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President’s Message

January 2014 Volume11, Issue 3

Frisco Independent School District Council of PTAs

Happy 2014! It is going to be a great year. This time of year is a great time to get re-focused on “why we do what we do” and our PTA. I would like to bring our focus back to our shared PTA Mission statement:

PTA Mission:

To make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to

advocate for all children. And our shared Purposes of PTA:

To promote the welfare of children and youth in home, school, community and place of worship;

To raise the standards of home life;

To secure adequate laws for the care and protec-tion of children and youth;

To bring into closer relation the home and the school, that parents and teachers may cooperate intelligently in the education of children and youth;

To develop between educators and the general public such united efforts as will secure for all chil-dren and youth the highest advantages in physical, mental, social and spiritual education.

Let us keep these in mind as we move forward into 2014. Always keeping the best interest of the students of Frisco ISD in our focus. Again, Happy 2014, I know it is going to be a great year for all of us. Susan Thomas President

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

President’s Message 1

Important dates 2

Texas PTA/Legislative news 3

Message from Dr. Lyon

4

Inside Frisco 5

FEF News 6

Frisco Environmental 7

Frisco Council SAGE 8

Local PTAs News 10

Local PTAs News contd. 11

Council Board info 15

Frisco ISD

Council of PTAs

is on Face book!

Like us and be

connected to re-

ceive updates

and news!

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2013-2014

EVENTS & MEETINGS Council Regular Meetings

January 21st-Council Meeting

CTE Center, 10:00 a.m.

**********************

Below Meetings are held in the

FISD Admin Bldg Training

Room, 10:00 a.m.

March 18th

May 20th

President’s Meetings

Below luncheons are held

in the FISD Admin Bldg

Training Room, 11:30 a.m.

February 18th

April 22nd

May 13th: Pass off lunch-

eon - CTE Center

School Board Meetings

FISD Admin Bldg Board

Room, 7:30 p.m.

June 17th

TEXAS PTA NEWS

February:

1st: Lifetime Membership Banquet (LMB) reser-vation and payment Forms to be available on FriscoISD Council of PTAs website.

7th-9th: TXPTA Family Engagement Conference, San Antonio TX

28th: LM nominee information due

March

21st: LMB reservations and payment due

April

11th: TXPTA Lifetime Membership Honoree Banquet. Loca-tion TBA.

May

3rd: Frisco ISD Night at the RoughRider Game!!!!

UP COMING Events

Join us to EXPLORE, DISCOVER, and IGNITE!

This way to ADVENTURE... We're headed to San Antonio for the 2014 Family Engagement Conference! Texas PTA knows that our vision of every child's potential becoming a reality can be achieved through strong volunteer support, effective advocacy and passionate family engagement! Join us February 7-9 for a weekend where we'll EXPLORE ideas to increase involvement on your campus, DISCOVER ways to strengthen your PTA, and IGNITE passion for PTA through-

out the school year!

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PTA LINKS

Legislative/ advocacy

Anyone notice the campaign signs popping up along the road?! The primary elections are just around the corner…are you registered, do you know the offices and candidates on the ballot? Although this is not a legislative year, there is always something going on. This is the time to get informed and get motivated about issues that will effect public education. Speaking of education….it is never too early to speak to your children about the legisla-tive process so this is also a great time to get them involved. Why you ask? Well here are some facts about our young voters: * 50% of eligible young voters (ages 18-29) cast a vote in 2012, amounting to 23 million votes. * 19% of all votes cast in 2012 came from young voters. * In 2012, 4% more young women voted than young men. * In 2012 the youth vote was the deciding factor for many battleground states. * Exposing students to civic education increases the chance of voting.

Here are some websites that will be posting updates and information about candidates, voting locations and voting deadlines! And remember to check the Texas PTA website for legislative priorities and updates.

Find out who currently represents you?

