![]() The QAE PTSA is hosting a Back-to-School BBQ at Golden Gardens Sunday, Sept. 10th! All QAE families are welcome! Let's relax by the beautiful Puget Sound and have BBQ lunch while our kiddos enjoy sand, play and hanging with their school friends or making new ones! We will have a reserved covered space near the playground at Golden Gardens from 10am-2pm. Look for the orange and purple decorations! Lunch will feature hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers along with the sides! Please use the link below to RSVP for the BBQ -- this helps us plan for how much food we need! To help us defray the cost of the rental, food and drinks, the PTSA is suggesting a donation of $5 per attendee. Please note -- this is completely optional, all families are welcome! RSVP now for the Back-to-School BBQ Lots of fun sand toys, bubbles and surprises provided, but please feel free to bring any sand toys your kids love. Note -- all food and drink will be provided. Just come, eat and help us build our QAE community! If you have questions, contact our Community Outreach & Events Coordinator, Christa Winquist at [email protected] ![]() Kick off the new school year on a sweet and warm note with Top Pot Donuts & Starbucks Coffee in the QAE Cafeteria! Reconnect with good friends, make new ones and share your summer stories among smiling faces while enjoying donuts and coffee. The fun begins immediately after drop-off (7:55am) and is being hosted by the QAE PTSA. We can't wait to see you there! Please note -- this reception is intended for parents of 1st-5th grade student who start on Wednesday. There will be an additional reception for Kindergarten parents on the first day of K classes. If you would like to help with this gathering and/or have any questions feel free to contact our Community Outreach & Events Coordinator, Christa Winquist at: [email protected]. QAE Principal Janine Roy sent out the follow news on 8/31:
Welcome back! We hope you had a fantastic summer and are ready for the year ahead. We are looking forward to our QAE activities getting underway!
Meet the QAE Staff! See our QAE Staff page for the complete list! Classroom Moves: 5th grade classes will be located in the Treehouse next year, as will our Learning Lab. 4th grade classes will be located in the portables. 5th Grade Update This year, our 5th grade team will follow an innovative instructional model to meet the learning needs of our learners. Every student will learn with both teachers – students will have one teacher in the morning and one teacher in the afternoon. Ms. Shaw will teach both groups math, science and social studies. Ms. Malcom, and Ms. Goldman when she returns from maternity leave, will teach literacy. Our extensive research shows that teachers will be able to focus on these content-rich academic areas in order to deepen student understanding in all subjects. Teachers will coordinate classroom meetings, PBL, IslandWood and field trips together. It will be a fantastic opportunity for our rising fifth grade learners to learn from two teachers as they prepare to shift to middle school next year. Construction in Progress on Bigalow and Newton
The first day of Kindergarten Jump Start happened to coincide with the 2017 solar eclipse!
In the spirit of always learning, our K teachers helped the incoming Kindergartners explore this amazing event: The PTSA is looking for some wonderful parents to help support our amazing QAE community. Would you like to get involved? We can guarantee it'll be a fun and rewarding experience!
Safety Coordinator -- Help Our Explorers Travel Safely! As we have been discussing the expansion of QAE next year, the subject of what we can do to get everyone to and from school as safely as possible has come up. The PTSA is looking for a volunteer interested in taking charge of safety plans and programs for QAE. If planning, coordination, and safety is your passion, we'd love to hear from you! Treasurer -- Do You Know QuickBooks? The PTSA is looking to fill a very important role on the board, Treasurer. Ideally we're looking for someone who knows QuickBooks. We've streamlined the position in the last year to have fewer responsibilities and tasks, but it still remains a critical position for us to fill. If you know of someone (or many someones, or you are that someone!) that's right for the role we'd love to hear from you. Fundraising Chair Not a position to fear! Rather, someone to lead the fall fund drive and to check-in with Auction chair and Jog-A-Thon chairs. Videographer We’d love to do a project where we video key teachers/staff/students answering FAQs about QAE that would then be posted to the website. If you're interested in any of these positions, please contact Ian Stewart and Jenna Free at [email protected]. Our little Rockets are blasting off toward kindergarten. Kindergarten Jump Start runs the week of August 21st through 25th. Let's celebrate this big step by gathering at the playing field at Little Howe Park on Saturday, August 19th from 3-5pm.
