PTA Happenings - 2014-2015 Year in Review My name is Lisa Friedman, and I have served as the Elementary & Middle School PTA President this year. I have 3 children at Moreland Hills School in 5th, 4th, and 2nd grade. I am a graduate of OHS, and completed all of my schooling here, grades K-12. The Orange Elementary & Middle School PTA is a vital link between parents, teachers, administrators, and community members. Our purpose is to enrich the emotional, academic, and environmental experiences of our children. Our Mission is to cultivate a close relationship between the home and school by advancing opportunities for families to become involved in the Orange School Community. Our goal is to promote a strong school community by increasing involvement and improving communications among its members. A special thanks to all of you, who as valuable members, volunteers, and supporters of our organization, enable us to provide different programs and activities to help enhance the learning and environment for the children in our district. Please visit our Website, highlighting our 2014-2105 YEAR IN REVIEW: http://www.orangeschools.org/mhsbmspta.aspx as well as tons of information, contacts, and much more! We are all fortunate to have a wonderful group of dedicated individuals serving on the Executive Board this school year. Additionally, members of the various Executive Committees have been busy at work. A special thanks to our many co-chairs for executing wonderful programs and events. Each year we have many new families move into our district. We hope you all felt welcomed and informed by our information packet as well as the new family events. It is exciting to see so many children, teachers, staff, and parents walking through the halls with the various spirit wear items. So many great items to choose from to show your Orange School spirit! Hope you are looking forward to seeing next year's selections! This year's reflection theme was "The World Would Be a Better Place If...” What a wonderful opportunity for our children to explore the "Arts". We were excited to have three entries place at the State level this year. What an opportunity to promote reading and books.... MHS and BMS both proudly sponsored successful book fairs and were able to put books in the hands of many of our students! Hopefully many of you were able to attend our 11th annual community art fair this May. We were fortunate to have a diverse and talented group of vendors and artists. Don't forget, we are proud to be a "market day" school with a wide selection of family friendly foods to order. Thanks again to all of you for your support! Best wishes to everyone for a great finish to this school year and a wonderful summer! 1 2 PTA MEMBERSHIP: Fanette Yelsky & Michelle Silverstein PTA Membership had a great year. For the 2014-2015 school year, we added several new features: ● A new designation of our membership levels was created to be more consistent with the purpose of membership dues as a fundraiser for PTA; ● Credit card payment for membership was available through PTA PayPal swiping devices and/or email invoicing; and ● Our PTA membership is proudly listed on the PTA website at -- http://www.orangeschools.org/Members.aspx. PTA Membership again received very generous support from the following local businesses: ● to kick off our membership drive, Fleet Feet Sports donated $10 gift cards, which were given to our first 350 members; and ● Heinen’s Teaming Up For Education Program donated $5,715 to PTA, as a result of 177 people who took 5 minutes to sign up for the program – that is a lot of money for doing your regular grocery shopping! Thank you so much to Fleet Feet and Heinen’s for supporting PTA! Most of all thank YOU – our 412 members for your support of PTA through your membership donations! Your support and annual membership is vital to the ongoing success of our PTA. As is outlined in this Newsletter, your membership dollars funded wonderful, engaging programs, grants, and services for our students, our teachers, our schools and our community. We look forward to continuing to grow our membership numbers and dollars in the 2015-2016 school year. Have a wonderful summer vacation! TREASURER: Tracey Leiken Thanks to our educational grants committee, we were able to award 38 grants this year, in addition to new playground equipment and the electronic bulletin board at MHS, totaling almost $15,000 to OIP, MHS and BMS teachers and staff. We were also fortunate to be able to support the district students with many events including programs and assemblies, the Ice Cream Social, Pastries for Parents, Staff Appreciation, Unity Games, Scholarships, Veteran’s