On Sale Now! March 17 "Parents Night Out" Gala Benefit

Do you like to eat? Drink? Dance? Come join parents and teachers at our biggest fundraiser of the year, which will be a night of great tunes, hosted beer and wine bar, silent and live auctions, and surprises! Sliding-scale tickets can be ordered in the school office (no cash, please), or online at
https://auctions.readysetauction.com/emersonelementarypta/tickets/buy .
Invite your friends! Get a sitter! DJ Jason will play your song request if you send it to him at jason@jasonrussell.biz. Pump up the jam!

New Site Coming in 2012!

As many of you have noticed, this site isn't kept up to date as often as it should be.  However, a team of Emerson Parents are working on a much more user friendly site that will be easy to maintain by a team of parents instead of just one or two individuals.  Please bear with us as we make this change.  If you would like to be involved, please drop a line to:  emersonpta@gmail.com

Shop @ Amazon
& Raise $$$ for
Emerson PTA! 

 

 

 

 
   

Principal's Message

Dear Families,

Interested in improving attendance in Berkeley Unified School District? I have just the opportunity for you. Dr. Susan Craig, the Director of Student Services, is looking for a few good parents to serve on the Student Attendance Review Board (SARB). SARB hearings are typically held on Tuesdays and Thursdays and consist of a group of BUSD and city stakeholders who work with families of truant students to improve their attendance. The requirements are simply that you be responsible and capable of maintaining the confidentiality of students and families. If you are interested, contact me in the office and I'll
pass your name along.

On another note, unfortunately, we have active cases of lice at school again, currently in grades K, 2, and 5. We will be checking students in first, third, and the remaining second and 4/5'xs this week. Please do a close check of your child's hair every night this week so we can get a handle on this immediately. PLEASE, if you know that your child has lice, notify the school immediately so that we may notify other families and do a check on the other students in your child's class. After treating your child's hair with the lice ridding shampoo, you MUST comb out each and every nit. If you do not, your child, your family and other students will be reinfected. In addition, bedding, blankets, jackets and clothing must be washed in hot water. Stuffed animals and pillows must be bagged for 48 hours. Carpets, couches, car seats, etc must be vacuumed. If your child has nits but no lice, you must comb all nits from your child's hair so that they do not hatch.

If a child repeatedly comes to school with live lice or the nits have not been removed, we will have to exclude the child from school until there are no more lice and no more nits. I apologize for the inconvenience. Please be assured that I am doing my utmost to get this under control.

Finally, this Friday, January 13th, will be our annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life. We'll start with an assembly in the cafeteria and then head out for our march through the neighborhood. Parents are welcome!
 
Susan Hodge
Principal

 

Circus Arts & Kids World Performance

The students of Session 1 Circus Arts and the Kids World drama team
would like to invite their families to the end-of-session performance.
 Under the direction of the always amazing Hannah Kahn, the Emerson
Circus will perform amazing feats of skill and balance! And the
fabulous Miss Jessica's Kids World drama group will perform four short
plays. The performance begins promptly at 6 p.m. with the Kindergarten
circus troupe followed by Kids World shorts, 1st-5th grade circus
troupe, and then two more shorts. Everything will conclude by 7 p.m.

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After-School Enrichment Classes - Session 2 Enrollment

Session 2 of after-school classes will begin the week of February 6th;
please look for class descriptions and registration forms in your
child's Look Folder next week.  Forms are due back by Friday, January
27th.  Class sizes are limited so that students have the best
experience possible, and admission will be by lottery to ensure
fairness. You can turn in registration forms in the PTA Enrichment
class box in the office next to the PTA mailboxes, or send them in
your child's look folder.  Be sure to get them in by 8:30 a.m. Friday,
January 27th!

SAVE THE DATE!!! EMERSON'S SPRING BENEFIT IS SATURDAY, MARCH 17

Some think the Spring Benefit is just our biggest fundraiser of the year. Others know it's Emerson PTA's biggest PARTY of the year! Get your green on for a St. Patrick's Day bash, Saturday the 17th of March, from 7pm to 10pm... or later! Eats, beer and wine, live and silent auctions, and DJ dancing! 

If you want to help put on the party, contact Mark Chekal-Bain at mark@mjcb.org. If you want to help with the auction, contact Kelly Martinez at kellykel719@yahoo.com. It's fun to help out!


Help Emerson PTA Raise Money by Shopping on Amazon through our site!

The Emerson PTA can raise money simply by having the Emerson Community shop on Amazon.com by using the widget below, or any other Amazon link on our site! Simply start your product search from the search box below, then when you check out, Emerson PTA will recieve a percentage of your purchase as a rebate back from Amazon.  It's a great way to contribute by doing what you normally do, just using our links!  

 

Be a Kindergarten Tour Volunteer! (We need you!)

Can you help prospective families get to know Emerson?  We would love your help as a tour guide. Tours take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 am  to 10:00 am beginning Tuesday, December 6 through Thursday, December 15, breaking for the school holiday and continuing January 3 to February 2. Tours involve meeting prospective parents in the office, telling them a bit about Emerson, answering questions and bringing them to observe for a short period in the K rooms and a few other grades.  You do not need to be an expert on Emerson; families are interested in hearing your family's personal experience with the school.  If you are a new volunteer you will be partnered with an experienced tour guide.  All volunteers will also have access to a tour binder with answers to FAQs and general information about Emerson. Tours are a great way to meet a lot of people and see the whole school in a new way.  Please email Zoe Williams at zoeandbill@mac.comif you are interested in helping out and we can talk more about specifics and how to get started.

PTA After-School Classes
Reminder: The current session of after-school classes will continue through the week of January 16th; the final class will be Friday,  January 20th.  The next session of classes (Session 2) will begin the week of February 6th, 2012. Look for more information about Session 2 in your children's Look folders in January.
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Make A Difference Project Planning
 The Make A Difference bench on the playground will be open from 7:45-8:10am every Friday in January.  Send your student by to help plan the next stage of our projects.  We need lots of ideas and energy!  No prior experience necessary -- students can join at any time. 
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Make A Difference Recycling - Every Friday
Yes, the following things are actually recyclable. Save them up and let your student turn them in!
  • Tortilla & Tostada Bags
  • Pens, mechanical pencils, markers, highlighters & caps for all these
  • Yogurt cups, containers & lids
  • Corks, natural or synthetic
  • Gum wrappers, foil & packaging
  • Glue sticks, glue bottles & tops
  • Cameras, digital cameras, camcorders, mp3 players
  • Keyboards & mouses & cellphones

Calling All Candy Wrappers

Bring your candy wrappers and bags to the Make A Difference Bench any Friday.  We might as well make a little money for the PTA from all that Halloween candy.

Thanks to the After-School Enrichment team

A big thank you goes out to the PTA After School Enrichment Classes team:
Darcy Russell (coordinator), Kelley Hollis and Zoe Williams!  We are so
lucky to be able to offer enrichment classes on site at Emerson and we would
not be able to do it without our hard working volunteers!  If you are
interested in helping out with after-school classes for the 2012/13 school
year, please contact Darcy Russell (darcy russell <drussell@sonic.net>).  We
are looking for people to do data entry, the lottery, write
contracts and become the new coordinator.  Darcy will provide detailed job descriptions for each position upon request.  The PTA After-School Enrichment program runs on
the power of parent volunteers -- can you be one of them?

____________________________________________

 Emerson classified ads & community announcements

Check again next month!