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Learn more about the issues facing our school system by visiting the Superintendent's Journal here.

Receive the latest information regarding H1N1 here.

Be sure to check out the new Senior Partner Page! It is located off the Grade Teams Page. It has summaries of the important teacher work taking place on our Professional Learning Team Days. It is also the place to go to hear the monthly telephone shout-outs!

November 19, 2009:

The Giving Tree is up! If you would like to help another Partnership Family this holiday season then please take a look at our Giving Tree. It is located outside the copy room near the main office. If you have any questions please contact Mary Hartshorn or Mary Hunter Martin. Thank you!

November is Philanthropy Month, and our students are collecting change to make a change for animals, people and the environment. Please encourage your child to be a philanthropist and bring change to the collection jars in the library. If we all contribute a little our collective donations will be big. We will donate the money we collect over Thanksgiving. Many of our philanthropic children are speaking on the morning announcements about their giving.

November 17, 2009:

Partnership Elementary is pleased to announce Ms. Michele Nelson has been selected as Partnership Elementary's Teacher of the Year. Ms. Nelson is a special education teacher here at Partnership and is well known throughout the school. Please join us in congratulating Ms. Nelson is this honor.

Don't forget our Scholastic book fair December 1-3. The book fair will be open from 5-7pm on Tuesday night so you can shop with your family. The 5th graders will be selling pizza and dessert during the event.

We need volunteers to help at the book fair on
Tuesday, December 1 from 8-9, 10-11, 1-2, 3-4, 5-7
Wednesday, December 2 from 12-3
Thursday, December 3 from 11-1, 3-4 and pack up from 4-5
Please let Ms. Martin know if you can volunteer.

November 16, 2009:

Our PTA membership is down from last year. Currently we have 155 members. Of the 155 that includes 41 Partnership Staff. Last year we had 199 members. The PTA supports Partnership students in a variety of ways including cultural arts performances and the arts. Please consider joining if you have not done so already.

We need to renew our Partnership Elementary PTA Bylaws. Unfortunately we cannot wait until the next scheduled general membership meeting in February. Even though we are not making any changes we do need to vote on renewing our current bylaws in order to stay in compliance with NCPTA rules. The vote will be held December 18th, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. in the library.

Membership envelopes and copies of the PTA Bylaws can be found in the PTA pockets by the stairwell. If you have any questions please contact Lynn Ashby, Partnership PTA President at lashby@nc.rr.com.

We are now collecting empty Elmer's glue sticks and bottles for Terracycle! Make sure you are doing your part! Other items include:

Nabisco packaging (Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Nutter Butter, etc.)
Frito-Lay packaging (Doritos, Cheetos, Sun Chips, etc.)
All granola, cereal, energy bar, etc. wrappers
All Kashi packaging (boxes and wrappers)
Mars candy wrappers (Snickers, Milky Way, Starburst, Skittles, etc.)
Malt-o-meal cereal bags
Plastic packaging from Huggies Diapers
Plastic packaging from Scott paper products
Juice pouches

October 29, 2009:

Our Positive Behavior Support Team is working on improving safety throughout our school and we need your help. This quarter, the team has added our playground as an area of focus. To make this successful, we need for our students to follow the playground rules no matter what time of day it is. Students are welcome to use the playground after all bus students have departed for the day as long as they are being actively supervised by their parents. This means that parents should be in the same area of the playground as their children and should be focused on what their children are doing. We do ask that our students follow the same rules afterschool as they do during the school day:
• Walk around the ship area. This is not a place for Tag or other running activities.
• One child may use each piece of smaller equipment at a time. A line should form if additional students would like to use a particular piece of equipment. If there is a line, students should respect time limits and take turns so that everyone gets an opportunity to enjoy the equipment.
• Students should remain below the monkey bars and should not hang upside down on the equipment.
• The water fountain is for drinking. Mulch and other objects should not be placed in it.
Safety is not always convenient. Thank you for helping to make sure that our Partnership Playground remains a safe and healthy place!

Be sure to check out the new Senior Partner Page! It is located off the Grade Teams Page. It has summaries of the important teacher work taking place on our Professional Learning Team Days. It is also the place to go to hear the monthly telephone shout-outs!

