Dear da Vinci Community,

Thank you for all the appreciation shown last week for our educators and staff. We felt the love. A special shout out goes to Ms. Claudia Contreras-Peters, the PTSA President for recruiting volunteers and leading efforts for all of the community events and fundraising activities this year. The last two weeks have been especially busy!

Coming up, the final weeks of the school year are packed with events and celebrations and we still need volunteer support to pull it all off. Please see the links below to sign up if you can.

Happy Mother's Day!

Join us for the Spring Dance Concert. Tickets are available online in advance or at the door.

Advance purchase is recommended. Remaining seats will be sold starting one hour before showtime. Please park on the blacktop or in the school lot if possible.

Ticket link for Friday

Ticket link for Saturday

We NEED volunteers to support front of house and backstage. Please Sign Up if you can help. Most slots are still unfilled at this time.

The 2023-24 Calendar has been released. Check HERE to plan ahead for next year.

May 15th- Band pullouts- both sections of band students will be rehearse together 5th and 6th periods.

May 15th- AAPI Club Meeting, 3:20 - 4:20 in room 102

May 16h- Election Day! Don't forget to turn in your ballot.

May 16th- Dance pullout rehearsal all day

May 17th- Syttende Mai Parade (both beginning and advanced bands, after school)

May 17th- QSA in the cafeteria, 3:15 - 4:15

May 18th- Visual Art and Creative Writing Showcase, 4 - 6 PM

May 19 & 20- Spring Dance Concert , 7 PM on the 19th and 2 PM on the 20th

May 19th- BSU in the cafeteria, 3:15 - 4:15

May 25th- Spring Music Concert, 7 PM

May 26th- Student Dance 4 - 5 PM

May 29th- Memorial Day. No school

May 31st- Final da Vinci PTSA Meeting of the school year

June 2nd- New student orientation- meet & greet 4 -5 PM

June 7th- 8th Grade Trip

June 8th- 8th Grade Promotion at Grant High School, 6 PM

June 14th- NEW LAST DAY OF SCHOOL- An extra day was added to make up for the snow days.

Students working in the Water Garden last week were delighted to see eleven baby ducklings on the pond. Thanks to Ms. Ingamells for the photo.

Visual Arts and Creative Writing students will be celebrating the opening of the Spring Show. Friends and family are welcome.

In the remaining weeks of school, we need your help more than ever. There are multiple events coming up that require additional adult support. If you can help out with our end of year events, please sign up the links below. Thank you!

• June 26 - July 14, 2023: Cleveland, Lincoln, Ida B. Wells

  July 17 - August 4, 2023: Benson, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson, McDaniel, Roosevelt

  Monday - Friday, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm

  The Leap into 9th Grade summer program prepares incoming ninth grade students to excel in high school by building a foundation for success before starting high school.

• Please go to this page for more information and to sign your student up (there is a google form at the bottom of the page)

We are still missing quite a few permission forms for the 8th grade trip. Please get these turned in ASAP if you have not yet, and pay if you can.

Permission forms and contract

Payment link on SchoolPay for the charter buses and ride bracelets

We had a very eventful last week, and thanks to our wonderful community, we made it all happen!

Thank you for a wonderful online auction! We exceeded our goal and raised over $16,000! Thank you to all who donated items, services, or experiences for our auction, and thank you to all who bid on items or made cash donations. A special thanks goes to our Auction Committee (Jenny Stenseth, Aja Beckett, and Claudia Contreras-Peters) who worked really hard for several months to make this auction a success. If you haven’t picked up your auction items yet, please get them by the end of this week at the school office.

A couple of our buy-in options didn’t sell out, so we are offering them still. Read below for details.

BENEFIT DANCE CLASS for MAMAS!! Get your groove on this Thursday, May 18, 5:30-6:30pm at Taborspace! Amy Hoffmann will teach a fun and playful beginner-level class designed to get you in touch with your inner Betty Boop/Beyoncé/Shakira/Lady Gaga! $15 donation, please RSVP to asborffmann@gmail.com. Bring a friend! All levels, all bodies, all enthusiasm levels working!

We also have 4 spots available for Crochet Class for Beginners led by our very own dV Textile Teacher, Neressa Bennett on Sunday, June 4th, 3-5 pm. You can purchase a spot HERE.

Our community really showed up last week as we celebrated Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week! All teachers and staff enjoyed breakfast and lunch every day, and received da Vinci t-shirts and a Starbucks gift card. Special thanks go to our Teacher Appreciation team: Becka, Brooke, Jenny, and Claudia, and setup/cleanup crew: Chenoa, Jess, Becka, Brooke, Jenny, Autumn, Tayler, and Claudia. We appreciate all the time you spent picking up food, setting up, cleaning up, and decorating the staff room. A big thank you to all the volunteers who brought in breakfast food and beverages, and an extra thank you goes to the Martinez-Griffin family for donating sandwiches for all teachers and staff on Monday, Pambiche and ¿Por qué no? for donating lunches on Wednesday and Thursday, and Mikiko Donuts for providing breakfast goodies on Wednesday (thank you, Tekla!).

We also appreciate all who supported da Vinci by purchasing plants or volunteering to organize and distribute orders for our Spring Plant Sale. We raised $1,260.95. It was a great success!

Dine for da Vinci is this Tuesday, May 16th between 2-8 PM at Dairy Hill Ice Cream on Hawthorne (1428 SE 36th Ave). It will be hot and a perfect day to treat yourself to ice cream, a shake, a float, or a sundae! Click HERE for their menu. The PTSA will be receiving 10% of their sales. Share with everyone you know to enjoy a special spring treat while supporting both a local business and da Vinci! We hope to see you there!

Please join us on Wednesday, May 31st from 6:00-7:30 PM for our next da Vinci PTSA meeting both in person in the da Vinci Cafeteria and on Zoom. This year, dinner is provided for the in-person meeting, and we need RSVP’s to order food in advance.

Please encourage your students to join the meeting along with you, as it was great to have several da Vinci students and Leo Leaders join our last meeting. It is great to hear from the students AND parents/guardians! You can RSVP HERE to join so we can continue to build our community and support our teachers and students.

To connect to the PTSA meeting via Zoom, please click HERE.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for this month’s PTSA meeting, please email davinciptsa.president@gmail.com.

May 16th - Dairy Hill Ice Cream on Hawthorne

May 19 or 20 – Spring Dance Concert flower sales (exact date and time TBD)

May 25 – Spring Music Concert flower sales (time TBD)

May 31st, 6-7:30 PM – PTSA General Meeting

Please see the following instructions for setting up your own account to track assignments and monitor progress. If you have multiple children in PPS, you can set up one account and then add additional students with a separate code for each student.