PTA Castro School
June 3rd, 2015 - Issue 38
PTA Community Survey
Please fill out this short PTA survey, which can be found online or in paper form from the Office.
Your PTA needs your valuable input in order to improve the programs and support we can provide to our children.
Find the Survey online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/castropta2015 or leave your completed paper survey in the Office.
PTA Minutes
Here are the minutes of the PTA board meeting from May 13th, 2015
These are the minutes of the PTA General Meeting May 27th, 2015
To view older PTA meeting minutes you can visit the Castro Elementary school webpage -> PTA -> Meeting dates and Minutes -> PTAs Secretary's Public Folder -> 2014-15
Choose from Board Meetings or General Meetings
Castro’s Organic Veggies
PTA Accomplishments for this Year
I'd to take a moment in this last installment of Connections to recognize the achievements of the PTA this school year. For those of you not familiar with the Castro PTA, we are membership organization of parents and teachers dedicated to promoting the welfare of children in our school and community.
This year, the PTA raised over $100,000 in generous donations from each of you, your friends, family, neighbors, and employers at Class Posting and the Walkathon, our annual fundraisers, and via retailer-funded programs like Box Tops, Labels for Education, Amazon Smile and gift cards. The funds covered things like:
- Nearly 30 field trips for our kids to places like the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz, and Stanford
- Over 600 books for our library, one of the best stocked in the district, as well as "TrueFlix", a non-fiction ebook program used by upper grades, a new label printer, book storage cart, and supplies for book protection and repair. Liz Mabey, our fantastic librarian says, with tears in her eyes, "I am so very grateful!"
- Over 900 hours of instructional aides for the kindergarten classrooms for the full year. Our kindergarten teachers really appreciated those extra pair of hands in the classroom every day!
- Over $13,000 in teacher grants to purchase learning and enrichment materials for their classrooms
- Additional staffing for English and Spanish language development and bilingual materials for the Dual Immersion program
- Support for our school gardens, including restoration of our beloved Redwood Garden
- Support for school community building events like Día de Los Muertos, Día del Niño, the Ice Skating Party, grade level potlucks, and staff appreciation
Parent PTA Leaders also ran some amazing enrichment programs this year for our kids including:
- Three trimesters of the Afterschool Enrichment program, one of the most comprehensive afterschool programs in the district
- Project Cornerstone, a new program at Castro this year that focuses on building social/emotional strength and resiliency for our kids
- Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics
- "All Hands on Science!" and the Science Fair, which provided children with the opportunity for hands-on, fun science learning
Thank you to the hundreds of parent and community volunteers, teachers, and staff who contributed to our children's education and our school community this year! I look forward to seeing you in August at Class Posting!
Sarah Livnat
PTA President