Information from Leopold Elementary PFO for the week of September 3, 2013

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Hello Leopold Families! We are beginning another exciting school year. The PFO has been busy this summer and we are looking forward to sharing lots of great things with our Leopold community! Our kids will be welcomed back to school with new lockers in our halls for all grades. What a great improvement to our school.

Please be sure to follow us on Facebook where we post a lot of timely information, opportunities and pictures. https://www.facebook.com/LeopoldPFO

Our website is www.leopoldpfo.org has extensive information on all things Leopold, including an email signup and a blog with each of our emails posted. You can scan any of the QR codes on the doors at school for instant access to our newsletters too. Be sure to share this info with incoming kindergarten and other new families.


FREE MONEY FOR LEOPOLD- IT’S TRUE!
All all Leopold parents, grandparents, guardians, families, friends, etc. should go to https://givewith.target.com/ and search for Leopold using zip code 53713. You can VOTE for Leopold every three days until September 21. For every vote, Leopold gets $1 from Target! With more than 700 kids at our school, we should easily be able to earn more money than any other school in the Madison area! It’s easier than anything else we can do so click right now and come back to reading....


PFO BOARD
I would like to introduce our PFO Board for the 2013-14 school year:
Sara Dawkins / Jill Arnold - Vice President
Emily Royalty - Treasurer
Tanya Lettman-Shue - Secretary
Kris Aman - President

Many thanks to Paul Nazario, outgoing treasurer, for all he has done for the PFO and Leopold. Tanya and I will be done with our two-year terms at the end of this school year so if you might be interested in being on the PFO Board for next year, feel free to get in touch with us any time to learn more about these positions.


iPADS
The PFO is thrilled to announce that we have purchased 50 iPads for Leopold! Along with a charging cart and apps purchased by the school, we are excited to bring a new tool to teachers and classrooms, which should be in classrooms when school starts. Thanks to everyone who has supported our school and the PFO over the past several years to make this possible.

On Friday, we were notified that Leopold is the recipient of a $5,000 grant from the Berbee Technology Education Foundation to purchase additional iPads! Thank you to the TEF for this great opportunity!


GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER
This year the PFO will be hosting Get-to-Know Each Other nights for each grade. The PFO will provide dinner and each class will have a table to eat together so families can meet each other. The dates for each grade are below. Forms and RSVPs will be coming home this week. You can RSVP by responding to this email too. I just need to know the grade and how many are coming. 

September 10 - Kindergarten
September 17 - First Grade
September 24 - Second Grade
October 1 - Third Grade
*October 8 - all school open house*
October 15 - Fourth Grade
October 22 - Fifth Grade


FALL FEST

Over the past few years, our attendance and revenue for FunFest has been declining. Because of this, the PFO has decided to start a new event call Harvest Fest. Harvest Fest will be a great event for our Leopold community with a fall theme. We’ll keep some of our most popular FunFest events like the cakewalk, face painting and others, while adding fun new events like pumpkin decorating, fall activity demonstrations and fall treats! Watch for much more information to come. If you’d like to offer any ideas for this event, feel free to email me. Fall Fest will take place on October 19, from 1-4 pm.


NEW ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MR. BURKHOLDER
I would like to introduce Mat Thompson as our new Leopold Assistant Principal.  Mat has been with MMSD for 19 years, most recently working as a special education Program Support Teacher at both Leopold Elementary and Sherman Middle schools.  He has a wealth of knowledge in the area of special education and RtI and has accumulated a broad array of diverse experiences working as a classroom teacher, literacy consultant, professional developer, facilitator, coach, and data analyst. Mat is a National Board Certified Teacher and holds both a BS and an MS in special education and is currently pursuing an additional masters degree in Language Literacy.  Mat’s skills are well positioned to support our work in the coming year at Leopold.  Please join me in welcoming Mat as our new Assistant Principal!