October 28, 2009:

Show your School Spirit!!!
Julianne, Senior Partner for the Day on Friday October 30, has declared Friday to be Crazy Hair/Hat day. Let's see your wackiest hairdos and zaniest hats this Friday.

Erin Hunter Skype
On November 13, about 75 of our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders will be having a skype visit with Erin Hunter, author of the Warriors series. The wonderful folks at Quail Ridge Books have set this event up for our students, and in order to prepare ourselves we are reading Erin Hunter books in the library. We are not progressing quickly through the books, and we don't have nearly enough for our interested readers to check out, so we are going to Quail Ridge tonight to bring some back to school to sell. They are $7 each. We don't know which titles we will have, but if your child wants to buy a copy, we should have some tomorrow. We may have some of the very popular Warriors graphic novels(comic books), so please let your child know if you do not want him/her to purchase any of those.

October 20, 2009:

This week is Red Ribbon Week, and our Senior Partner for the day on Friday gets to choose our school spirit attire for this Friday. Christopher is our guest Senior Partner on Friday , and he has decided that everyone should dress in red in honor of Red Ribbon Week.

Does anyone have any music stands that second grade can use? Please contact the second grade teachers if you do.

Don't forget that this Saturday is Planting Day from 8:30-12. We are going to be spreading mulch, planting fall plants, and trimming bushes. Please bring in flowering bulbs that we can plant so that our campus will be beautiful next spring. There is a bucket for bulbs outside the library.

Wednesday, October 21 is an early release day. Students will be dismissed at 12:30 tomorrow. Picture retake day is also tomorrow.

October 13, 2009:

Welcome back to school Partnership families. We hope you are rested and ready to begin another quarter of learning.

We had a terrific visit from Nancy Krulik yesterday. Nancy is the author of the Katie Kazoo series, and she spoke to our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students about her series, and about writing books. Our students asked smart questions and they were an attentive audience. Nancy Krulik signed copies of several of her titles, and left them in the library. Some of you wanted to purchase a book, but didn't. We will have the books until Friday. Please come to the library if you would like to purchase one. Please thank the folks at Quail Ridge Books for allowing Nancy Krulik to speak at our school.

Odyssey of the Mind forms are due this week. Right now we seem to have three teams that are forming: Food Court, Column Structure, and Discovered Treasures. If you have questions about OM, contact Mrs. Garnier, Ms. Jernigan or Ms. Martin for more information.

Fall Planting Day is Saturday, October 24. Please come anytime that morning and help us beautify our campus. We would like to have hundreds of bulbs to plant so that we will have a campus full of beautiful spring flowers. Please donate bags of bulbs before October 24, and we will get them all planted on that day. There is a collection bucket outside the library.

It seems that lots of children are out of money on their lunch accounts. Please check your child's account, as it is Child Nutrition's policy to feed children only fruits and vegetables when they are out of money.

September 30, 2009:

Hello Partnership families. We hope you are all enjoying your delightful fall break weather.

We have exciting news from the Frolic. With most of our money collected, and most of our expenses paid out, our net income is $29,891. Thank you all for your help in making our Frolic a fantastic event!

Dates to Know:
Monday, October 12: Nancy Krulik, author of the Katie Kazoo series speaks to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders
Wednesday, October 21: Early Release-- Students are dismissed at 12:30pm. Don't forget the Adventure Landing get together that afternoon!!! Come join the fun.
Wednesday, October 21: Picture retake day
Saturday, October 24: Planting Day from 8:00am-11:30am
Tuesday, October 27: Moore Square info session at 7:50am
Thursday, October 29: PTA general meeting 6:00pm, 4th and 5th grades performing
Thursday, October 29: "The Jungle Book" cultural arts performance

Red Ribbon Week is October 19 - October 23, 2009!
Monday - Turn Your Back on Drugs = Backwards shirt day.
Tuesday - Say "Peace Out" to Drugs = Dress in 1970's clothes.
Wednesday – I've Got Better Things to do than Drugs = Wear your Sports/Hobby Gear
Thursday - My Dreams Mean the World to Me = Pajama Day
Friday - Wear All Red Day *Subject to change (slightly) because of "Senior Partner for a Day" day.

Got Photos? We are beginning to work on our yearbook, and it is all done on the computer, so please e mail your pictures of school events to pfeamster@wcpss.net or mmartin@wcpss.net. We would love to be able to include some of them.

