PTSA Contributions to Stillwater 2015-2016
What are we fundraising for?
Thanks to your donations, the PTSA at Stillwater has been able to provide support in so many areas this year! We wanted to spread the word about our efforts this year to help everyone understand what we do at Stillwater and why we fundraise. Here is a list of SOME of our contributions at Stillwater this year. Additional details on some of the larger accomplishments can be found below the bullet points if you scroll down.
- Field Trips: The PTSA gives Stillwater $4,000 each year to help fund field trips for ALL grades
- Library Enrichment: The PTSA gives Stillwater $1,000 each year for library enrichment. The PTSA also holds a social event during the Book Fair to help draw in more business to the Book Fair. All of these funds are crucial for the library being able to purchase new books.
- PE Enrichment: The PTSA gives Stillwater $1,000 each year for PE. In addition, the PTSA applied for and received a grant this year to replace some broken PE equipment, see below for more details.
- Music Enrichment: The PTSA gives Stillwater $1,000 each year for music enrichment.
- All Arts Day: The PTSA gives Stillwater $1,000 each year to help cover the costs of All Arts Day.
- Assemblies: The PTSA gives Stillwater $500 each year to help with assemblies cost. Stillwater used the funds this year to have the Candy Lady come to STEM Night.
- Classroom Gifts: The PTSA gives Stillwater $1,425 to use as their discretion for needed expenses that come up in the classrooms or school.
- Scholarships: The PTSA gives $800 to the Sno-Valley Scholarship fund to provide college scholarships to previous Stillwater students.
- Kinder Playdate: The PTSA spent $66.33 this year to hold a Kinder Playdate in the fall where all new kindergarteners were invited to come to the playground before meet the teacher and get to know their new classmates.
- Teacher and School Grants: The PTSA awarded 5 staff grants this year for a total of $3,309.35, see below for more details.
- Safety Patrol Recognition: The PTSA provides Stillwater with $500 to recognize the efforts of the safety patrol students at the end of the year.
- Art Docent Expenses: Not only does the PTSA maintain the curriculum for art docent and secure and train the volunteers who teach the lessons, but we also purchase all the supplies. This program costs $4,000 a year to run.
- Kiln: The PTSA and Stillwater administration have been hard at work trying to bring a kiln to Stillwater. The PTSA gave Stillwater $6,000 this year to help start the process, see below for more details.
- Reflections: The PTSA administers this nationwide art contest at Stillwater each year.
- Talent Show: The PTSA runs the talent show at Stillwater with the help of a sound engineer volunteer, who for many years was the amazing Brian Pattinson and his wife, Jane Pattinson.
- The Dance Guy: The ever so popular “Dance Guy” who comes to Stillwater for a week to teach kids dance moves during their specialist hour costs the PTSA $2,000 a year.
- Back to School BBQ, Santa Bingo and the Dance were all social events that the PTSA powered this year.
- Legislative Assembly: The PTSA’s legislative chair attended legislative assembly in Olympia in October to give Stillwater a voice.
- Playground Equipment: The PTSA purchased 3 new pieces of playground equipment for $8,507.31, see below for more details.
- Staff Luncheon: The PTSA provided lunch to the Stillwater staff at the start of the year.
- Yearbook: The PTSA makes the yearbook at Stillwater Elementary.
- Staff Appreciation: The PTSA coordinates the festivities that surround Staff Appreciation Week at Stillwater.
- Dads and Donuts, Moms and Me: The PTSA plans and runs these two free events.
- Girls on the Run: The PTSA provides Stillwater $100 for the Girls on the Run club.
- Random Acts of Kindness: The PTSA provides Stillwater $100 for them to use during their promotion of Random Acts of Kindness Week.
Additional details for some of the items listed above.
The PTSA applied for two grants from other organizations to support action items at Stillwater. We applied for and received a Coca-Cola Health and Wellness grant for $480 to replace foam stilts Mr. Hammons uses in PE lessons.
PTSA also applied for a Riverview Education Foundation (REF) grant to purchase a kiln for Stillwater. We are the only school in the district without one. We were approved for a grant in the amount of $3,623 to cover the cost of the kiln itself and its venting system. The kiln installation plan is still being analyzed at a district level. The PTSA gave Stillwater $6,000 to start the installation planning process. Hopefully we will have more details to share before the end of the school year. Stay tuned!
The PTSA was also approved by the district to purchase 3 NEW pieces of playground equipment costing $8,507.31. We utilized the Education Assistants (who are out on the playground at recess) to determine which pieces of equipment to purchase. We purchased a 4’ rock wall, 3 piece chin-up bar (varying heights) and a sky climber. The playground equipment was delivered May 6th and will be installed by the district over the summer for use in Fall of 2016.
The PTSA awarded 5 staff grants this year, for a total amount of $3,309.35. We had 2 grants for technology items: 15 left-handed mice for the computer lab and 2 Netbook computers for Ms. Arnold’s class. We had 1 grant for our school counselor, which allowed her to purchase self-esteem and challenge handling curriculum geared towards boys. Another grant was for the kindergarten team to purchase Phonics Blast materials for the 3rd kindergarten classroom that was added this year. Lastly, we had a grant for the 2nd grade classrooms to purchase curriculum materials geared towards the tactical learning needs of the special education students.
There are a few other items we want to help Stillwater acquire this year, but it all depends on the success of the Hawk Walk. These items include:
- Repairing and replacing the broken items on the kindergarten playground structure
- Replacing the worn metal netting on the horseshoe shaped red miracle climber on the larger playground
- A “Gaga” octagon pit for the playground
- Junior Robotics starter kits to bring a robotics/coding class to the Stillwater enrichment program