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx Vote Texas (check here for voter registration, early voting and voting day information)

http://www.votetexas.gov/ The League of Women Voters

http://www.lwvcollin.org/newsletter.html

The Texas Tribune http://www.texastribune.org/

For more information please contact: Debbie Gillespie legislative@friscopta.org

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s u P e r i n t e n d e n t ’ s M e s s a g e

Dr. Jeremy Lyon, FISD Super intendent

Dear Council of PTA members, Welcome back and happy 2014. This second semester is a busy one for all of us. I hope the two weeks off for winter break gave you time to enjoy your children, to talk to them about their hopes and dreams, and get rested up for the remainder of the school year. As we begin the new school semester, I would like to remind you that January is also School Board Recognition Month. I urge you to take this time to thank the elected officials who serve as your school board repre-

sentatives. They work very hard and are constantly striving to improve their knowledge of education and school policy. They are here to listen to your concerns, and they spend many hours volunteering to help make sure Frisco ISD remains one of the best public school districts in the state. Like you, they are not paid for their service and many of them have been PTA leaders! They deserve a moment of appreciation from all of us. By now, most of you know that I am committed to healthy lifestyles for our students and staff. As we all are facing this season of colds and flu, it is all the more important to en-courage each other to eat right, get enough exercise and to rest. One way to start the New Year off with a healthy plan is the upcoming Medical City Children’s Hospital 21-Day Challenge. Frisco ISD is encouraging students (and parents) to participate in this healthy eating program. Students who participate in the challenge will be able to access healthy snack tips on -line at www.kids-teaching-kids.com . The website will be a source of infor-mation and a place for keeping a log for the 21 days. Students and parents are also asked to fill out a survey a month after completing the challenge. The concept of eating healthy for 21-days is to build a new healthy habit. Some of you may remember this program be-ing discussed at an earlier council meeting. Many of the healthy snacks have been creat-ed by our own culinary arts students. This is a great way to create healthy eating habits, encourage your family to make snacks together, and stay healthy together. Don’t forget to register for this great program at www.kids-teaching-kids.com between Jan. 21 and 24. One of the other challenges for second semester is always testing. As I recently said in the Neighbors go section of the Dallas Morning News – our focus is on improving learning for all students. We have developed our own curriculum and our own measures of student progress so we do not rely solely on the state assessments. The testing schedule is a busy one in the second semester, however, and we know you want your children to do their best on the various assessments, which include STAAR/EOC, AP exams, and the ACT and SAT tests. These are all tools to help you and our teachers see how well your student is learning and identify areas where a student may need more focus. It is very important

that parents stay on top of the testing schedule and help students arrive on time, fed,

and ready to do their best. Please click on this link to see the entire testing sched-ule from all grades: Testing Calendar

It is going to be a great semester and a busy one. Hug your students and stay well. Sincerely,

Dr. Jeremy Lyon, superintendent

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FISD Night at the TEXAS LEGENDS -- JANUARY 24th

Come join the fun and see the Wester Orchestra performing the National Anthem and

Frisco High School Stars Drill Team performing during Prime Time!!

¨ Tickets are $10 each with 100% of the proceeds going to the Frisco Education Foundation!

¨ Limited number of tickets available for purchase at all FISD campuses and Administration Bldg.

¨ To purchase tickets on-line visit www.wepay.com/events/friscoisdnight

¨ Checks may be made payable to FEF.

Allison Miller Director, Frisco Education Foundation millera@friscoisd.org www.friscoeducationfoundation.org www.friscoisd.org http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frisco-Education-Foundation

INSIDE FRISCO ISD

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Events to Help Elementary School Parents Plan for College

Frisco ISD counselors will host a free program to help parents plan and save for their

child’s post secondary education. Two professional financial planners will present the

same program four different times during the 2013-2014 school year. The presentation is

geared toward the parents of elementary school-aged children.

Each session will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the training rooms at the Career and

Technical Education Center, 9889 Wade Boulevard.

Frisco ISD elementary schools have been divided according to their feeder patterns for

one of four presentation dates:

Parents are encouraged to attend the session designated for their child’s school, but are

also welcome to attend any of the other scheduled presentations.

For more information, contact your child's counselor or CTE Counselor Beth Jennings

at 469-633-6783.

INSIDE FRISCO ISD

Monday,

Feb 10, 2014

Monday,

Feb 24, 2014

Anderson

Ashley

Comstock

Elliott

Isbell

Mooneyham

Ogle

Sem

Sonntag

Tadlock

Taylor

Borchardt

Riddle

Boals

Carroll

Corbell

Fisher

Phillips

Pink

Purefoy

Robertson

Rogers

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Frisco Education Foundation Enhances Student Learning

Frisco ISD educators will have more tools and resources to support students in the classroom, thanks to several

grants from the Frisco Education Foundation.

FEF surprised teachers and staff members the week be-fore Thanksgiving Break, handing out a total of 35

grants for more than $58,000.

