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10 Do you have a new and innovative idea to enhance the learning at MES The Morningside PTA has allocated monies for our 2011- 2012 Grants Program. This program is designed to encourage our MES community (teacher, staff, parent and student) to apply for financial assistance for programs that will enhance the learning environment through new and inventive methods. Over the years, the committee awarded grants to a wide range of programs including heath & wellness, cultural events, curriculum support, etc... Grant applications can be found on the MES website under Enrichment and Clubs - Grants. The Grants Committee will accept applications in 1 cycle during the Fall. The PTA Grants Committee is chaired by Michelle Constantinides. The Green Team will be co-chaired this year by Willa Paton-Smith, Shannon Skinner, and Lynette Slovensky with a continued focus on reducing waste, improving recycling efforts and conserving energy. Back again this year at the August Meet & Greet will be our promotion of Waste Free Lunches. Reducing the use of disposables, plastic baggies, and excess packaging in our children’s lunches can greatly reduce the volume of trash we send each day to the landfill. Stop by the Green Team table at Meet & Greet to purchase affordable lunch packaging products that are all PBA free. We’ll have tips to help your family put your best “green” foot forward this school year. Also, look for the Green Team and Student Council to partner again this year on a fall recycling drive. We invite everyone to support the effort to make MES a greener school! Our Wellness Committee chairs, Erin Richmond and Elizabeth Lietz, will be working to encourage fitness and healthily eating habits for students, staff, and the entire MES community. We will resume Wellness Wednesday’s, Fresh Fruit Friday’s and continue our monthly food tastings, with the help of our sponsors Rosebud and Murphy’s, where students sample a delicious recipe featuring a vegetable currently being grown in the garden. We are passionate about promoting healthy living for our school. MES has a wonderful Garden program that allows students the opportunity to plant, nurture and taste the wonder of fresh vegetables. Supported by the PTA, Schoolyard Sprouts, Murphy’s, Rosebud, Whole Foods Briarcliff and Farmer D Organics, the garden is an outdoor learning environment for students year round. Carrie Roetger, a veteran Morningside teacher, works coordinating curriculum each month with the grade level teachers. The garden experience includes lessons on soil and water, social studies, weather, temperature, growing local food, composting, grids in the garden, greenhouse gardening, and much more. The curriculum was developed for Schoolyard Sprouts by the Georgia State University Department of Dietetics to meet APS guidelines, and can be found on the Schoolyard Sprouts website, www.schoolyardsprouts.org. Throughout the year, the garden committee is always looking for volunteers to help with classes in the garden, regular garden maintenance, or to work on special work days. Stop by and see what’s growing! All of our Enrichment programs focus on providing rewarding and exciting educational experiences for our children. We are looking forward to another fabulous year. Many thanks to the parent volunteers who work hard to make these events happen and to the PTA fundraising team for raising the money needed to support them. We always need more volunteers, so if you see a program you are interested in, please come join in. Astrid Horlbeck Vice President for Enrichment astridahorlbeck@gmail.com COMMUNICATIONS Stay in touch with Morningside! It is our goal to make sure that every Morningside family is well aware of the terrific things going on at school each week. Here are the ways we communicate with our school community: Digital Dolphin This weekly e-mail newsletter includes brief descriptions of what is happening at school. It is delivered to your inbox over the weekend so that you can get ready for the week ahead. To sign up for the Digital Dolphin, go to the school website, www.morningsideschool. org, and enter your e-mail address in the box on the home page. At the printing of this newsletter, there is still a need for a Digital Dolphin editor or co-editors. Annelle Dunn is the returning editor of the Digital Dolphin Morningside Memo The Morningside Memo comes out early each month. Look for it in your child’s Wednesday folder. The Memo keeps you up-to-date about all the things going on. It features updates from our principal and PTA, overviews of upcoming activities, tips from our school counselor and articles from our Wellness and Green committees and much more. Our Memo team includes Scott Edelman and Judith Cavill as co-editors, and Gisela Mesbahi as graphic designer. www.morningsideschool.org Be sure to bookmark the MES website. This is the fastest way to find out about what’s going on at school. There are calendars, forms, supply lists, copies of newsletters and more. Get in the habit of using the website; you’ll be glad you did! The website is managed by Michael Schulz. Morningstar This newsletter, which you are currently reading, is published each summer to kick off the school year. Our Morningstar team includes Lane Chalfant and Gisela Mesbahi. Bulletin Board If you are walking the halls, check out the latest news on the PTA bulletin board located outside of the auditorium. The board is maintained by Julia Rafter. Yearbook Distributed in May, the yearbook is a wonderful memento of life at Morningside. Leslie Muscarella heads up the yearbook team. Calendar The calendar is maintained by Debbie Mobley. She will be the PTA representative on the SLAM (School Logistics and Management) committee and will be the point of contact for all PTA scheduling. The calendar chair is the PTA representative on the SLAM.