September 23, 2009:

We are having a Fletcher Park Fun Day on Friday(9:30-11:00 for K-2; 1:00-2:30 for 3-5) as a reward for our students who have earned tickets for great hallway and cafeteria behavior. We need the following things to make this a fun day for the kids: Frisbees, bubbles and bubble toys, sand toys, hoola hoops, and balls. If you have any of these things that we can use for the day, please send them in to the library. Thank you!

September 22, 2009:

This week we will have the first Cultural Arts event for this school year. On Thursday, September 24, our school will welcome Beverly Botsford, a cross-cultural percussionist. Beverly will bring to our school her "Dancing Drums", an interactive celebration of universal rhythm and world cultures with music, stories and movement. We will have two performances: the first one at 12:30 PM for kindergarteners, 1st and 2nd graders and the second one at 1:45 PM for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Since the performances take place in the cafeteria, the children will eat in their classroom and we need help from parents during lunch time. Please let me know if you can help! We need at least three parents for each grade level! Remember that parents are welcome to the performances! For more information, please contact Antonella Longo--email: alongo.pta@gmail. com

September 21, 2009:

We are having an informational session about Odyssey of the Mind on Wednesday at 2:30pm. We will offer a session on Thursday evening at 5:30pm for people who cannot come to the 2:30 session on Wednesday.
In order for us to offer OM to our students, we need parents who are willing to coach. Please come to our meeting to find out how you can get involved in this terrific experience.

September 14, 2009:

We are so excited about our Fantastic Fun Friday Frolic event. We hope you all are coming to the Frolic, and that you have purchased your game and food tickets, as tomorrow, Tuesday, is the last day to turn in ticket orders for the discounted price of 40 cents each. We are strict about this. The tickets will be 50 cents each after that.

We need someone to be the boss of drinks on Friday. That means going to get ice, and icing down all the water, juice and soft drinks that we have. We will have coolers, and can transport coolers to Mt. Vernon. The job starts at 2:00. Is anyone available to do this for us?

September 9, 2009:

We need help with Odyssey of the Mind this year. We are looking for parents who will help coach our OM teams. Don't worry if you have never coached before, Kathy Garnier, successful coach and seasoned veteran, is going to offer a more intense training program and support for OM coaches. We have so many children in 3rd- 5th grade who would like the opportunity to participate in Odyssey of the mind but currently we only have coaches for the balsa wood problem, and someone who is interested in the vehicle problem or the food court problem but would like a co-coach.

We are having a meeting on Wednesday afternoon, September 23rd at 2:30pm to discuss the Odyssey of the Mind program at Partnership. This meeting is for parents and children. Please come and learn about this terrific opportunity.

September 2, 2009:

September 1, 2009:

August 28, 2009:

August 25, 2009:

August 20, 2009:

August 18, 2009:

August 17, 2009:

Are you going to Target? They have many $1.00 toy items for 25 cents. These items would be great to use as game prizes at the Frolic.
The Frolic Committee is especially in great need for Frolic Game prizes for boys.

Join us at Noodles in Cameron Village on Friday, August 21 from 3-7. Noodles will give 25% of their sales to Partnership' s PTA. Eat there or take it to go!!!!!

August 14, 2009:

With the adoption of the state budget at the end of last week, Partnership has received some additional teacher resources. While the state cuts implemented were smaller than forecasted, we still are not able to operate at the levels of last year. Our goal has always been to use the resources given to us to have as many teachers at Partnership as possible. We are pleased to announce that we are able to provide additional resources in 1st and 3rd grade. We now have three full time teachers in first grade and we are advertising a position for a half-time teacher in 3rd grade. We hope to move forward as quickly as the process allows.

Are you looking for volunteer hours? Do you like being outside? We are looking for a team of several parents to assist our 1st and 3rd grade teams with recess from 12:30-1:00. We will need assistance during the following weeks:
Aug. 21- Sept. 4
Sept. 21- Sept. 25
Oct. 26 - Oct. 30
Nov. 16 - Nov. 20
Dec. 7 - Dec. 11
Jan. 11 - Jan. 15
Feb. 1 - Feb. 5
Feb. 22 - Feb. 26
Mar. 29 - Apr. 1
Apr. 19 - Apr. 23
May 10 - May 14

If you would like to volunteer to assist, please contact Mr. Kenjarski (mrkenjarski@ wcpss.net) or Ms. Townsend (atownsend1@wcpss. net).