Day, Science Fair, and Spelling Bee to name a few. Thank you to everyone who helped support the Orange Elementary and Middle School PTA. We couldn’t do any of these amazing things without you! OIP Rep: Megan Jolic It has been an exciting school year for the students and staff of OIP! We participated in the 1st Walkathon PTA Fundraiser in October. The students proudly wore their Orange Pride t-shirts as they walked (and ran!) the high school track. We had the pleasure of enjoying some free entertainment from the high school drum line. It was an amazing day! As a thank you from the PTA for all their hard work and effort the children were treated to an ice cream social. OIP will be hosting an all-family potluck following the Pre-K graduation on May 27th. The PTA is generously sponsoring pizza again this year. A special thank you to Lindsey Jezek, Lauren Rhodes, Jen Moderick and Zoey Bond for taking on the role of room parent this year. This year’s Staff Appreciation week could not have been as successful without their help and the help of the parent volunteers! We look forward to increased involvement in the upcoming school year! Stay tuned for upcoming events to kick off 2015-2016! 3 Moreland Hills News: Megan Tzefronis It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the 2014-15 school year. There are so many people who have generously donated their time and/or money in support of our schools. Everything you do is greatly appreciated, so thank you. The MHS events would not be successful without all of you. I want to extend a special thank you to the grade coordinators, room parents, and co-chairs of all of the MHS PTA sponsored events and services this calendar year. It was a spectacular year of outstanding events that you made happen. We started the year with the ice cream social and it will soon be coming to a close with Unity Day & the 5th Grade Graduation and Clap Out. Let’s not forgot all of the other events in between: Kindergarten Playdates; Pastries for Parents; BooHoo/YaHoo Breakfast; Collection Drives for Mittens, Toiletries, and Food; Book Swap; Box Top Collections, & Staff Appreciation Week. We also need to thank all of you “behind the scenes” who help coordinate the Read to Me program, Birthday Books, Library Volunteers, Lost & Found, and provide Hospitality for the various Events. As well as the Grade Coordinators, who attend the Monthly PTA Advisory Meetings and the numerous Room Parents. A huge thank you to parents and the rest of the Moreland community who gave their time, money or donations to Staff Appreciation. It is wonderful that we have the opportunity to honor the staff within the district, all of whom do so much for all of our children. This is the time of year in which we busy planning for next year’s MHS PTA events. If you are interested in co-chairing an event please send me an email and I am happy to discuss any of current openings. If you are interested in helping with any future events, but not as a co-chair, complete this MHS Volunteer Interest Form (or download from our website at: http://www.orangeschools.org/Volunteer.aspx) Keep a look out for more details regarding Unity Day, June 3rd. Thanks for your continued support! It was my pleasure to serve as the MHS rep these last two years. Brady News: Maggie Wolf & Wendy Blaszak, Brady Representatives 2014-15 was another busy and successful year at Brady Middle School. The PTA was able to provide many supports to the efforts of Brady students, teachers, staff and parents. The PTA provided refreshments at Open House, sponsored a pizza party to the winning pride in the Food Drive, organized adult facilitators and provided treats for Challenge Day, supplied (allergy-friendly!) mints to the students during PARCC testing, and much more. Seventh graders celebrated an inspirational Veterans Day with about 75 guest veterans in attendance. Thanks to 7th grade representatives Lisa Goodman, Caroline Lebel-Smith and Kristen Nugent, as well as many PTA parent volunteers, who made the morning a beautiful tribute to our nation’s veterans. The Brady Science Fair showcased many wonderful projects of our middle school scientists. Thanks to Caroline Lebel-Smith for working with Mrs. Jen McGeown to make it a success. S-U-C-C-E-S-S was what the Brady Spelling Bee was all about, with students Dayna Rapkin, Sylvia Stewart-Bates, and Orly Wolf finishing first in their respective grades. Thanks to Wendy Blaszak, Melissa Sanders, Cyndi Rosenblatt, Marie Stark, and Adina Wolf for their help with this year’s event. The annual PTA-sponsored Brady Bash was a glowing success, thanks to the efforts of event co-chairs Wendy Perry and Cyndi Rosenblatt.