The annual Grants for Great Ideas! program invites edu-cators to propose a project and describe how it would benefit student achievement. The Frisco Education Foundation selects winning applications and provides

funds to make the ideas a reality.

Since 1999, the program has awarded more than

$388,000 to FISD educators.

“We finance projects or supplies that would not other-wise be funded by the District,” explained Foundation Board Member Velisse Williams. “It's heartwarming to see surprised educators and administrators accept these awards - all with gratitude - knowing the impact that

will be made in the lives of their students.”

Grants were awarded across the District in all subjects

and grade levels.

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Carton Recycling Frisco is GREENING IN THE NEW YEAR with a brand new opportunity to recycle …at

lunchtime! As of January 1, 2014, Frisco students are “officially” able to recycle their empty

milk and orange juice cartons in the cafeteria. Thanks to new sorting technology implement-ed by Progressive Waste at their Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), cartons will now be regu-

larly separated from the recycling waste stream and baled, to eventually undergo a special

recycling process. And the best part is, carton recycling has potential to nearly DOUBLE the

amount of recycling our schools produce each day! The more we recycle, the more we can help our schools save money on annual trash disposal costs!

Please note that although cartons are now recyclable at school, Frisco’s residential recycling

program is not yet ready to accept cartons. We are hoping that this status will change before the year is over!

For questions about carton recycling, contact your school’s Recycling Coordinator. To schedule an assembly visit

from Rufus the Recycling Dog to kick off carton recycling at your school, contact Molly Kinson at environmen-

tal@friscopta.org. Digital and printable flyers are available at www.friscopta.org/home/environmental.

Cafeteria Recycling Reminder

Is your cafeteria recycling program struggling? Do students, teachers and staff members have

trouble remembering what can and can not go in the big blue recycling bins? Are your recy-cling bins constantly contaminated with trash items? Having trouble finding volunteers to

monitor the trash and recycling bins at the end of each lunch? Don’t worry… help is on the

way!!

If you believe your cafeteria is in desperate need of a New Year’s Recycling Revamp, contact

Molly Kinson at environmental@friscopta.org today. Recycling Reminders flyers (digital and

printable) are available online at www.friscopta.org/home/environmental.

Shoe Drive

Since December, many schools have been collecting gently used shoe donations to benefit chil-

dren in need locally and across the country. With help from local non-profit organization Shoe

Bank, shoes from our students will travel all the way to the Pine Ridge and Redbud Reservations in South Dakota, to warm the feet of many children who live in one of the poorest areas of our

nation. We would like to extend a very special “thank-you” to several Frisco schools who have

planned a Reuse-A-Shoe drive this winter:

--Bledsoe Elementary --Isbell Elementary --Tadlock Elementary

--Corbell Elementary --Phillips Elementary --Cobb Middle School

--Curtsinger Elementary --Pink Elementary

To learn more about Shoe Bank and how you can help, visit www.shoebank.org. Interested in organizing a win-

ter shoe drive at your school? It can be very easy! Contact Molly Kinson at environmental@friscopta.org to get

started today.

Valentine’s Day Recycle Cell Phones Drive

Show your love for our planet Earth by recycling your cell phones! From February 10-21, Frisco students are encouraged to bring old cell phones, chargers, wiring and electronic

accessories to school for the Recycle Cell Phones Drive. All cell phones collected will be re-

cycled, with help from Frisco’s Environmental Services.

Residents are encouraged to factory reset cell phones (erase all personal data) before recy-

cling at school. To confirm whether or not your school plans to participate, contact your school’s Recycling Coor-

dinator and/or PTA Environmental Chair.

Frisco’s Environmental Services will deliver at least one 18”x24” poster to every school to help promote this drive.

For more information or to obtain digital and printable flyers, visit www.friscopta.org/home/environmental.

ENVIRONMENTAL

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Greetings! Happy New Year!

As we look into upcoming events for 2014, the Lifetime Membership Banquet will be here before we know it.

The following are the milestone dates:

February 1, 2014 - Reservation and Payment Forms to be available on FriscoISD Council of PTAs website.

February 28, 2014 - Photo and 1 paragraph description of your honoree due. Paragraph should be limited to 5-6 sentences and describe why the individual is being honored.

