Doss Elementary PTA

Dear Doss families:

Summer is finally here! I hope everyone enjoys fun and safe travel. If you are not going anywhere, I hope you enjoy the more relaxed pace that summertime affords. I look forward to working with so many wonderful volunteers at Doss next year. So many of you give so much of your time and energies to our school, which is why our Doss community is the place that it is!

Thank you to all that have already volunteered to chair or work on committees for the 2008-2009 school year. We are still looking for volunteers to help with the following committees: Math Pentathlon, Playground Monitoring, Safety, Website and Yearbook.

Think about it! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me over the summer.

Michele Brocato - mbrocato@swbell.net

To see the current PTA Committee Chair listing for 2008-09 >> Click here

Dear Doss Families,

Some of you may already know our family and others of you may have seen us around school now and then. My husband, Kurt, and I have two children at Doss. Daniel is a first grader, and Tessa is in Kindergarten. If you don’t know us and have seen us around, you may have been curious, since Kurt gets around these days in a fancy new power wheelchair. He has ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and was diagnosed at just about the same time last year that Daniel started Kindergarten. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Since it is progressive, patients continue to lose the ability to control their muscles, the muscles die, and total paralysis sets in. Researchers aren’t sure why, but military veterans (Kurt is a graduate of the Naval Academy and served during the first Iraqi war) are twice as likely to fall victim to ALS. It’s a rare disease, and at the moment, there is no known cause, treatment or cure. That’s what we’re hoping to change!!!

As you can imagine, it’s been a tough couple of years for us. However, we are filled with gratitude for our many blessings, one of which is our family being part of this wonderful school community. In addition, we have an unbelievable support system of friends and family. A group of determined friends have organized a benefit, honoring Kurt, to raise funds for research, start a scholarship fund for Daniel and Tessa, as well as increase public awareness to help fight this terrible disease. I am writing to spread the word and invite you to come out and join us on Father’s Day, June 15th, at the Dell JCAA, for the first annual Dawn-to-Dusk Swim Relay. Kurt has always been a passionate swimmer and continues to swim for therapy whenever he can. Please see the flyer below for details. If you would like to be involved, please come out and join us for the celebration between 11 and 1. You can also sponsor a swimmer, make a tax deductible donation or find out more by going to the website: www.dawntoduskrelay.com

The organizers’ contact info is on the flyer (click here to download the flyer), but also feel free to call or e-mail me with any questions. We will have some fun activities for the kids, so please try to stop by and say hello on the day of the event.

Looking forward to seeing those of you who can come out on Father’s Day and also getting to know more of you over the years to come.

With gratitude,
Brenda Holliday Goeser

For the week of June 2 - June 4

Monday, June 2
* 2:30-3:15pm Yearbook sale (lobby)
Tuesday, June 3
* 11:30-12:30pm Kindergarten Party (blacktop)
* 1:30-2:30pm 3rd Grade Party (cafeteria and playground)
* 2:30-3:15pm Yearbook sale (lobby)
Wednesday, June 4
Graduation and Party Schedule:
* 8:30-9:30am 5th Grade Graduation
* 11:00-2:00pm 5th Grade Party (Westover Club)
* 1:30-2:30pm 4th Grade Party (track)
* 1:30-2:30pm 2nd Grade Party (library)
* 1:40-2:40pm 1st Grade Party (blacktop)

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! (Casa Chapala Day)
HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY SUMMER.

Doss Yearbooks:
Yearbooks will be on sale Monday, June 2nd and Tuesday, June 3rd from 2:30-3:15pm in the front lobby.
Volunteers Needed for 5th Grade Graduation:
We need volunteers to help with the 5th Grade Graduation on Wednesday, June 4th at 9:00ish (exact time TBA).  Volunteers are needed to help with set-up and serving cake and lemonade.  If you can help, please contact Hospitality Chair, Sheri Terrell at sbterrell@yahoo.com.

We have a new online tool for reviewing student progress on AR (Accelerated Reader).

Click here to go to Home Connect, use the student ID and password to login

Home Connect will allow you to see the following:

• AR progress for the reporting period, or for the whole year
• Virtual bookcase with covers of all the AR books your student has read since they have been at Doss
• Number of words read (based on AR books read and quiz passed)
• Vocabulary achievements (for separate vocabulary quizzes taken)

Interested in using this tool to review AR progress, instead of a weekly summary in the Wednesday folder? Send an email to the website administrator and we’ll see if there is enough interest to pursue this option.

The Yearbook Committee is no longer taking orders.  If you did not pre-purchase a yearbook and would like to buy one, you may purchase a yearbook after school on Monday, June 2nd or Tuesday, June 3rd from 2:30-3:15pm in the front lobby.

