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FAIRMOUNT FOCUS EXECUTIVE BOARD For additional coordinator info, FAIRMOUNT ELEMENTARY GROCERY A big thank-you to everyone who purchased or reloaded their grocery cards in August.
A $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble goes to our first winner of the school year: Keep using those cards! Each time you reload, you earn money for your PTA and for your school fees. In August, the Fairmount PTA earned $3,650 from your reloads! That's 23% toward our goal of $15,700!
Thank you to
A BIG THANK-YOU TO: Jessica Nauslar, Becky Asbury, Emily Cranford, Sage Crowe, Molly Given, Kristina Klug, Tammy Maleckas, Angie Parsons, Laura Warren, and Kim Wheeler and the BBQ/Fall Festival and Silent Auction Volunteers — Thank you for all of your dedication and hard work this year to make the BBQ/Fall Festival and Silent Auction such a success! It is such a fun time for Fairmount families, and we appreciate everything you did to pull this night together. Joel Raths and his team of parkers for handling all the parking at the BBQ. Kendra Mauger for arranging for all the great food that was served to the teachers the week before school started. All of the Fairmount Staff for all of your help, patience, and support with PTA activities. We could not do anything without your help—thank you!!
CLINIC Happy Fall, everyone! —As you may all be aware (or have found out the hard way!), Jeffco is now requiring a doctor’s signature on ALL medications in the Clinic, INCLUDING OVER-THE-COUNTER (e.g., Ibuprofen, Tylenol, allergy meds, cough drops). Print the Medication Agreement Form from the Fairmount Elementary website, or swing by and get one from me. —If you have a 6th grader, please be sure he or she is up to date on Tdap immunizations! —Donations needed for the clinic: new underwear for older sizes 10/12; small, unused cosmetic pouches (Dollar Tree, Ipsy, etc.) Thank you!
The monthly lunch menucan now be accessed from the Fairmount Elementary website under the Parents tab. It is an interactive menu where you can view the nutritional value of each item and identify dietary restrictions for your child. This year the a la carte snack program at lunch will be offered to all grade levels. All snacks meet federal guidelines. Please talk to your child about how often you would like him or her to participate. If you would like to exclude your child from participating in the snack program, you can email me at lalton@jeffco.k12.co.usand I can privately flag your child’s account. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like further information. Please stop in the kitchen or call me at 303.982.5393 and I will be happy to help you. Thank you! STATE: For the latest on ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), read more and access additional links here . . .
Fairmount's Annual Student/Parent Breakfast Come spend some quality time with your children and have breakfast at school with us on Friday, November 18th, 7:00–8:30 a.m. Enjoy Santiago’s burritos, pancakes hot off the griddle, OJ, milk, and fresh, hot coffee! This event is for Fairmount students only and 1 parent/guardian (suggested $3/person donation at the door). Look for the RSVP flyer coming home in Friday folders in October, and return it to the office by November 14th.
Dates to Remember OCT. 4: PTA meeting, 3:45, Library
| INSIDE THIS ISSUE: PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE Wow! It’s hard to believe that we are almost through the first trimester of the year. I am very thankful to our dedicated staff, who have been working very diligently since August.
Class of 2029 Our kindergartners are the Class of 2029! We participated in the Arvada Harvest Festival Parade with the other Arvada West elementary schools. It was a beautiful day, and our kiddos made it the whole route! They had a wonderful time passing out candy to the spectators and perhaps keeping a piece or two for themselves! Thanks to all the parents who joined us. Assessments and School Goals We are off to a fantastic start to the new year! Teachers have spent the first few weeks of the year getting to know all of our students and gathering assessment data so that effective instruction can be planned. All of this information will be shared with parents at our October conferences. If you have not signed up for an appointment, please contact your child’s teacher. We also have analyzed last year’s CMAS data. Achievement at Fairmount continues to lead the area, district, and state in almost all content areas and in all grades. We have two school goals this year. One is to increase math growth for our students, and the other is to increase the number of our students who reach benchmark on the DIBELS end-of-year assessment. Teachers who teach math will set their Individual Educator Goals around math instruction for their students. Other staff members, such as our school psychologist and Art, Music, and PE teachers, set goals that best represent their work with students. Goals for Mr. White, our Assistant Principal, Mrs. Nickerson, our Instructional Coach, and me are directly tied to the teachers’ goals. As always, if you have a question, comment, or suggestion, please call the office, stop by, or email me at smills@jeffco.k12.co.us.