Photo must be jpg or png format so they can be edited and resized easily (no PDFs please)

Photo should be decent resolution. Very small files will be grainy when enlarged

Photo should be a "head shot"

March 21, 2014 - Reservations and Payment Due

April 11, 2014, 7:00 pm, - Lifetime Membership Banquet. Location to be determined

This is a very special and unique honor! Thank you for your dedication to rewarding these individuals who have

given so much to our students, families and schools!

Please forward any questions to Debbie Pasha, Membership Chair, FriscoISD Council of PTAs,

membership@friscopta.org

Lifetime Membership Banquet

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Reflections Contest Results WOW! What great participation we had this year in the

Reflections Program! This years’ theme is Believe-

Dream-Inspire. In history, the program has encouraged millions of students across the nation and in American

schools overseas to create works of Art. The Texas Re-

flections program has historically had the most partici-

pation of any PTA program.

The 2013-14 Reflections Art contest is complete at the

Local level and the winners are off to the State lev-

el. We had 362 Art pieces that were advanced to the District level and we have 20pieces that are moving on

to be included in the Texas State level competi-

tion. Congratulations to the following entries that will

be heading to State…

Photography

Primary: Nate Norton, Spears Elementary Intermediate: Tatum Dyer, Nichols Elementary Middle: Elizabeth Piper, Vandeventer Middle School Special Artist: Nathaniel Barnaik, Nichols Elementary Visual Arts Primary: Natalia Martinez, Borchardt Elementary Intermediate: Anusha Kashyapa, Elliott Elementary Middle: Sabrina Xin, Vandeventer Middle School Special Artist: Crystal Martinez, Hunt Middle School Literature

Primary: Gauri Binup, Riddle Elementary Intermediate:

Shreeya Madhavanur, Borchardt Elementary Middle:

Mikayla Durham, Vandeventer Middle School

High: Aarushi Aggarwal, Liberty High School Special Artist: Aliuddin Mohammed, Philips Elementary

REFLECTIONS

ARTS IN EDUCATION NEWS

Film Production Primary: Mithun Mahesh, Curtsinger Elementary

Intermediate: Savannah Oakland, Smith Elemen-

tary

Middle: Grace Monroe, Hunt Middle School

Dance Choreography

Intermediate: Sydney Hendricks, Boals Elementary

Musical Composition

Primary: Gauri Binup, Riddle Elementary

Intermediate: Cecelia Keating, Shawnee Trail Ele-

mentary Middle: Shree Balaji, Fowler Middle School

A HUGE congratulations to these students! I also

wanted to thank the Frisco ISD staff members and parents who encouraged and assisted these stu-

dents in their endeavors. Thank you to the many

volunteers and judges who assisted with this pro-

cess….we couldn’t have done it without you!

The following is a list of judges who volunteered their time and expertise to ensure that the most

qualified entries moved onto the State Level: Photography: Randy Harris, Mon-

ica Treadway @ TreadwayRealty, Lisa Levock @ Simply Jayne Photography; Visual Arts: Lee Nagel,

Tracy Moore @ Young Rembrandts; Litera-ture: Chris Carson @ Faithbridge Presbyterian

Church, Jennifer Cummings @ Frisco Public Library, Melissa Lenhardt; Film Production: Randy Harris

and Manesseh Ibanez; Dance Choreograhy: Allison Gutschlag @ Upcycle Gals, KrisKahle, Debo-rah Swaim @ Frisco Dance Force; Musical Composi-tion: the Managers and Staff at The School of Rock

Michelle Wilkins

Frisco ISD PTA Council Arts In Education Chairman

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ANDERSON ELEMENTARY

HAPPY NEW YEAR! To close 2013, the

Anderson PTA partnered with the Art De-partment to hold our first ART NIGHT & HOLIDAY BAZAAR. It was an amazing col-

laboration with our Community Members who provided entertainment and activities

for Anderson Families. A fantastic turn-out, families were able to order Square 1 Art, pur-

chase an array of Holiday gifts and bid on Silent Auction items in time for the Holidays.

In December we also were able to add an Author visit by Steve Colter "Cheesie Mack",

and the kids loved it! For 2014, we have al-ready had Reflection Awards on 01/13 and

Healthy Lifestyles is partnering with the PE Department on kids-teaching-kids.com and

planning Family Fitness Night. Programs will bring in HighTouch HighTech for all Grades (K-5th), Room Parents are already busy

working on Valentines and we are looking forward to Spirit Nights at a couple of our

favorite hot spots! The details for a Spring Fundraising event are in the works and we

are thrilled to share that Environmental will be breaking ground on the new school Gar-

den. Don't forget that Teacher appreciation is right around the corner too! One last

thing...THANK YOU to our Watch DOGS and Parent Volunteers who braved the cold and

helped get the kids to school safely after the

Ice storm. "LIKE" our facebook page

at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anderson-Elementary-PTA/435484773170282 and

check out our Website at http://www.anderson.my-pta.org/index.asp?PageID=0 for more on the

Anderson Elementary PTA.