Little Howe field is an area often utilized by QAE for great events like Field Day at the end of the school year and other fun school experiences. So join us for a mini-Field Day devoted to our Kinders with lots of fun field game play, bubbles and snacks! It's a great way to meet other Kindergarten families and have some summer weekend fun. Where: East Queen Anne Playground "Little Howe", 1912 Warren Ave N. Meet at the lower field area When: Saturday, August 19th, 3-5pm If you would like to help and/or need to contact our Community Outreach and Activities Coordinator, reach out to Christa Winquist at [email protected] See ya Saturday! Flip flops, friends and fun! We'd love to see you at the Queen Anne Elementary "Summer Nights" Pool Party Saturday, August 5th at Pop Mounger Pool in Magnolia hosted by us, your friendly QAE PTSA crew! We've reserved the entire pool specifically for QAE families! Both pools will be open along with the water slide. The PTSA will also provides snacks and drinks. Have a great evening with great friends as we build memories to take into the Fall. When: Saturday, August 5th, 7-8:30pm Where: Pop Mounger Pool, 2535 32nd Ave W, Seattle 98199 We are renting out the pool exclusive to the QAE community only 250 total spots available. We have reached capacity for the Pool Party! Our apologies if you weren't able to RSVP in time. Look for more fun events in the near future! To help us defray the cost of the pool rental, food and drinks, the PTSA is suggesting a donation of $5 per attendee. Please note -- this is completely optional, all families are welcome!
The second City of Seattle "Departures" public meeting is set to happen on Thursday, July 20th at 6pm in the school cafeteria. The departures committee makes recommendations about whether certain changes that will help make the expanded building a great place for our kids to learn. We need parents and especially kids there to advocate for our playground.
See Principal Roy's note below about the importance of the meeting. We hope to see you there! For more information about the project, see our QAE Building Renovation project page. ==== This is a reminder that the 2nd QAE Departures meeting is on Thursday, July 20th at 6 pm in the cafeteria. This information went out to QAE families in June and is currently posted on the PTSA website. Many thanks to any QAE families who are able to attend with me. Student voice will be key at this next meeting, as the Departures Committee needs to hear how important our QAE play space (playground, soccer field, basketball court, etc) is to students throughout the day. At the first meeting, several QAE parents spoke eloquently about the need for the requested departures to accommodate our much-needed addition for our growing population. Some community members shared how frustrated they were with ongoing parking challenges around QAE. Some in attendance suggested painting additional parking spaces on the QAE playground blacktop due to their frustration with lack of parking in the neighborhood. If QAE parents are able to bring students to the first hour of Thursday's meeting, or help students practice sharing a 1-2 sentence statement on how important play on our QAE playspace is to students, that would be a very important viewpoint to share at this meeting. After the first hour, the meeting then shifts to a meeting of the Departures Committee and QAE parents and students are welcome to remain for the whole meeting or slip out at 7pm. If anyone has any questions, let me know. With appreciation, Janine Flip flops, friends and fun! We'd love to see you at the Queen Anne Elementary "Summer Nights" Pool Party Saturday, August 5th 7-8:30pm at Pop Mounger Pool hosted by us, your friendly QAE PTSA crew!
