Garage Sale, E-Waste, and Shredding.

Saturday morning fun! You cleared your closets and we collected your donations and sold them raising substantial funds for our school! Thank you for your help!

You brought out your e-waste and all those old documents to shred and turned them into money for our school! Don't you just LOVE when you do something good and it's just good all around? For you, for your kids, for their classmates, for the environment? I just love a good win/win!

Thank you to our volunteers and to our Chairs, Mrs. Peggy Walker and Mrs. Paula Nathan for your continued hard work and support! Every little thing you do, is a big deal to those you do it for!

Halloween After School Movie

Friday after the Red Ribbon Assembly, the PTA sponsored a free Halloween Themed movie after school in the auditorium. Concessions are for sale, all $1, the big screen is pulled down, the lights are lowered and voila, it's like going to the theatre!

It's an activity for parents and children to do together and while they get a kick out of watching a movie with their friends, we get a kick out of only paying a dollar for popcorn!

This years Halloween Features were "Monsters vs. Aliens, Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space" and "Scared Shrekless". Thank you to Mrs. Stacie Cardena for your hard work and enthusiasm, and to all the parents that set up screens, sell popcorn and candy, bring the movies, post fliers and come to enjoy the afternoon with your kiddos... Thanks a bunch!

Red Ribbon Week Kickoff Assembly

 Friday afternoon, Emerson held a school wide assembly to kick off Red Ribbon Week. After the special announcing of the Friday blue slip winners, the students listened to two wonderfully written essays by the winners of the 5th Grade essay contest. Kindergarteners gave their first performance, singing a song about being drug free.

Officer Mortensen from the Long Beach Police Department came and spoke to the students on the importance of saying NO to DRUGS! He even drove his police car on campus and gave a little flash of the lights and sounded the siren. He answered questions, posed with Waldo and let students peek inside his patrol car after the assembly!

 We had the spirit days announced: Monday- Sock it to Drugs (wear crazy socks). Tuesday- Turn your Back on Drugs (backwards uniform day). Wednesday- Shade out Drugs (wear awesome sunglasses while outside at school). Thursday- Drug Free JEANius (wear jeans with your uniform) and Friday- Let the Red Out (Wear Red to School).

To end the assembly, Mr. Snell and Mr. Gibson led the Emerson Eagles in singing the School Song which was AWESOME! 

Special thanks to the Girl Scouts who decorated Emerson with plenty of Red Ribbons and decorations after school! A Huge thank you to Mrs. CJ Holder who is our Red Ribbon Chair and to all the parents, teachers, staff and students that help create and keep a safe, wonderful, drug free learning environment at Emerson!

Association Meeting 10/12/11

A quick recap of last night’s PTA Association Meeting for those who were unable to attend. (update: now that i’ve read through the whole thing, it’s not really quick but it is full of what took place at the meeting! Thank you reader for your patience!)

Recording Secretary, Mrs. Michelle Arslan, presented the minutes from last month’s association meeting, a motion to approve them was passed.

Vice President, Mrs. Peggy Walker, outlined the upcoming E-Waste/Shredding event that will be taking place on Saturday, October 22 from 9a-12p. The e-waste event is open to the community so encourage your friends, family and neighbors to bring acceptable e-waste (just about anything with a plug) and drop it off at Emerson! We will have a secure shredding service present as well. Bring your old bills, sensitive documents and anything else you want to have destroyed. The company will shred it right in front of you and securely haul away the scraps. It all makes money for our school!

Secretary, Mrs. Cynthia Antoinette, presented the Treasurers Report for approval. The total deposits for the last month were announced, much of the funds were from Memberships and from our Back to School Bash. The treasurers report is available to any PTA association member who’s dues are current. Motions to approve the Treasurers Report and Financial Secretary’s report were passed

Vice President of Membership, gave updates on membership. We currently have 403 members! Great Job! Our goal this year is to have 625 members. Please encourage your friends, family, dentist, coach, neighbor to become members. Base membership is only $5.50. Any additional is accepted with deepest gratitude! It’s our kids and their future.

Vice President of Fundraising, Mrs. Wendy Cuellar, who also chaired the PTA sponsored Back to School Bash activity, shared updates with how successful the Bash was. It was wonderful to share an evening with fellow Emerson Eagles and their families. We made enough money on glow stick sales, the Super Mex truck, Leroy’s Ice Cream Truck, and concessions to pretty much pay for itself! Which is such a great plus!

We have another Family Dinner Night coming up. Wednesday 10/19 at Souplantation in Lakewood. 