August 13, 2009:

Oh my stars!!! The Fun Family Frolic is 37 days away.

Here are some ideas for things that we need for our auction--
We have 4 Panthers tickets for December 6 at 1:00 , and would like 4 train tickets to go with them. Wouldn't that be a fun excursion???

Families are staying at home and cooking more to save money, and they need more kitchen equipment to keep their meals interesting. We want to make a basket themed around stay at home meals and include a pizza stone, a roasting pan, a crock pot, muffin tins, a tea ball, a coffee grinder and maker, an omelet pan, a blender, a .........

Target has Nintendo DS on sale for $99!!!!! That would be a good item to donate to the Frolic.

Canoes and Kayaks are on sale at several outdoor stores. We surely would like to have a boat to auction or raffle.

We would like gift certificates for massages and manicures to be donated for the auction.

We would like to offer some art and pottery at our auction. Do you know an artist who would like to donate a piece?

Let's keep our children outdoors and active. Can you donate lacrosse sticks and balls, a badminton set, a surf board, a soccer goal/net (we already have an XL Soccer birthday party basket ready to assemble), a child's bike or an adult bike?

Don't forget to ask your local Harris Teeter, Target, Kroger, etc. for those gift cards. They may ask you for a donation letter or tax ID number. We have preprinted letters with all of the appropriate information to give them in the library for you to use.

We have several new and exciting items that have come into the library already. Basket making has begun!!! Stop by the library and enjoy the enthusiasm about our 2009 Fun Family Frolic!

Thank you.
The Frolic Committee

August 5, 2009:

In light of the upcoming tax free weekend (Aug. 7-9) as well as sales on school supplies in mid to late August, Partnership' s PTA wanted to know if there were items that our teachers do not typically get in or run out of and make requests for throughout the year. Our teachers submitted requests and you may view the lists here. There will be a container outside the library for these supplies.

Back to school means time to re-link your grocery cards to help earn extra money for our school. Here is the information for some of the stores that many of our families frequent.
Harris Teeter: re-link your VIC card to #2298
Food Lion: call 1-704-633-8250 ext 3810, or Foodlion.com
Target: get your Target Redcard and log onto Target.com

It is also time to start collecting General Mills Box Tops for Education. Our school earns $.10 for each Box Top collected and submitted. They are submitted twice a year beginning this fall. Visit Boxtops4education. com to learn more about this program, and to print off fun sheets to help your child collect Box Tops. Get the whole family, and neighbors involved!

Finally, the children have loved collecting used Capri Sun wrappers (we earn 2 cents per wrapper), Frito Lay wrappers, Mars candy wrappers, and Campbell Soup can labels. More information about all these programs will be coming out soon.

August 4, 2009:

Don't forget our Back to School night on Thursday from 5-7. The first in class session runs from 5-5:50. The second session runs from 6-6:50. There will also be a PTA General Meeting during each session in the multipurpose room.

The PTA will be selling Chick-Fil-A Meals (sandwich, chips, water and a brownie) for $5.00 at the PTA meeting this Thursday starting at 4:30 in the multipurpose room. There are one hundred meals available so you may want to arrive a few minutes early to purchase. Thank you in advance for supporting the PTA.

July 31, 2009:

Welcome back to school Partnership families. We have had a terrific first week with your children, and are looking forward to a remarkable year of learning with them. Thank you for being a part of our school.

Our Back to School Night & first PTA General Meeting of the year is scheduled for August 6, 2009. We have a very busy evening planned for our Partnership Parents. Please look over the schedule for the evening. The 5:00 and 6:00 presentations are the same. The classroom presentations will give you an opportunity to learn more about your child(ren)'s classroom. The PTA General Meeting will be a great time to learn about our outstanding PTA's activities, become a member, join a committee, and buy Partnership Spiritwear. For those families with multiple rooms to visit, teachers will have handouts for you. Parking is always challenging for these school-wide events. We suggest you look for other parents to carpool with. Babysitting will not be provided. We look forward to seeing you. Please bring your notepads, questions and cheerful smiles.