Yearbooks will be distributed on Friday, May 30th in the morning.

email Cathylynn at: cathylynnbrown@hotmail.com

Click Here to open the latest edition of The Hoot, our Doss PTA newsletter. This newsletter will go home to parents as a paper copy in the Wednesday folder on May 21st.

This will be the final edition of The Hoot for this school year. Many thanks to Stacy Erb and Tina Sutton for editing, publishing and distributing The Hoot this year!

Dear Ms. Seibert,
I want to thank you and your Girl Scout Troop and all the girls’ parents very much for all the donations they gathered to take to the Burma refugees.  I picked up what I believe to be the last of the items at Doss today.  I can see why some of the items looked strange to you, like the two drawers and the television remote, but these actually complete a very generous gift from the Hands.  They were in a bit of a hurry to get to lessons and so forth on the day we took their donations to the Burmese, and in moving a large and very nice entertainment center, and a very big TV (along with about 15 new backpacks and many other misc. items), the two drawers and remote got left behind.  By the way, when the backpacks arrived, there was a crowd of kids, and everyone knew what everyone else did and didn’t have yet, so passing them out to the ones who still needed a backpack took only a few minutes.  They liked meeting Mrs. Hand, and thought she was very pretty.
Another family which made a large single donation was the Hernandez family.  The dad arrived at the apartment complex himself with a whole truckload of stuff, including a bed, and about 10 or so of the refugees got to meet him.  They dived right into what he brought before it had all even hit the pavement.
All of the collected items have found homes.  Things which may look quite plain or even unattractive to some of us are greatly needed by others who have little or nothing.  I do not recall any item of clothing which was not chosen by someone within a short time of its arrival at the apartment complex in which these Burma refugees live.  The shoes were especially appreciated, because of course their kids’ feet grow as fast as our kids’ feet!
If anyone finds that they have some things they do not want as they do their spring cleaning, and they seem to be useful things, they can contact me by any of the means listed below.  I can take their items over to the Burma refugees for them, or, for added fun and broadening of their daughters’ worldview, they and their daughters can meet me there and be introduced.  I also help three families from Burundi, which is  in central Africa, if they want even more fun.
Any girl who is working toward a related badge and needs a signature for her troop leader that she participated in this drive can just let me know and I’ll sign off.  Any Murchison or Anderson student who helped with this drive and needs a signature on their IB community hours card can also just tell me so and tell me how much time to sign off on.

THANKS AGAIN FOR EVERYTHING!!!

Best regards,

Elaine Allan
Girl Scout First Class
(former Doss parent/current Murchison parent)
borntohelp@earthlink.net     h821-2636      c750-7730

Girl Scout Troops 1259 and 2094 are planning 2 community service projects May 21 - 23 which will benefit the Doss and TA Brown libraries.

BOOK DRIVE
A book drive to collect new or gently used children’s books is scheduled for May 21 -23. These books will be donated to the TA Brown Library for use in their Summer Reading Program. Collection boxes will be located in front of the school office.

LEMONADE, POPSICLE, & BROWNIE SALE
The Girl Scouts will hold a sale each afternoon May 21 - 23 from 3:00 - 3:30 p.m. to raise money to purchase a set of new Bluebonnet Books for the Doss Library. Our goal is to raise $400 during the 3 days of the sale. Each item will cost 50 cents. Do something “sweet” for the Doss Library: stop by and join us for an after-school snack on one (or all!) of the following days:

Wednesday, May 21: outside Doss cafeteria
Thursday, May 22: amphitheater
Friday, May 23: outside Doss cafeteria

For more information contact Jill Martin Seibert at 349-7471 (Troop 2094) or Jill Moore (Troop 1259) at 965-3023.

Parents,

We wanted to let you know what to expect for the June 4th, 2008 - 5th Grade Graduation.  The format for the day will look like this:

8:30-9:30    Graduation Ceremony in the Cafeteria
(Please have kids wear nicer clothing for the ceremony)

9:30-10    Students “Walk the Halls” (a time honored 5th grade tradition) and return to the patio outside the cafeteria to have cake and punch with parents.

11-2   Swim Party at Westover Hills Club

• Please have your children bring a bathing suit, shorts, t-shirt, sunscreen and towel. Lunch, snacks and drinks will be provided for the graduates.  Lifeguards will be on duty.  Parent volunteers have already been solicited to drive students to and from the party.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!
If questions, email Jennifer Burrows (Jennifer_burrows_2000@yahoo.com) or Alicia Doak (adoak@austin.rr.com).