President, Mrs. Paula Nathan, reminded that Reflections Art Contest entries are due (today) 10/12/11. Chairpersons, Mrs. Nicole Halvorson and Mrs. Rose Jackman said that they will accept late entries ONLY until FRIDAY 10/14.

Book Fair is open this week, before and after school. During the evening at Kinder Data night. Your support is appreciated!

Principal, Mrs. Maggie Kerns, praised the wonderful upkeep of the school grounds thanks to those participating in Emerson Beautification! The school looks great. She was so impressed with the success of Back to School Bash and is looking forward to Trunk or Treat and Kinder Data night. 

Due to financial cut backs with the district, permit fees are now in place for any after school program that benefits financially (ie chess masters, spanish, and art but NOT Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or Campfire). Because of those costs, the terms of these programs continuing are still being negotiated. At this point, we are being asked to wait patiently. 

Hopefully, we will have some sort of music/music exploration program developing at Emerson in the future. We have had wonderful past program leaders as well as new members of the Emerson community express interest in creating an enriching program that would typically be available to student in 2^nd -5^th grade. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

On the technology front, there are “kinks being worked out” with the computers in the lab. This is the last year that we will be able to use the MIND institute on our current computers. Mrs. Kerns said that if a technology committee of parents, teachers, volunteers was formed, they could work together to develop a plan for the future of our technology lab. 

There are other fundraising opportunities in the future. School Cents receipts are collected in the office. Any receipt from Lakewood, Cerritos or Stonewood Center malls including Costco Lakewood and Costco Gas (an ANY mall property in Lakewood… Best Buy, Home Depot, Restaurant Row… the restaurants on Candlewood between Clark and Lakewood). We get money just for turning in the receipts! If you write your name on the receipts, Mrs. Kris Williamson will even get them returned to you.

Fresh and Easy Shopping Night is coming up on Thursday, November 17^th from 4pm-8pm. If you would like to volunteer to help that evening, please contact Mrs. Kris Williamson. Turn in your Fresh and Easy receipts (from ANY fresh and easy) to the box in the kindergarten hallway and we will get $1 for every $20 on the same receipt! In order to qualify each turned in receipt must be at least $20.

Trunk or Treat Chair, Mrs. Heather Peterson, gave an update on our Halloween Family Night. So far we have 11 trunk sponsors. The donation boxes at your child’s classroom and in the halls are to collect candy, treats, stickers, pretzels, pencils and such that will be divided among the trunk sponsors and passed out to the costumed trick or treaters. There will be a pre carved pumpkin contest (bring your carved pumpkin to the cafeteria where voting will determine the winners), a maze sponsored by the Booth Family, a movie (Monsters VS Aliens) shown on the grass and lots of family fun.

Guest Speaker Mrs. Jill Rubinelli shared her experience hosting Foreign Exchange Students from Europe. She is coordinating 14-16 year old, english language experienced, students from China that will be visiting from January 11-18. For more information on the rewarding experience of hosting a foreign exchange student please contact us.

Guest speaker from Cardraising.com came to tell us about a fundraiser that we will be participating in this winter. It’s all different types of custom holiday cards. Orders will be placed and accepted online between November 1^st and December 10th. We literally do no work. They take care of all the advertising and marketing and we make 30%! Woot

A slideshow of photos from last month’s events was shown. We’ll be showing slides shows at the monthly association meetings. Come, see the pics, make your voice heard and check out all that’s happening with your Emerson PTA! We are so glad to have your ideas, resources and support!

Back to School Bash

Friday, September 30, 2011 Emerson PTA brought you the 2nd Annual Back to School Bash. Emerson friends and families got together to celebrate the beginning of the school year with a great party. There were informational and vendor booths, food, fun and games. After an amazing sunset and braving a few drops of rain, we watched Rio on the grass.

Great Participation!

Lots of cool booths lined the grass

Emerson Eagles enjoying the bash!

Gunny Sack Races, Find The Worm games, Hula Hoop Contest and Movie on the grass!

 Join PTA today! Your active membership and support is welcomed and appreciated! Special Thanks to Back to School Bash Chair, Mrs. Wendy Cuellar and all who donated their time, supplies, funds and great attitudes to make the bash such a success!

Book Exchange Fridays

Bring a Book, Get a Book! Emerson PTA is making Fridays EVEN COOLER! From 3pm-4pm, Book Exchange Fridays give you an opportunity to recycle your reading! Students may bring up to three (3) books to trade for another book.

You can choose to keep the book forever or trade it for a different one on another week. See you on Friday!