BLEDSOE ELEMENTARY Happy New Year from Bledsoe Elemen-tary! We are excited to kick off January with the "Power of One" anti-bullying pro-gram on Jan. 21. The Power of One is a series of skits presented by actors who use boxes, colors, and masks to vividly portray what bullying is, what can be done about it, and how every child has the power of one, the power to report and deal with bullying when they see it. We love to read at Bledsoe and in Novem-ber thanks to Bledsoe students, parents and 84 volunteers including our wonder-ful Book Fair Chair, Lori Cook, our Book Fair put more books into the hand of our students than ever before. Parents helped to build our classroom libraries by pur-chasing 275 books for that purpose and students donated their change to pur-chase books for Children's Medical Cen-ter. A true highlight of our Book Fair was our guest reader program. The Literacy League included 16 community leaders reading in 28 classrooms on November 8. Among these leaders were school board members and former FISD Superinten-dent, Rick Reedy. Did you know that there are over 200 lan-guages spoken in North Texas? We love to find out how many are spoken in our Bledsoe families! Each Friday, we cele-brate Bledsoe's diversity through a Multi-cultural Minute during the Friday assem-bly. Students may dress in their country's attire and say "Good Morning Bledsoe, my name is _____", as well as teaching the oth-er students to say “hello and goodbye” in their native language. So far this year, we have learned about India, Ecuador, Russia, Philippines, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Local pta news

Click on a School’s name to connect to its PTA website

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CORBELL ELEMENTARY With the funds from our hugely successful fundraiser on Oct. 1

st,

Corbell PTA was able to purchase 30 mini iPads and cases, putting technology right into our students hands. We also provided 2,100 leveled reading books for grades K-2. Students were treated to the sight of our counselor, Kristin Ramsey, being ‘mummified’ with crepe paper at an assembly in Novem-ber. Mrs. Ramsey won the student vote during our book fair, which was themed ‘Reading Oasis.’ To the delight of everyone, she hopped off-stage with the help Principal Wehmeyer be-fore unwinding herself. Even with the icy weather in December, PTA managed to conduct a cookie exchange for the teachers and plan all the Winter Parties for the students. The ice may have canceled Merry Main Street, but we still got to hear the 4

th graders sing their holiday songs at our last

school assembly before Winter Break. Over the coming months, PTA will bring High Touch High Tech to our classrooms. Kids will become real scientists doing age appropriate, hands-on experiments. In February, grades 3-5 will participate in Shakespeare On the Go. All grades will see Dennis Lee. Mr. Lee is a ventriloquist who will present his ‘Army of One’ program, discussing the ten pillars of great character. Corbell students and staff are already crunching and munching their way into January with their new salad bar! Students viewed an instructional video on their first day back after Winter Break so they would be ready to use it appropriately. PTA members and parents are on duty every day dur-ing lunch for the first couple of weeks to act as guides. It has already been a great success, thanks to our Healthy Lifestyles committee and Corbell

administration.

COMSTOCK ELEMENTARY Comstock Elementary PTA has continued the 2013-2014 year in a growth pattern. From Box Top collections and spirit nights at local restau-rants, to our Boosterthon Fun Run, to a food drive for Frisco Family Services, to our Book Fair, Comstock PTA had a busy and successful fall sea-son. We are proud to report our membership numbers are over 250 and we qualified for the MARS award! Our families are not only ready to be involved as members, but are generous as well. Our kids and families raised over $25,000 for the PTA during Boosterthon, collected more than 2,000 lbs. of food and items for basic needs for FFS and gave gently used items for the pets at the Frisco Humane Society. The fall Book Fair was also very successful; as the PTA was able to contribute over $5,000 to the Comstock library for new books from Scholastic. Comstock PTA Programs also sponsored Dennis Lee’s “Army of One” program to teach our kids about making a difference.

Comstock PTA will re-ceive over $800 for col-lecting Box Top in the fall semester to be used for T-shirts to cheer on all of our students tak-ing STAAR test this spring.