We've reserved the entire pool specifically for QAE families! Swimming, a cute little water slide, two pools (3ft. Kiddie pool & deep end pool) food, soft drinks, and great peeps will create a chill evening and build memories to take into the Fall. Lifeguards will be on duty and life vests available for swimmers that need safety flotation. It's free to attend, though we'd ask for a $5 donation per person to cover the cost of food and drinks. Check back soon for our online registration form! The QAE PTSA and other parents from our school attended the June 19th community meeting on the Magnolia School Boundaries. There was a large crowd including parents from all the schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia. Here are our notes from the meeting:
Boundaries Survey - Great Response from the QAE Community! SPS sent out a survey at the end of May to all families who attend schools in the Queen Anne and Magnolia areas. Queen Anne Elementary had 287 responses, the second most amongst all the schools. Thanks to our community for being so involved! QAE's overwhelming choice amongst the 13 options was Scenario C with 71% of our families selecting it as one of their top three options. Top Boundary Options from the Survey Ashley Davies, Director of Enrollment Planning at SPS, presented the scenarios that received the most votes in the boundaries survey. She said that nothing was final, but the original 13 options were likely narrowed down to these 5 or 6 options. She did mentioned that any of them could be tweaked as needed.
Impacted Students by Scenario After the meeting, SPS published details on the number of students affected by each scenario (A-M). It ranges from a low of 306 (for J) to 816 (for M). Magnolia School Construction Costs & Potential Delay SPS received bids on the Magnolia School construction that were approximately $5 million over budgets. The district will likely re-look at the project and see where they can cut costs and get new bids in the fall. This likely means that the opening of Magnolia may be delayed from the beginning of the 2018-19 school year to the 2019-20 school year. This change to timeline might take away some of the sense of urgency in drawing new boundaries. There was a concern from the audience that if new boundaries are drawn this Fall, they might have to change again prior to the school opening. Fort Lawton Development Discussion Some members of the audience brought up the planned development of new housing on Fort Lawton by the City of Seattle. This will add more children to the Queen Anne/Magnolia area. Audience members were advocating that the school district and the city consider using some portion of the Fort Lawton area for a new STEAM (science and environment, technology, engineering, arts, math) school. The QAE PTSA will continue to do our best to advocate for our community and share the latest developments. See our Boundaries Info page for the latest as well as SPS's page about the meeting. During the June 6th Building Renovation Meeting we heard very consistent feedback from our neighbors and community QAE parents have NOT always been kind, safe or fair to our children, ourselves and our neighbors. We were reminded of some basic SAFETY and RESPECT procedures that you should remember when dropping off and picking up your children at school. Please help us model good safety behaviors for our children and be good neighbors. 1) Crossing Boston St at the intersection of Bigelow. There is a signed cross walk at Boston and 4th Ave N to use for our safety and our children. Our neighbors have witnessed a number of situations where distracted or hurried drivers do not pay attention when driving through this area and it is further challenged by the slope of the street giving drivers some blind spots. They reminded us that we should all be careful and safe when crossing streets. 2) Crossing the any street mid-block. Please don't play frogger across the busy street. 3) Parking - please respect our neighbors driveways, fire hydrants, crosswalks and stop signs. The below is the Seattle Department of Transportations Parking Regulations in regards to How Close Can you Park? Parking illegally, even for a couple of minutes, is unfair and unsafe to those that are sharing the roads. 4) Drop Off - Please pull all the way to the front of the drop off/pick up zone to allow space for other cars (even when it's rainy).
Thank you to all parents for helping live and model our pillar that "We are concerned, confident and compassionate citizens of the world" For those that would like more details on the BEX meeting on Tuesday 6/6 can learn additional information at http://www.qaeptsa.org/building.html. Thank you, QAE PTSA UPDATED: SPS originally had next year's start time listed as 8am for the second bell. That has been changed to 7:55am (same as this year). See below for the updated 2017-18 schedule!
