Thanks to everyone who bought gifts, candy and magazine subscriptions from the Gift Catalogue last month. Sunnyside raised $4,000 for our arts programs. If you didn’t get a chance to order from the catalogue, you can order online at www.qsp.com and use our account # 710-310506.
Thanks to all of the teachers and students who came by to visit rooms 105 and 106 for Ability Awareness Day. Every student got to visit our special education rooms, meet all of the students in the classes to find out what they do at school and what makes them special. K-2nd enjoyed a slide show during their visit and 3rd-5th got to sign up to be in the buddy program this year. We want all students to know that they are important and belong here in the Sunnyside community. Thanks also to the parents who took the time to talk to their children about their experiences on Ability Awareness Day. Next semester, we are hosting a Fun Ability Awareness Games Day on the schoolyard where all students play games that challenge their abilities.
Friday, Oct. 31 is October-fest, Sunnyside School’s annual fall festival. We’ve had terrific response to our sign-up sheets, however we still need help running games booths in the afternoon on the day of the event. If you have an hour to spare on Friday, come and play a game with the kids at school. Feel free to just show up or contact Kelly Kocella and tell her you want to help.
The school has received educational software licenses from the District and needs to think about how it will upgrade/ replace/ increase its existing computer equipment. We hope to add workstations in every classroom so all our students can benefit from this generous donation and there are several ways this can happen.The School District recommends that the folks who may be interested in advising or installing equipment form a “Technology Committee” to meet with their IT staff to determine what equipment and software we have and what we might need.
First the good news: Our electrical and Internet equipment is in great shape. The School District only needs to install three more switches to create the capacity we need. Sean offered to purchase and install the switches for us.
Sean needs more information about the software system before he can make a firm recommendation, but, from my description, he suggested that the best solution may be to obtain 15 powerful pcs that we can use to run four workstations in each room. He believes that this would be a better solution than adding computers to the computers we already use because the computers we use may not be powerful enough to run the software without their own upgrades.
The School District will image equipment for us when it is purchased with the operating software and the educational software. They will also install all the equipment so they would be able to upgrade and troubleshoot the equipment remotely. YEA!
He suggested the following specifications for each room: a computer with Dual Core/ Core Duo processor and at least 2 gigs of RAM. Each room would also need 4 good monitors, PS2 Keyboards and mice, and a printer. I know that some rooms already have printers and I am researching some donations, so we will come up with a firm budget in a few days. I would love to hear any additional suggestions.
Please put a note in your student’s folder or email me if you are interested in helping to create a budget and equipment list for this project. Thanks!
Would you like to join an exciting project to create an “outdoor classroom” for our kids? (Green thumb not necessary.) The garden committee has met twice now to discuss ideas and options for creating a learning garden at Sunnyside. We are a motivated group of parents and teachers, and we invite you to join us in any or all phases of planning, constructing, and maintaining Sunnyside’s future garden.
What can you do to support the garden initiative?
1. volunteer, big or small: you can take on a key position or take on a simple task. We’ll be posting lots of tasks that can be completed easily and quickly for parents who want to help but don’t have a lot of time to invest.
2. register and attend “how to” school garden workshops October 11 at the Green Schoolyard Alliance Fall Conference: www.sfgreenschools. org.
3. make a donation to pay for a teacher to attend the conference
4. let us know if you have special skills to contribute: carpentry, horticulture, construction, grantwriting, etc.
Call or email for more information or to share your ideas. Thank you!
First, a HUGE thank you to Reva for getting our first grant proposal out to Lowe’s! Crossing fingers.
And thank you to Sam Tonroy for drafting a plan for a garden box “prototype.” We have presented it to Ms. Schlenke. She confirmed that we could use the space along the fence for the first boxes and has gotten approval from the School District for us to take out the benches.
We are aiming to have a prototype garden bed built and ready for planting by Thanksgiving. We will use the $1K PTA seed money to do this along with lots of volunteer labor! Thank you PTA! Dates to be determined but we’re thinking early November.
-Sheila
