Amazing job!

I went ahead and cashed out our account from the SchoolStore.com program for $109.51.  Keep in mind, it is still active as it is a year-long program.  If you need a refresher on the program or would like an info packet with signup info, please let me know via egesptapresident@gmail.com.  

Finally, our tally from the December Family Fun Night at City BBQ was $108.75.  We are still awaiting a check for the October Night at City BBQ for $101.48.  As an update, we received $109.72 from Chick-Fil-A during our stay in November.

Holiday Store was a huge success.  As I previously mentioned, the PTA ended up with $516.59 in proceeds.  But more importantly, the students absolutely loved it.  Our Fall Fundraiser (Popcorn/Tumblers) did not do so well.  We had projected a goal of $3,000 and fell short with $1,241.02.  Out of the 700+ students at EGES, only 33 participated (turned in money) in the sale.  

I'd like to formally welcome Mrs. Kaity McNeill to the role of Cultural Arts VP within our PTA.  She has a background in the Cultural Arts arena from her time at Fayetteville St. University.  In conjunction with Mrs. Graf, I am looking forward to whatever programs we can bring to our students for the rest of the year.

We have two initiatives that are in the proposal stage until I can have a conference with Mrs. Graf.  First, I would like to do a Read-A-Thon at the end of February/beginning of March.  If we do this, it will serve as our Spring Fundraiser.  Another nearby school did this during the fall and it generated in over $46,000.  I would never expect to see that total here, but if each student were to raise an average of $5, the PTA would benefit with around $3,000.

The other idea is to provide our 5th Graders with a special trip.  To accomplish this, they would help take part in a series of three fundraisers with all funds earmarked for the 5th Grade.  They would select the location from a survey of three options.  More to come...

VOLUNTEER ALERT!!!

We have some upcoming events that we will need assistance.  Hopefully, your children have discussed the upcoming Compass Card Rewards School Store.  Well, I am happy to report that the items have been ordered.  The PTA is being tasked (as in I volunteered the PTA) with overseeing the operation of the store.  Mrs. Dinner and Mr. Gordon (and I, if I am asked to assist) are creating a tier system to determine what each item will be worth.  Students will then redeem the Compass Cards they have earned on a set date.  Each hallway will be in a rotation so that everyone is covered every three weeks.  Once the day of the week is finalized, we will need help to operate the store.  The key is that the store will only be open from 8:45-9:15 in the morning as we cannot interrupt instructional time, so having a small group of volunteers is vital.  Please consider helping out with this.  It directly benefits the students. 

In conjunction with Mrs. McCain, EGES and the PTA will be hosting the Scholastic Book Fair from February 1st-5th.  We need volunteers to assist with set up, packing up as well as aiding students during the week.  For those who helped with the Holiday Store, it will be in much of the same fashion.  We will stage everything in shifts and we will gladly accept and appreciate the help from anyone, whether it is 30 minutes or all day.  Please e-mail me if you are interested in being a part of this.

On April 9th or 16th (there is some confusion on the which date we selected), we will have Spring Beautification Day from 8am-12pm.  Please bring any equipment such as shovels, rakes, gloves and especially wheelbarrows.  We will focus on the 3-5 playground area (track on the carpool side).  This will help us get things looking nice for the big event.

The gigantic elephant in the PTA realm is the Spring Carnival on April 23rd from 11am-3pm.  We have been gearing up all year for this and it is time to put our collective Explorer Pride together.  This is our chance to shine and put on a wonderful event for the students and families.  We desperately need volunteers, not only to help during the day of the Carnival, but to put everything together.  We need to form and move forward with committees such as Donations, Events, Decorations and Planning as well as creating a volunteer time sheet to assist throughout the day of the event.  In my mind, we have a lot planned, but now we need the people and the insight to bring it to fruition.  If you would like to be a part of this extraordinary opportunity in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me.  If we do not have sufficient help or enough leg work accomplished by the Friday before Spring Break, we will have to cancel this and once again let down and disappoint the students and I for one would like to avoid that.  Having to cancel the Fall Festival was heartbreaking.

Everyone, I cannot say it enough.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do.  I am very appreciative of any time, energy or effort you provide to the school and the PTA.  There has been so much change for the better over the last six months.  I am excited for the rest of the year and the future of the PTA and the school.

#explorerpride

Tony Joyce
2015-16 PTA President
East Garner Elementary School
E-mail: egesptapresident@gmail.com
Twitter: @eges_pta

School Messenger 1/6/2015

School Messenger from Principal Graf

January 6, 2016

Welcome back to school Explorer students and families! This is Mrs. Graf, school principal with a weekly update.

The beginning of the week was great with students on task and ready to learn in school.  It was good to see our students so excited to share out about their time away from school and their holiday adventures.  I hope that you too enjoyed the down time away from the everyday schedules and hub-bub.

I want to thank our PTA and all of the parents that attended our PTA meeting last night.  We had a good turnout but always invite you to attend and participate in our meetings.  We are doing this Explorers!  We have grown so much over the last six months and will continue to work towards making East Garner Elementary a great place for learning and teaching. It is our hope as a school faculty that we will collaborate and partner with the greater school community to ensure that our students achieve academic excellence and the leadership skills that they will need to be successful in their futures.  By working together great things are possible for our school.

Speaking of the PTA-we need 10 more families to join the PTA.  We are working towards the Gold Key Award and we presently have 161 members.  This is awesome!  Let’s make it that number be outstanding!  In order to get the award we need to have increased our PTA memberships. If you haven’t yet joined the PTA, please consider joining this group of dedicated parents.  

Open House is Here!  Our Open House is scheduled for January 13th at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.  Select staff will be in attendance.  This event is for new families interested in attending EGES in 2016-2017 school year.   Do you know a prospective family interested in attending East Garner Elementary School beginning with the 2016-2017 school year? Please spread the word about our Open House.  Please R.S.V.P. to our school data manager, Mary Horton, at (919) 773-7404 to reserve your spot on our tour.  The session and tour will last approximately 30-45 minutes.  If at all possible, we ask that it is “adults only” as we will be moving in and out of classrooms in the morning session.

This Week:

1/6/2015:  mCLass Window Opens-Please make sure you send your child to school on time so that we can complete your child’s reading assessment and be able to share that information with you.

1/8/2015: Character Kick Off:  Introduction of January’s Character Trait: Self-Discipline.

Next Week:

1/13/2015 Open House  with tours at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.  

1/15/2015  Early Release & Staff Development.  1/15/2015 End of 2nd Quarter

Looking Ahead:

1/18/2015 No School:  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. No school for students.

1/19/2015 Teacher Work Day:  No School for Students.

Lastly parents, be on the lookout for information regarding a special Report Card Night for each grade level.  This will be a time when parents can learn about the curriculum expectations for the quarter, dig deeper into the Parent Home Connect letter and review your child’s progress on the report card.  Report cards will not be sent home.  Report cards will be given out at report card night.  

Questions? Please call the school at 919-773-7411.  All of this information will go out on the Principal’s Desk Blog and will be posted on the school website.  Always Explorer Proud,  Mrs. Graf