September 23rd wasthe night of the Fairmount BBQ & Fall Festival. The weather was great despite some crazy winds. Over 800 meal tickets were sold for the BBQ. Frank’s BBQ handled these record numbers in stride, saying, “Even though not as many tickets were presold as in previous years, the Fairmount crowd always shows up.†The lines were a bit longer than in the past because of this. After eating that delicious BBQ meal, many took to the treats of the festival. The always-popular cotton candy and sno-kones were there thanks to the donation from parent Scott Bauer of Butcher’s Bistro. Rose’s Creamery returned from last year with their awesome ice cream varieties and once again made a generous donation to the festival. A new addition for the sweet tooth in us was Sugar Lips Donuts food truck. This year’s festival took on a county fair theme, which brought on some new and fun attractions, like the kids’ pie-eating contest with candy medals, a pig pong game, and of course a petting zoo. And what county fair is complete without a place to enter your baked pie to be judged? This family-friendly competition was well re The cake walk had over 550 students dancing around the numbers for a chance at winning a baked treat. And of course big thanks go to the over 20 people who donated the yummy treats and a big shout-out to grandparent Bill Light at King Soopers for donating over 20 more. As if there wasn’t already enough to do with the grub and attractions, some just chose to hang out on their chairs or blankets and listen to the fabulous choir perform. Awesome job to those kids and to Mr. DeWinkle! Then the dancing began as DJ Drake played great tunes. There was sure a lot of moovin’ and groovin’ on the dance floor as the light towers donated from Arvada Rent-All went on like spotlights! A big thank-you to parents Brett Haigler and Eric Crowe for getting them transported and set up! It is pretty special that this large of a representation of the Fairmount community can all come together at this one time every year and have a great time creating lasting memories. Great job to Mrs. Goad’s class of parent volunteers who won the free attraction wristbands, and great job to Mrs. Lozano’s class who was one volunteer short from tying them. As for all of those who volunteered your precious time the night of the BBQ, thank you, thank you! This is a really huge event, and it could not have gone so well, or at all for that matter, without you. Please call or email me with any questions or concerns you may have. Also, please send feedback my way, good and bad; this will only help it be even better for everyone next year. —Jessica Nauslar (414.405.2027) (jnauslar@yahoo.com) Also a ginormous thank-you to this super awesome Fall Festival committee! Their dedication to making this the best festival yet obviously paid off: SILENT AUCTION Thank you to all donors, coordinators, volunteers, and bidders who participated in this year's auction!! It was a great success, and we raised nearly twice our goal with over $13,000 in earnings. The monies raised will help our school by contributing to the purchase of 60 Chromebooks, a shaded sandpit for our playground, and the continuing support we provide the school and classrooms throughout the year. Goal excesses are being earmarked to use toward sidewalk and parking improvements. If you won any items that you were not able to pay for and pick up the night of the auction, you should have received an "invoice" via e-mail. You can pay on the PTA website via credit card and bring your paid receipt into the office to pick up your items. Otherwise, bring the unpaid receipt into the office with your payment. We will notify the faculty of any school-related winners like teacher dates and front row seats, so no need to stop at school for those "items" unless you don't wish to pay with a credit card. We welcome any questions and feedback about this year's event! NEWS FROM THE LMC Hello! My name is Andi Johnson and this is my 2nd year as the Digital Teacher Librarian (DTL) here at Fairmount. Digital represents my role in helping integrate technology into instruction, Teacher reflects my teaching role, and Librarian means I still manage the library’s resources, both print and digital. This is my 18th year working in Jeffco school libraries, all here in the north area. Helping students use tech tools to enhance their learning as well as fostering a love of reading, an important key to being a lifelong learner, are two of my passions. I also get to work with ALL students in grades K–6. I'm a lucky gal!
The Annual Scholastic Book Fair is Coming! We will be open during conferences Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so please stop by! All students will visit the book fair and complete a wish list on Friday or Monday. Parents are under no obligation to purchase the books on the wish list or otherwise. If you are interested in volunteering to help during this week, please sign up here or email me at andjohns@jeffco.k12.co.us. MORE CHROMEBOOKS—Thanks to the Fairmount PTA and our school technology budget, we now have 180 Chromebooks and 6 charging carts! Students in grades 2–6 have learned how to use them. Read more . . .
YEARBOOKS Yearbook packages and individual items Check the Fairmount PTA website to see if you have already purchased your yearbook(s) by Clicking Home, Previous Orders at the top right of screen, Order Number. Click here to see a list of packages and individual items!
PTA HAPPENINGS Welcome back! We hope you had a great summer and are back into the groove of things at school. We have lots to accomplish this year, but the PTA is excited about the year ahead. Please see below for the programs, events, and other support that our PTA is able to provide to our students with your help.