PTA members decorat-ed cars for the Booster-thon Fun Run to show JKC spirit all around town. We decorated over 80 cars that day. PTA members opened the doors to the Reading Oasis Book Fair in October.

Local pta news

Click on a School’s name to connect to its PTA website

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ELLIOT ELEMENTARY

December kicked off at Elliott with a fantastic Program: Drum Café! This exciting program brings beautiful handmade African drums – enough for every student to play – and leads the entire group in amazing music-making, team-building, creativity-sparking, learning-enhancing, energy-promoting, and LOUD drum-ming! This program also develops social interac-tion, as the students are taught to be involved individually, as well as being a harmonious group. Fun and inspiring! Our wonderful Room Parents treated the stu-dents to class Winter Party celebrations before the Break. And parent volunteers donated doz-ens upon dozens of fabulous cookies, candies and other treats for the event the teachers espe-cially look forward to every year – the Teacher/Staff Cookie Exchange. Coming up this month is the WatchD.O.G.S. an-nual Chili Cook-Off, where dads come with their best chili recipes to compete for prizes and brag-ging rights. This is a fun family event, with our PTA providing extra Fritos, crackers, drinks and dessert for all of the families coming to sample all of the great varieties of chili. In the past we’ve had Cuban chili, Buffalo chili, Chicken chili, Chocolate chili and everything in between! It’s amazing how creative our Elliott dads are with their delicious chili! Also coming up in January will be the annual Hot Chocolate Bar hospitality event for teach-ers/staff. And for February, planning is in full swing as our volunteer Room Parents are pre-paring for the Valentine’s Day Party festivities.

PUREFOY ELEMENTARY

It is hard to believe we are half way through this school year! It has been a busy and exciting past few months at Purefoy! We were able to reach our fund-raising goal thanks to the generosity and support of our community partners and Purefoy families. Our students ran laps to raise money for an outdoor learning cen-ter that will have benches, tables, and an interactive sundial. Our students were welcomed back to school after the winter break with an al-ways entertaining and exciting perfor-mance by Dennis Lee who did his new show “Army of One”. The scientist from High touch High Tech are returning this month to lead the “Dig It” program for our kindergarten students and “Newton in a Nutshell” for our fourth grade students. The Purefoy PTA is also hosting Multi-Cultural Night where our families will trav-el around our cafeteria learning about the many cultures represented on our cam-pus.

ISBELL ELEMENTARY Exciting things are happening over at Isbell Elementary this year. Our fall Fun Run had 97 percent participation with our kids "flying" around the obstacle course as their favorite super heroes and raised over $40,000 for our school! Additionally, great things are coming in the Spring semester starting with an incredible program by Katie Greer, a former Intelligence Analyst, regarding In-ternet Safety in the Digital Age on Feb 6th and our Amazing Isbell Race on Feb 20th, an interactive family event aimed at broadening our students world horizons. There are many more things planned for Isbell Elementary and we can't wait for our parents and students to experience

Local pta news

Click on a School’s name to connect to its PTA website

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LIBERTY HIGHSCHOOL

Happy New Year 2014! We cannot

believe that the first semester of this

academic year is already over. Here’s

an update on the Liberty PTSA and its

activities for this school year so far.

General Membership meeting – Our first general membership meeting was held in September with Dr. Jeremy Lyon, as our featured speaker. Dr. Lyon spoke about Frisco ISD’s vision for the future and al-so addressed questions about the new Cowboys

deal, new school zoning and many other topics. Programs for the Students – The first program orga-nized for the students was during red ribbon week. We had “WhyFactor” come to the school and ad-dress the students on overcoming obstacles. Membership – We increased our membership this year by about 70% and have nearly 500 members, including students, parents, and over 90% of the fac-ulty. Campus Dads – We had our first Campus Dads pres-ence in the school on Friday, October 26

th, 2013. The

dads met and greeted students in the morning as they entered the building. The students were pleased to see dads on campus and were enthusias-tic in their response. We hope to have more dads helping us with this activity as the year goes by. SAGE – The SAGE committee worked with the LHS Campus Climate Committee and other students to celebrate White Ribbon Week, or National Inclusive Schools Week, from December 2nd to 6th. The "I Am Norm" campaign was presented to the students in an effort to change students' perception of "normal" and promote inclusion of all students regardless of disability, gender, socio-economic status, cultural heritage, language preference or other factors. We aimed to show that everyone is different and that different IS normal. The week included posters ask-ing students "Who is Norm?", white ribbons all over campus, pins handed out to students, a “Different is Normal” banner in the cafeteria for students to sign showing their support, "I am Norm" nametags distrib-uted during English classes on which students could identify something unique about themselves, and coverage on RHTV.

