Dear Leighton Families,

We had such a fun filled day today celebrating our Winterfest! Thank you to our amazing PTO and parents for all of their hard work in organizing such a fun and spirit filled event as well as a guest visit from The Grinch! You are truly appreciated! See below for pictures of memories made, good times captured, and the spirit of the holiday season! Our students and staff had so much fun!

Happy Holidays to all of our Leighton Families,

Kind Regards,

Michelle Nizen, Building Principal

Ben Lehman, Assistant Principal

AEPTO MEETING

Our next meeting will be on January 4th, 2023 at 10 a.m. at the C&I building. We will be having a fun giveaway drawing for those attending the meeting, so plan to come and bring a friend! We will also be discussing possible options for the Spring Mother (Important Person)/Son event and would love for you to bring your ideas and input to the meeting.

CLEVELAND MONSTERS GAME

January 28th 7p.m.

Join AEPTO for a fun family night cheering on the Cleveland Monsters. Tickets are a discounted rate of $23.00 - this is a paper form sign up; forms should have arrived home with your students before Thanksgiving break and a copy is attached as well. The deadline to turn in forms and payment is December 21st.

GIVING TREE

The Leighton Giving Tree Project has successfully ended and the Center of Hope was overwhelmed by the generosity of our students and families. Together, our schools provided over 400 gift cards to help children and families in need this holiday season! These cards went to the Center of Hope, an organization which will be helping 654 children this holiday season. They also provided 800 boxes of food to help feed families in need at Thanksgiving, and will do so again at Christmas. In addition to the collected gift cards, our schools also collected a significant number of hats, gloves and scarves to support our Leighton Leaders' service project.

A sincere thank you to all of the families who participated in this opportunity to give back to others in need within our community!

LEIGHTON HOLIDAY SHOP

Our Leighton Holiday Shop also successfully concluded last week. What a fun week it was for students and volunteers alike! It's always great to see the excitement from the students as they shop and pick out gifts for family and friends at this event. The Leighton Holiday Shop raised $2,557 this year to help further support our elementary schools.

A huge THANK YOU to our Holiday Shop Chairs - Katie Stump, Erin Toler, Neha Gupta, Bridget Sable and Alyssa Hicks - and to all of the parents who volunteered their time to help set up/clean up and help the students shop!

AURORA FOR OTHERS

Students throughout the school district had a great time participating in the Aurora for Others collection last week!

Aurora for Others is an independent program that began 15 years ago at Aurora High School and has now become a district wide program. This year they have a very special initiative! All collected funds will be used to buy adaptive playground equipment for Leighton Elementary School. This is a big undertaking that will benefit ALL of the children in our community - every one should have the opportunity to play with their peers!

Leighton collected for this initiative as a class coin war that took place during students' lunches last week. Students stepped up to the challenge and had a great time competing against other grades and raising as much as they could for this important cause.

Thank you to Jen Simmerman and Kasie Stewart for leading this initiative, and to the AHS students who volunteered their time to count and roll all of the donations!

MINDFUL MORNINGS

Thank you to everyone who voted on whether or not the AEPTO should purchase Mindful Morning materials for Leighton. Out of 163 responses, 75.5% voted to approve it at the full amount ($1,705). AEPTO will work with third grade teachers, Mrs. McNally and Mrs. Bindus, to provide the funds for them to make Mindful Mornings a reality.

WINTERFEST

December 21st

We are so excited to be bringing Winterfest back to Leighton this year!

Winterfest celebrations will be held in place of the winter class parties, with students rotating through activity stations in their grade hallways and classrooms (similar to an indoor field day).

Winterfest will be held on December 21st at the following times:

3rd grade: 9:15am-11am

4th & 5th grade: 1:30pm-3:10pm

All volunteer spots have been filled - thank you to everyone who was able and willing to volunteer your time! Volunteers should receive additional information from our chairs on Monday, but please feel free to reach out with any questions or if you do not receive the volunteer email.

Again, a huge THANK YOU to our Winterfest chairs - Alyssa, Hicks, Lindsey Twarogowski, Megan Grasso, Neha Gupta, and Nicole Swope - for planning this fun event for our school!

SCHOOLZE

As we head into the new year, AEPTO will continue to make the transition to the Schoolze app for communication. We will begin posting AEPTO updates on the app/website beginning in January, and will continue to move reminders and updates there as well (phasing out the Facebook page). We are also looking to move volunteer sign ups and fundraising events to Schoolze as well. Our goal is to streamline AEPTO communication and processes and we are very excited about bringing this to our schools, but please remember this is new for everyone. We will work to minimize any issues and address them as quickly as possible should they arise!

PTO members should have received an email invite to join the Schoolze app. If you haven't already, we encourage you to join to help avoid missed communication. Non PTO members can also access some of the posted information by visiting https://auroraelementarypto.org.

If you have any questions or concerns related to Schoolze, please reach out to Stacy Golding at Auroraptopres@gmail.com.

UPCOMING AEPTO COMMUNITY EVENTS/GIVE BACK OPPORTUNITIES

AmazonSmile

AEPTO is now up and running on AmazonSmile! It is available at smile.amazon.com and can also be activated in the Amazon app. You can use the following link to activate or find by searching “Aurora Parents-Teachers Organization” in AmazonSmile: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/34-1313553. Your shopping experience and all pricing remains the same, but a small percentage of eligible sales goes back to AEPTO.

RaiseRight

RaiseRight makes fundraising easy. Give back to the organization by purchasing gift cards for daily use or for gifting to others, and the retailer gives a % back to AEPTO. Cards can be ordered through a website or app, with some also being reloadable for regular use. 750+ top retailers participate and they determine the % back (up to 25%, with 6% being the average). You can sign up at https://www.raiseright.com using AEPTO’s code (8HBWMFJ4XLVS).

Disney on Ice January 6th- January 15th

Use CODE: NEOPTA22 for discounted tickets

https://www.rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com/group/detail/fieldhouseplus

Dairy Queen give back nights January 11th from 5-8 p.m. (Craddock) and January 18th from 5-8 p.m. (Leighton)

Join the AEPTO, your school principals and a few celebrity teachers for a fun night out (or two!) at the Streetsboro Dairy Queen. 30% of the total sales will go back to the AEPTO!!!

Monsters Game January 28th 7p.m.

Discounted Tickets for $23.00 - this is a paper form sign up; forms should have arrived home with your students before Thanksgiving break.

Kalahari February 16th

Discounted Room Rates for $154.00

Book online today! https://book.passkey.com/event/50387666/owner/49785631/home

For call-in reservations, call 1-877-525-2427 and ask for the Aurora Elementary PTO Group Rate

If you need any additional information or have any questions please contact the PTO Leighton VP at auroraptolesvp@gmail.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

12/15: LES- Orchestra Concert 4th Grade 6:30PM and 5th Grade 7:30PM @ AHS

12/20: LES School Assembly 2:45PM

12/21: Leighton Winterfest

12/21: End of 2nd Grading Period/1st Semester

12/22-12/31: No School - Winter Break

1/4: AEPTO Mtg 10AM @ C&I Building

1/11: LES Club and Candid Picture Day

1/11: CES Streetsboro DQ Give Back Night 5-8PM

1/16: No School - Martin Luther King Day

1/18: LES Streetsboro DQ Give Back Night 5-8PM

1/28: Monsters Family Night 7PM