PFO MEETING DATES
We have set the PFO meeting dates and topics for the year. We are excited to have staff members join us o talk about these important topics. DLI parent meetings will also piggy back on some of these. We meet the second Tuesday of each month at 7 pm in the library. Reminders will be sent out for each meeting. Interpreters and child care are available at each meeting. Here are the dates and topics planned:

September 10 and October 8: Get to Know Each Other Nights so those events will have a very brief PFO overview and update
November 12: iPads and Common Core Standards
December 10: TAG and Standardized Testing 
February 11: Art, Special Ed and Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)
March 11: Math and Science
April 8: PE / Music / Orchestra
May 13: School Garden


RESTAURANT FUNDRAISERS
Many thanks to Kylla Atkisson who planned some great restaurant fundraisers for us this year. For those restaurants that require a flyer for Leopold families to get credit, we’ll send those out shortly before each event and they will be available on the PFO blog as well. We have exciting new venues so be sure to dine with Leopold families on these dates:

Sept 17: Dairy Queen
Oct 15: Roman Candle Family Night
Nov 4: Buffalo Wild Wings... for Packers vs. Bears Monday Night Football
Dec 17: Q'doba
Jan 21: Little Caesars 
Feb 17: Culver's
March 18: Q'doba
April 7: Little Caesars
May 27: Dairy Queen


OTHER FUNDRAISING EFFORTS
The PFO will continue to collect BoxTops this year! Last year we collected more than 10,000 Box Tops! That’s an amazing number and a simple way to earn money for our school. Remember to ask your family, friends and neighbors to save BoxTops for us too. Collection sheets for the first round of collection were handed out at registration this year, and will also be posted on our blog.

The Target RedCard is a super-easy way to earn money for Leopold! By getting a Target RedCard credit or debit card, you can save 5% on all of your purchase AND earn 1% of everything you spend for our school. Ask at Target about the application and how to designate Leopold as your school of choice!

When you shop at amazon.com, be sure to click on the ad on the PFO website here (http://www.leopoldpfo.org/activities-and-fundraisers.html) to enter the site. By simply doing that, Leopold gets a percentage of every purchase made.

Leopold is also fundraising with Mabel's Labels, a company with all types of labels that are colorful, indestructible, easy-to-use and fun. Iron-Ons, Stickies, Bag Tags, Allergy Alert labels & more! Personalize your labels with names, nicknames, initials - whatever you choose. Cool icons help even little ones identify their own belongings. Dishwasher, microwave, laundry and kid tested! Dispatched within 24 hours. Visit Leopold’s fundraising page,www.leopold.mabelslabels.com to place your order while helping our school!

We will also continue to collect Campbell’s Labels for Education. We earn points for the labels and use the points to buy things needed in our classrooms.

If you drink Coke products, be sure to collect the My Coke Rewards points and enter them online. You can then donate those points to our school, which we can use to purchase items that our classrooms need.

Any BoxTops or Labels for Education can be sent to school at any time with your child or they can be placed in the collection mailboxes found just inside the Post Road doors.

*We are NO LONGER collection milk caps or pop tabs so you do not need to send those in to school*


FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL COFFEE
Tomorrow morning, the PFO will be providing coffee for all adults dropping off kiddos. Stop for a cup and say hello to fellow Leopold parents. Look for a table with coffee and cups set up outside the school. Thanks to Starbucks for their support!


COMMUNITY EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES ONLINE BULLETIN BOARD
New this year, community groups and organizations will no longer be able to send backpack flyers home with MMSD students. Instead, communication events, announcements and activities will be posted on the PFO bulletin board in the Leopold lobby and online here:

https://pubinfoweb.madison.k12.wi.us/CommunityEvents

If you read all the way through, congratulations because there’s a lot of info in here! Welcome back to school. Please contact me or anyone on the PFO Board with any thoughts, ideas or input you might have.

**If you are available to translate the PFO weekly emails with a turnaround time of 24 hours or less, we would love to make that available. Please email me if you can help out!**




See you at school tomorrow!

Thanks,

Kris