ROGERS ELEMENTARY

I.S. Rogers Elementary has had a very busy winter! We had an extremely successful”iRun for Rogers” fundraiser and after funding all our programs for the year, we were able to buy books for classroom libraries and rubbermaid lunchbox carts for each class-room. We were so lucky to have such an amazing Fundraising Chair as well as lots of generous Rogers families! Our “Reading Oasis” Book Fair was awe-some! We had Clifford greet kiddos dur-ing the week and put lots of books into the hands of our Rogers kids! Our Dads were also treated to a special event during Book Fair with “Breakfast with Dads”. Rogers’ Reflections event “Wild At Art” was an exciting day filled with art lessons and creativity! We more than doubled the number of kids in attendance and created some wonderful works of art. We hosted our Reflections Awards ceremony in De-cember with each artist receiving an award in recognition of their master-piece!! December brought many holiday festivi-ties including our Teacher Cookie Ex-change, Teacher Holiday lunch and our classroom Winter Parties. Rogers PTA is looking forward to an excit-ing Spring!

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Shawnee Trail Elementary

As we begin 2014, we take a moment to reflect on a very busy fall at Shawnee Trail. Our stu-dents did a fantastic job during the Boosterthon Fun Run. We went above and beyond surpas-sing our goal making it possible to fund signifi-cant technology improvements (iPads) for the classrooms at Shawnee Trail.

For every student who reached the $7 pledge per lap level, 5 meals were donated by Boosterthon’s give-back program High Five Meal Drive to the non-profit organization, Feeding America. With the support of our Shawnee Trail families, students were able to do-nate 250 meals to families in the Dallas/Fort Worth

area.

Our fall Scholastic book fair was a “Reading Oasis” as

we took A Journey Back to Ancient Egypt, our most

historic book fair ever. In addition to over $12,370 in

book sales, our students generously donated $260 to

All For Books, which bought books for the USO’s

United Through Reading Program. Total Minutes

Read in our Reading Contest 12,341.

Focus on 2014

February 20th “Getting Organized” Pre-sented by Patrice Dunn, FISD Parental Sup-port Coordinator. This program is fun, in-teractive, engaging and informative. Fami-lies learn strategies to use at home that will help children succeed at school. They will walk away with specific tools that can be implemented immediately! Our Room Parent Coordinator has been busy with the Valentine’s Party coming up. The room parents always go above and beyond to make sure that the kids have fun!

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C O U N C I L E X E C U T I V E B O A R D

President Susan Thomas President@friscopta.org

Aide to the President Marisol Randle AideToPresident@friscopta.org

Secretary Kathy Mecom Secretary@friscopta.org

Treasurer Susan Baker Treasurer@friscopta.org

Parliamentarian Kindra Strachan Parliamentarian@friscopta.org

Historian Melanie Crosby Historian@friscopta.org

Fundraising Cheryl Pembleton Fundraising@friscopta.org

Arts In Education Michelle Wilkins artsineducation@friscopta.org

Membership Debbie Pasha Membership@friscopta.org

Programs Liz Watkins Programs@friscopta.org

Environmental Molly Kinson Environmental@friscopta.org

Legislative Debbie Gillespie Legislative@friscopta.org

Inclusiveness Kristi Schaffer inclusiveness@friscopta.org

SAGE Lizeth LoCicero SAGE@friscopta.org

Training Anne McCausland Training@friscopta.org

Newsletter/Publicity Athirai Baskaran Newsletter@friscopta.org

Volunteers Ginger Tarbet Volunteers@friscopta.org

Technology Marcy O'Neill Technology@friscopta.org

Healthy Lifestyles Allison Gutschlag Healthylifestyles@friscopta.org

Watch D.O.G.S. J D Tomlin WatchDogs@friscopta.org

The Communicator is published by the Frisco Independent School District Council

of PTAs. The Communicator is distributed to FISD Principals, FISD PTA

Presidents,

Council Delegates, FISD Council of PTAs Board Members, FISD Administration

and Board of Trustees. The Communicator may be distributed to all FISD PTA

members.