Other Sources of Information Look for the PTA MES New Parent Guide with your registration information. This has a lot of information for both parents and students. The updated Volunteer, Officer and Chairperson Guide is available on the website as well. This resource answers questions about planning events at MES and goes into more detail about our communication vehicles outlined above. We are always on the lookout for people interested in layout, design, editing and writing. We also could use people that like work. You would be folding and distributing the Memo each month. If you’d like to help, please contact Lane Chalfant at flchalfant@bellsouth.net. Lane Chalfant Vice President for Communications Parking & Safety Let’s start the new school year right with good safety and parking habits. Whenever you park at the school, please take care to avoid the carpool and bus lanes. No parking is allowed on East Rock Springs Road. There are a few parking spaces along the side of the school near the carpool entrance. Parents may park at Haygood Memorial United Methodist Church in the part of the parking lot (closer to East Rock Springs) when walking students to school, picking them up, or visiting the school to volunteer. If you park at Haygood, please walk your child to the school and do not drop off your child in the parking lot or along East Sussex. There is no parking or stopping along East Sussex between the church and the parking lot. For the safety of the children as well as for the upkeep of the Haygood grounds, please do not allow children or pets to walk on the church steps or grass. We appreciate having Haygood as such a terrific friend and neighbor, allowing all of us – including staff and teachers – use of their parking property. To park in the neighborhood, please abide by parking regulations as posted on street signs. NEVER drop your child off in the bus lane, on East Rock Springs, East Sussex, or Barclay. If you cannot walk your child to the school, please go to the carpool lane. Please remember that there are children all around you, and drive slowly on neighborhood streets and in the parking lot. While it is important that everyone arrive at school on time, it is most important that everyone arrives safely! What is the Role of the Morningside Foundation While the PTA provides a number of outstanding enrichment activities and programs for our children each school year, the Morningside Foundation adds another layer of support that sustains what makes Morningside Elementary unique. The mission of the Foundation is to financially support and preserve the academically-excellent experience and strong teaching environment for every current and future student at Morningside Elementary School. The Morningside Foundation will continue to build and preserve the culture of strong teaching at MES. We believe that teacher excellence is at the core of every successful school, including Morningside. To demonstrate this commitment, the Foundation will fund numerous professional development opportunities for Morningside educators. This summer, over the Fourth of July weekend, the Foundation sent 3 teachers to an educational conference in Boston. The ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for educators to learn, teach, and lead. These teachers, Gail Williams (K), Bianca Jones (4), and Jackie Henry (5), will return to Morningside this fall, full of ideas and energy to share with the entire staff. It is our objective, with the help of Ms. Pruitt and the Foundation’s teacher representative, to continue to find and fund these opportunities for growth. In addition to supporting teaching excellence, the Foundation will assume funding for academic enrichment in instructional technology. This emphasis will vary grade-by-grade, and will continue to evolve as the year progresses. In order for Morningside to sustain and endure as such an amazing school, the Foundation needs your financial support. Please consider how you can contribute to the success of not only your child’s education, but of all of the children at Morningside, for now and years to come. If you are interested in making contribution, or if you have questions about the Morningside Foundation, please contact any of the Foundation Board members listed below or email foundation@morningsideschool.org. Mike McCool, Ron Yabroudy, Cathy Tilman, Brian Williams, Chris Edmonds, Kirsten Hadley, Tim Fox, Chip Benton, Kevin Lyman, Ross Mansbach, Kimberly Humphrey (PTA Rep), Becky Pruitt (Principal) Quick Links Morningside Elementary: www.morningsideschool.org Atlanta Public Schools: www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/atlantaps Inclement Weather & School Closings through TWITTER! Search for “apsupdate” and click “follow” Meal Pay: www.mealpayplus.com Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools: www.cinsatlanta.org Georgia Performance Standards: www.georgiastandards.org Infinite Campus: https://ic.apsk12.org/campus/portal/atlanta.jsp Schoolyard Sprouts: www.schoolyardsprouts.org 11
Page 1 and 2: Summer 2011 MORNINGSIDE ELEMENTARY
Page 3 and 4: Thank You for What You Do Laurie Lu
Page 5 and 6: From the PTA Co-Presidents Welcome
Page 7 and 8: Operations It takes a lot of planni
Page 9: Halloween Carnival Get ready for th

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