------- You may have heard, but the Seattle City Council approved a one-time grant to the school district to make the conversion from three bell times to two. That's just part of the changes coming for next year with the longer school day and consistent early dismissal on Wednesdays. This means that starting in 2017-18, QAE will have the following schedule:
See details from the email sent out by SPS below! ---------------- Final School Bell Schedules: Starting next year, there will be two tiers of bell schedules, and the school day will be 20 minutes longer. This change will result in more than two additional days of instruction for students. Changing to a two-tier bell schedule will eliminate the latest or third tier of school start and end times, which has been a hardship on many of our families. The City Council voted June 14 to approve one-time funds to move us to this new schedule. Thank you to Mayor Murray and numerous family advocates for bringing attention to this issue and to the City Council for finding a thoughtful funding solution. I also want to thank and recognize the many families who shared their perspectives and concerns with us. In response, we were able to make small modifications to the final two-tier bell schedules. These changes address possible loss of high school instructional time, maintain the current school start time for many elementary and K-8 schools (while also adding 20 minutes to the school day), and eliminate the third tier, ensuring that all students begin school by 9 a.m. The final schedule reflects the varied needs and perspectives of our families, students, staff and partners. 2017-18 School Calendar: The full 2017-18 School Year Calendar is now available including school breaks, holidays and early release days. The Seattle Education Association and the district negotiate the school calendar. To learn more about the calendar development process, please visit our School Year Schedule Update Announcement. Early Release Days: Currently, the district has a variety of early release days during the school year to support staff professional development. Next year, students and families will have a consistent weekly schedule. Students will be released 75 minutes early every Wednesday (except for the first day of school). This schedule change supports teacher collaboration and instructional planning. Dedicated time for teachers to collaborate and plan together is one of the most important strategies we use to ensure high quality instruction in every classroom. Thank you for your understanding as we make this important system shift. We recognize childcare is a challenge for many families and the need may increase because of the weekly early release day. Childcare options and resources can be found here. We will continue to update the childcare webpage throughout the summer in partnership with our many school-based providers. In closing, I believe these system changes will benefit our students and support our mission of ensuring every student is college, career and life ready. Thank you again for your patience as district staff, the School Board, our labor partners, the City and many others worked together to find the best possible schedule solutions for our families and students. ![]() QAE is throwing a Popsicle Party for new families who will be joining us for the 2017-18 school year! It's tomorrow afternoon (June 13th) from 4:30-5pm on the QAE playground. See the school, meet some other families and get any questions answered. If you know a family of an incoming Kindergartner (or other families who will be new to QAE), please encourage them to attend! Afterwards, new families can stick around and check our school-wide Project Based Learning celebration from 5-6:30pm! Parents of Incoming Kindergartners: Don't forget to sign up for Kindergarten Jump Start, which will take place the week of August 21st - 25th! Who: QAE Community, families, students, staff, faculty and friends
What: A little work, a lot of play! Help spread wood chips and hay at school. It's a labor of love and gratitude. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Post work, You and your families are invited to come hang, eat, drink and be merry. BYOB and dish to share. We'll provide the BBQ Grill, S'mores, Coolers, Music and open our home for a gathering space (although small, it will be cozy). Where: QAE Garden and The Hildebrandt Home located at 510 W Galer St, Seattle 98119. When: Saturday, June 24 10am- 12pm at the QAE Garden ... Potluck to follow immediately with no planned end point. Why: As our Seattle summer turns into drought-like weather, typically, July into September, the wood chips and hay will keep the soil moist and prevent it from turning into plots of dust. It will be a good way to indicate appropriate walking paths and put nutrients back into the soil as it decomposes over the coming seasons. We need your help spreading them! Out of gratitude for the garden, our school community, the work our students have done and everyone that has helped in the garden, we want to gather in recognition of it all. Evan if you haven't had a change to help in the garden but are happy for it's existence and our community please come and celebrate! Help us plan by RSVPing to [email protected]. And see our Garden page for more details.
"We called ourselves the Explorers and we knew we wanted our kids to learn differently." - Mr. Jeffery
In exchange for receiving a very significant discount when we purchased new cases for our school's iPads, the company that makes the cases produced a video about how our students use our iPads to learn and explore. It really captures part of what makes QAE so special! |
Welcome to the Rocket Reader blog! The PTSA's collection of news & information relevant to QAE Families. This is also shared weekly in the Rocket Reader e-newsletter. Use the form below to sign up!
E-News Sign-UpThe Rocket Reader newsletter is sent weekly by the PTSA. Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
|
CONTACT |
SCHEDULE2024-25 On-Site Schedule
7:55am - School Day Begins 2:25pm - Dismissal Wednesday Early Release 1:10pm - Dismissal |