As the new school year begins, we would once again ask for your support so that we can continue making resources and learning opportunities available to our students. One way to support the work that we do as a PTA is by simply joining our membership ranks. Annual membership is only $10/member and includes a free copy of the school directory! Please sign up for your membership on our PTA website at www.FairmountPTA.org. In addition to being able to join the PTA, you will also be able to purchase Fairmount Spirit Apparel as well as tickets to various events held throughout the year, volunteer to help with our many activities and fundraising efforts listed above, keep up-to-date with important PTA happenings such as meetings, monthly PTA newsletters, and National/Colorado/JeffCo legislative educational updates and more! Happy Halloween! Programs & Events to Watch For: PTA Meeting: Our next PTA meeting is Tuesday, October 4th in the library at 3:45 p.m. We will be voting on whether to support 3A & 3B. Childcare is provided. Please join us; we would love to see you there! Book Cart: The PTA-sponsored Book Cart Program has started. Please be on the lookout for books coming home with your kindergartner, 1st grader, or 2nd grader. This is a daily program run by parent volunteers to help support your child's reading success. If you have questions or would like to volunteer your time with this awesome program, please contact Maria King at maria_l_king@yahoo.com.
Moo-La! Thank you to those families who have contributed to the success of our partnership with Longmont Dairy for the “Milk Caps for Moo-la†program—we receive 5 cents for every cap we collect! Last school year, we collected 10,355 caps, raising $517.75 for our school! With your support, over the last three school years we have collected 27,618 caps, raising more than $1,870 for our school! How can you help if you aren’t already participating? Simply start saving Longmont Dairy product caps if you already have products delivered to your home (or sign up with Longmont Dairy if you wish to be part of their delivery program http://www.longmontdairy.com/sign-up.php). Collect caps from family, friends, and neighbors too! Clean caps should be placed in bags with the student’s name, grade, and number of caps enclosed written on the outside of the bag. Please place bags of caps in the “Milk Caps for Moo-la†container right inside the main entrance of our school. Our Fairmount PTA sponsors the monthly prize drawing for students who have collected and contributed caps. To compete in the monthly drawing, students must place caps in the collection container by the last school day of the month. The monthly winner is then revealed the next week during the morning announcements. “Moo-la†monthly winners each receive a $5 gift certificate to Little Caesars Pizza. FOR OCTOBER ONLY . . . Longmont Dairy has come up with another easy way to help Fairmount earn more money. We currently earn 5 cents for every product cap we collect. From now until the end of October 2016, our school will receive $20 for every new customer who signs up for delivery service and designates "Fairmount Elementary" upon registration. If ten families sign-up, that’s $200 for our school--it would take 4,000 caps to equal that! For more info from Longmont Dairy, click here. To register call 303-776-8466 or visit https://secure.longmontdairy.com/Signup/Address. Be sure to indicate "School Fundraiser" and "Fairmount Elementary" when signing up online or by phone. Feel free to contact the Fairmount “Moo-La†parent volunteer, Kim Wheeler, afwheels@earthlink.net, with any questions you may have.
ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE REPORT The Accountability Committee met on Thursday evening, September 15, 2016. As Sally Mills was unable to attend, Ross White graciously presented the Principal’s Report. He started with an update on the lead testing that was done on every water source in the county’s public schools. Two classroom water sources at Fairmount were identified as having unacceptable lead levels, and these were shut down. They will be replaced and then retested. The Committee will be updated on this issue. Fairmount has received its Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) test results. These tests align with the common core and are more rigorous. Fairmount scores for both Math and English Language Arts were higher than the district, county, and state averages. These test scores are also used for creating the school’s Unified Improvement Plan and helping teachers define goals within their classrooms and grade levels. Teachers are continually working to align curriculum and testing as well as focusing on growth and individual interventions. For info about the Jeffco Family-School Partnership Survey, click here. Molly Given discussed the Ballot Initiatives 3A and 3B. The Jeffco Facilities Plans are on hold until they know if 3A and 3B pass. The mill levy override is for $33 million, and the bond requests $535 million. For more details, click here . . . The next meeting will be held on Thursday, November 17th, at 5:30 p.m. in the LMC. All parents are invited and encouraged to attend. |
Fairmount Elementary PTA | |
Please contact Stacy Atkins, 
Thanks to the custodial help too—Frank, Roz, andVijana—who went above and beyond helping set up and stayed late in the evening cleaning up. Thank you, Joel Raths, for managing the parking with the crazy-large crowds. That is a tough job, but you do a great job! Thanks to parent Tandi Donaldson at Sugar Bugs Pediatric Dentistry for sponsoring the photo booth again this year and paren