Back to School Night Schedule
5:00-5:50 Kindergarten through 5 th Grade Presentations in Classrooms
PTA General Meeting in the Multipurpose Room
5:50-6:00 Transition Time
6:00-6:50 Kindergarten through 5 th Grade Presentations in Classrooms
PTA General Meeting in the Multipurpose Room

We need your trash! Please send in the following items for our after school program:
· Clear plastic containers with lids (small sizes from spices, cake sprinkles, etc...)
· Cardboard drink boxes
· Plastic milk jugs
· Paper towel tubes
· Baby food jars
· Plastic lids from coffee cans, cool whip containers, etc.
· Magazines and catalogs

Please give items to Lisa Crumpler in the front office. We will collect items all year for after school craft projects.

Partnership' s Fun Family Frolic is 49 days away, and we want your help. We are in search of donations for our auction and raffle. Specifically: Panthers tickets, an adult bike, dinner gift certificates, certificates for services such as tree removal, painting, power washing, a golf cart, an Ipod, a gps, a Green Machine, a grill, State, UNC, Shaw, St. Augs, Hurricanes tickets......

Would you like to be a Frolic sponsor? You can get your name on the back of our Frolic t shirt for a donation of $250. We have a limited number of t shirt sponsorships available.
Would you like to be on the Frolic committee? Join us on Fridays at 2 in the library for our Frolic meetings. Everyone is invited. If you can't come to the meetings, send us your email address and we will keep you informed.

July 23, 2009:

It was wonderful seeing our Partnership Families today at meet the Teacher. We are looking forward to our first day of school Monday, July 27th. You may see a listing of this year's bus stops here. Students may enter the building starting at 7:50. Instruction will begin at 8:20 and dismissal remains at 3:00 pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. On Wednesdays, school will be dismissed one hour earlier at 2:00. This early dismissal will give our teachers valuable time to meet and talk about our students’ learning. We look forward to sharing with you the results of this important work throughout the school year.

Looking forward to August, mark your calendars for Back to School Night on August 6th. During this evening, you will be able to learn more about your child’s classroom and the Partnership PTA. The schedule can be viewed here. Partnership will have an early release day on August 12th. School will be dismissed at 12:30 on this day.

July 8, 2009:

Good day to our Partnership families!!! We are busily getting ready for our first day of school in a very few days. We look forward to seeing you at kindergarten camp on July 15 and 16, and at Meet the Teacher on July 23 from 11-1.

Mark Your Calendars-
The Frolic is on September 18. There are only 72 days until the Frolic and we have begun gathering items for our auction. Here are a few things that we would love to have donated:
-tickets to a Panthers football game
-train tickets to Charlotte
-a restaurant gift certificate to somewhere grown up in Chapel Hill
-tickets to a DPAC performance or a Memorial Hall performance
-a grill
-grill accessories
-a crock pot
-a golf cart
-an adult bike
-a green Machine(remember those??) It is also sold by Razor now and called a Rip Rider
-an X Box
-2 soccer balls
-a laptop
-a flat screen tv
-a gps
-college football tickets from ANY school. State, Shaw, Carolina, Central, Duke, St. Aug, Wake Forest, A&T,ECU.........
Many stores including Target currently have great summer stuff and toys on clearance. Many of these items would be terrific at the Frolic. Keep your eyes open for sales.
These are only a FEW ideas. Be creative. Feel free to go ahead and bring your donations in to the library. We are ready for them.

Ms. Feamster just mailed 5,275 more juice pouches to Terra Cycle from our spring recycling efforts. She also mailed over one pound of Granola mylar wrappers and seven pounds of Frito Lay wrappers. Great work everyone!!! That is a lot of trash we are keeping out of our landfills.
Ms. Feamster says that she is happy for children to eat candy now, as she has worked out a deal for us to be able to recycle our Mars and Wrigley candy wrappers, ie. Skittles, Starburst, M&Ms, Twix, Snickers...
We are looking for a volunteer to coordinate this recycling effort. It is a job that can be done at home. We rinse the juice pouches and decrumb the food packages before they are mailed and sort them by product.

June 15, 2009:

The Before and After School Program Registrations and Orientation will take place on Wednesday July 15th at 11:00 am. Please plan to come to Partnership for one hour to register you child(ren) and for the orientation. You may learn more information about these excellent programs and get application forms here.