Auction Correction

Dear Thunder Ridge Parents,

I have received feedback, regarding our PTA Auction, expressing concern over the bidding of playing a College fight song at the school each Friday throughout the year.  In an attempt to make the auction fun and lively, I have encouraged BYU and Utah fans to rally together to participate in a bidding war of sorts to raise money for our childrens’ programs.  I enjoy the local rivalry with my BYU and UTAH friends, however I respect the feedback I have received, asking that we not introduce that rivalry into the school setting.  While most of the interactions involving the Utah/BYU rivalry are light-hearted in nature, there are instances when feelings get hurt and contention results.  Therefore, we have decided to pull this item from our auction.

There are over 100 other amazing items that we will be auctioning off this Friday, October 7^th, 7:00-8:30 p.m. at Talon’s Cove and I hope you will plan to join us for this fun, adults only, event!  This is a great opportunity for you to do Christmas shopping, Birthday shopping, Baby shower shopping and all other kinds of shopping while helping support the students of Thunder Ridge.  Many volunteers have put countless hours into making this night successful and ALL of the money will go directly to school programs and activities.  This is the only fundraiser our PTA has planned for the year so we encourage every person with a vested interest in Thunder Ridge students to please come and join us.

Thank you for all of your support!

Mindi Barker

CRAZY SOCK DAY!

Tomorrow (September 30th) is "Crazy Sock Day" for Spirit Days so don't forget to have your kids wear crazy socks and/or school colors!

Quick Clarification!!

The Cold Stone Celebrity Scooper night with Principal Theler is TONIGHT..WEDNESDAY September 28th at the AF Cold Stone from 7-8:30pm!! See you there!!

Make Up Picture Day and Cold Stone Celebrity Scooper Night

Reminder: Tomorrow, September 29th is Make Up Picture Day and Cold Stone Celebrity Scooper night.  Mr. Theler will be at the Cold Stone in AF to scoop up ice cream from 7-8:30 p.m. - just one more excuse to spend time with your family :)

Green Ribbon Week Volunteers

I am in need of volunteers to help with Green Ribbon Week! We will have a "walk to school" day on Wednesday, October 19th. You would help when the buses and students arrive and leave school and help with the traffic flow. It should only be about a half hour to an hour of your time. The time are 8, 9:15, 2:15. & 3:30. I would love as many people as I can get for each time. Thanks, Kiley Wing (Safety & Welfare Commissioner)

Book Fair Volunteers Needed

Our Fall Book Fair is next week!  And I still need people (lots of people!!) to help as volunteers at the Fair.  Please click on the link below and sign up for a time slot to come help.  Please contact me, Talya, at mamaloohoo@gmail.com if you have any further questions.  I’ll be at the Fair most of the time so I can help you know what to do if you’ve never done book fair before.  It is so much fun---hope to see you there! 

link>>> Book Fair Volunteer Sign Up Sheet <<<link

6th Grade Raptor Reading Date

The 6th Grade Raptor Reading Date (formerly known as Donut Date) will be one week from today on Friday, September 30 at 9:15 a.m. - this was originally scheduled for September 2nd and had to be rescheduled.  We just received this new date and hope you will help us spread the word.  If you know anyone with a 6th Grader at Thunder Ridge, please encourage them to come and read with their child next week!  Thank you! Mindi

(For more details about the Raptor Reading program, please read the description on the right hand side of the blog.)

Thunder Ridge Auction - Adult Night Out :)

Our Thunder Ridge PTA is starting a new, fun, tradition for all adults, with a vested interest in Thunder Ridge Elementary.  PTA offers amazing programs for students of all ages and being that we are a new school the PTA cannot run without raising money.  Our Board has decided to make this fundraising opportunity an enjoyable one, at an impressive location, where you can come and bid on fabulous items for you or your children while eating wonderful desserts, hanging with friends, making new friends, and out-bidding your competition to win what you want . . . in other words, I'm personally going to rally a bunch of BYU fans to win the "Cougar Fight Song" being played on the school intercom every Friday for the entire school year and if a bunch of UTE fans try to outbid us, so their fight song will be played, you can rest assured that auction will be a lively battle to the finish.

There will be many silent auction items, including class baskets from all of your students' teachers and each of those auctions will end at different times so that you will be able to bid on more than one item if desired.  Toward the end of the night we will have a live auction for some of the bigger items and you will definitely want to stick around to be a part of that.

We hope all of you will consider joining us for this event!  We know that times are difficult for many of us and spending the extra money may not be in the budget, but we would appreciate seeing as many people there as are able to come.  You can come alone, come as a couple, come as friends, come with Grandma and Grandpa, come with a neighbor, but PLEASE come.  You may find that there are items you would purchase anyway that now you know your money will be used for supporting children's school programs.  We appreciate your support and since this is our only PTA fundraiser for the year, we hope it will be the greatest success!

Thank you!

Mindi Barker

Thunder Ridge PTA President

Take Home Reading Library

We are in need of volunteers to help in the Take Home Reading Library at ThunderRidge Elementary.  We are looking for volunteers who are willing to come in for one hour a week to help switch out books.  You are welcome to bring younger children with you. 

 

We will begin sending books home with the 1st and 2nd graders on October 3rd.  We are excited to have a brand new take home reading library for our students to use.  This is a great program but it cannot be run without the help of great volunteers!  If you are willing to help, please email our take home reading coordinator atJaime.Hutchings@gmail.com. 

 

Thank you!

 

Andrea Durrant, Education Commission

Jaime Hutchings, Take Home Reading Coordinator

Reflections 2011 "Diversity Means . . . "

Parents and students it's time for the annual PTA Reflections program! For 40 years the Reflections program has encouraged the Arts in school.  The theme this year is "Diversity Means...". Registration forms are available in the front office and a complete list of rules can either be found in the front office or online at www.utahpta.org.  All entries need to be turned into the front office no later than Friday, October 28th. Nothing will be excepted after this date!! Any questions can be sent to our Reflections chair, Darcey Williams atdarceywilliams@hotmail.com

Minimal Mondays

"Minimal Monday" is a creative solution the district came up with to provide professional development for teachers in spite of the fact that the state drastically reduced funding for professional development. 

• Track A students come from 8:00-12:30
• Track B students come from 9:15-1:45
• AM Kinder runs from 9:15-11:15
• PM Kinder runs from 11:45-1:45

"Minimal Monday" will occur four times this year--Sept 26th, November 14th, February 13th, and March 26th.  While the students do leave about an hour earlier than they usually do on a Monday, this time allows the staff to engage in professional development activities from 2:00-5:00 and the district only needs to compensate the teachers for one hour of contract time (a teacher's contract hours are 7:30-4:00). This time is very valuable because it allows all of the staff to be together for a significant period of time to discuss student learning.

Jason Theler
Principal, Thunder Ridge Elementary

Fingerprinting and Background Checks

Hello Parents,

Many of you have desires to volunteer in the classroom. We are so grateful for your service and excited about the things we can accomplish with your help. However, circumstances in this day and age require that we be cautious about who has access to your children. Therefore, you may be asked to complete a background check or fingerprinting in order to work with children at school. Just so you are aware, a background check will quickly tell us if someone has any recent illegal activity. This costs $15 and can be completed in the office of Thunder Ridge. Fingerprinting will give us a more comprehensive history, including illegal activity that happened long ago or in a different state. This costs $40 and must be completed at the district office in American Fork. Here are the guidelines about who needs what level of clearance:

• All employees have a background check and fingerprinting as part of the hiring process.
• Anytime volunteers will be working with students in a location away from teacher oversight, they NEED to complete a background check.
• If a volunteer is simply helping in the school, but will not work with students in a location away from teacher oversight, they DO NOT need to complete a background check.

I hope this helps clarify any questions about this issue and communicates to you another example of the care and concern we have for your child's safety. We love having you come and volunteer and hope to see you at Thunder Ridge on a regular basis!

Sincerely, Mr. Theler



Mr. Theler also said that if you are not sure whether your past background check is still current, please contact Kathy Loveridge (school secretary) and she will let you know.  If there is no record, you will have to pay the $15 to have another background check.

Thunder Ridge School Website

Hey Everyone,

The school website is up and running - Yea!!  You can go to: http://thunderridge.alpineschools.org/ to see all that Mr. Theler has done.  There is a link to this blog as well, so now you can easily go back and forth to find out all the information you need.

Yippee!

Mindi

Day of Play

This was just sent to me from Utah PTA, in case any of you are interested.

http://www.pta.org/wwdop-online2.html

Mindi

Vision Screenings - Volunteers Needed :)

VISION SCREENINGS. I just found out this morning that the school nurse needs some PTA volunteers to help with vision screenings this Wednesday (14th) from 9:00 a.m. - lunch time (around 11:15 p.m.). If you are willing to help, please go to this link to sign up,  comment here or email me at byusportsfanatic@yahoo.com. Thanks, Mindi

Spirit Days

Spirit Days starts tomorrow! Be sure to have your children wear school colors as the main color of their shirt or pants and they will help their class be eligible to win the Spirit Days Trophy for the week. Also, their name will be put in a drawing for prizes at the end of the month. Go Raptors!

Speech and Hearing Screenings

We still need two volunteers to help with the Speech and Hearing Screenings tomorrow, September 6th, from 9:10-11:45 a.m. - If you are able to help, please email me at byusportsfanatic@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Mindi

Back to School Night

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT is next Tuesday, September 6, from 5:30 -7:00 p.m. - Meet in the gym for a quick introduction from Mr. Theler and a short PTA General Meeting (to introduce the board and vote on the budget for the year). Then attend your children's classes (four 20 minute sessions) to find out what to expect for the year. You can order t-shirts and sign up for PTA as well. Hope to see you there!

(Parents are encouraged to leave children home, if possible.)

AUCTION DATE CHANGE!!

Hi Everyone!

As you may have noticed, the date of our PTA Auction has changed from September 30, 2011 to October 7, 2011.  We discovered that the BYU v. Utah State Football Game was on September 30th and we knew that would affect our turnout!

PLEASE mark your calendars for October 7th and plan to come for a very enjoyable night out with adults!

:) Mindi