Star Gazing

Friday, March 11th from 5:30pm-7:30pm on the main yard.  Join the Los Angeles Astronomical Society for a night of education that is out of this world. Have dinner at school from 5:00pm-7:00pm from La Estrella Taco Truck, to benefit our 6th grade class.

You’re invited for an evening with bestselling author and physician Gabor Maté.

On Monday, March 7th, 6:00 - 7:30pm, Nightingale Middle School will host a presentation by Dr. Gabor Mate, author, physician and sought after speaker who will be addressing the powerful and harmful effects of peer orientation.  Click here for the flyer.

Nightingale Middle School Auditorium

3311 N. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles CA 90065
March 7th 2011
6:00 to 7:30 PM
Phone: 323-224-4804

The Mt. Washington Produce Collective

HOW IT WORKS:

The Produce Collective is a subscription program, where members receive a

weekly box of organic farm-fresh produce delivered to Mt. Washington Elementary School. Members pay for their box in advance online at http://www.equitableroots.com/, and can order in 1 week, 2 week, or 4 week increments.

For every box purchased, $3.00 stays with the Friends of Mt. Washington School (FOMWS), to help support our classroom gardens, campus beautification and sustainability projects.

Boxes will be available for pick-up outside the Parent Center every Thursday from 2:30 to 5:30. The rate per box is $18, a great value!

FOMWS "A Night Of Comedy", Letter from the President

Dear Parents,

Please join The Friends of Mt. Washington School (FOMWS) for an unforgettable evening of side-splitting, standup humor to benefit Mt. Washington Elementary School. A Night of Comedy will be held on April 29, 2011, from 6:30 – 10:00 pm, at the beautiful Los Angeles River Center.

Friends of Mt. Washington School (FOMWS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, helps raise funds for programs at Mt. Washington Elementary, one of the top schools in Los Angeles Unified School District. As we prepare for the next fiscal year, we look to our friends, family, colleagues and community to help us cover school associated expenses.

Your sponsorship is the vital link in sustaining programs such as Focus Fish (physical education), classroom aides, school buses and helping offset mandatory needs no longer covered due to budget cuts.

Attached, please find materials outlining event sponsorships for A Night of Comedy. As a sponsor you will be included in all our printed material, including our invitations and flyers distributed to our parent body and community. A receipt for tax purposes will be provided. For more information about the event, please contact Pilar Buelna at (323) 243-9340/ pilar.buelna@yahoo.com or visit us at http://www.fomws.org.

Together we can make a real difference for our children. Thank you for your contribution and support.

Sincerely,

Fernando Orozco
President
Friends of Mt. Washington School

(To download the sponsorship form, click here)

Family Date Night: Friday February 25th, 6-8:30pm

It’s the season of love and friendship, so why not make a special date with your family? Join us on Friday evening, Feb. 25th from 6:00 until 8:30 p.m. at Moore’s – a new restaurant and delicatessen located at 271 East Orange Grove Avenue in downtown Burbank. Moore's is the second venture from Mt. Washington residents, school alumni, and owners of local favorite Little Flower Candy Company. The families of Mt. Washington Elementary are welcomed for this private dining event. However, it’s open to all family, friends and neighbors, so spread the word. To make it worth your while, Moore’s will donate 15% of the ENTIRE bill (all food, beverage and merchandise) back to our school! This is an event for the entire family and all ages are welcome. The menu offers something that will please even picky kiddies palates, from sandwiches, soups, burgers, pasta and more so please check out “Moore’s Deli” on facebook. 

Read the buzz about this new restaurant and then take your family out to dinner. Fan of shows on Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network? Then you are in for a treat. This is a favorite hangout of local animators, who have been covering the deli walls with original signed art from popular shows like Madagascar, Phineas and Ferb, and some that haven't even made it to air yet. There will be entertainment that you won’t want to miss, details to be announced. Mark your calendar now and plan to spend the evening with your loved ones and community and help us raise some much needed funds for our children’s education.

Box Tops for Education DUE by FRIDAY FEB. 25th

If you have been diligently collecting those box tops off of various brands, we kindly ask that you bring them to the office by Friday, Feb.25th.  When we collected them in the Fall, our school received close to $300. Every bit helps, so please help us help our kids.

A Valentine's THANK YOU!

The PTA wishes to thank Rosa Bender and her committee for a wonderful week that culminated in the super fun Valentine's Friendship Dance. We saw some great moves, ate some great food and were impressed by the creativity of our children that surrounded us on the walls and in the LEGOs on stage. Thank you to all the families who came and supported this event and to all the volunteers who made this event possible.

A special thank you to:

Rosalba Mendez- for being Rosa's right hand woman, for chairing the LEGO contest, and for making and selling the yummy tostadas along with her wonderful sisters and beautiful mom. For asking her nephew Pete to put together a playlist for us and hooking it all up.

Ariella Roberts- for being our wonderful MC, and for all the LEGO prizes.

Anvi Kevany- Well, nothing ever happens without Anvi, she was instrumental once again, in making sure everything ran smoothly.

Kim Ragno- What an amazing woman she is. She cooked, thanks for the great pasta and mini cheesecakes, she donated a ton of nail polish and decals, and put smiles on many of our little girls' faces with her manicure skills.

Beate Pilgreen, Lisa McGuinnes, Holly Schuck and her mom -for helping with the decorations, both on Tuesday and on Friday.

Gina Antestenis- always there in a pinch and her manicurist skills are not too shabby either.

Pilar Buelna and her daughter Gabi (Mt.Washington alum)-for helping to paint nails and for taking tickets at the dance

A very special thank you to all of our terrific teachers- for taking time out of their busy schedules to be the judges for the LEGO contest.

And a very, very special thank you to our wonderful Principal, Mrs.Valentino - for coming out to do manicures with us, we should all take lessons, she is a pro; and for staying at school till 9:00pm to lock up. We were very happy that she was able to make the dance along with her top 2 guys- her husband and 14 month old baby boy.

Thanks again for all of your support, see you all at our next dance in May!

Valentine's Friendship Dance, Friday, Feb.11th 6-8pm MPR

Put on your dancing shoes and come rock to music with the entire family! The Valentine's Friendship Dance is Friday, February 11th, in the Smith Center (MPR) from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. $3 gets you in and children 4 and under are free. Dinner and snacks will be sold. Learn to dance like a pro with a FREE dance lesson from 6:15pm to 6:45pm.

The PTA has expanded the Valentine’s fun! On Tuesday, Feb. 8th, your children are invited to the Lunch Pavilion from 1:30pm-2:30pm to make decorations for the dance. All the supplies will be provided; the kids can just show up and get creative!

On Thursday, Feb.10th the PTA is hosting a LEGO building contest, in the Lunch Pavilion from 2:30pm-4:30pm, prizes include cool LEGO building sets. Winners will be announced at the dance. Entry rules will be sent home via backpack flyer with all the details.

On the afternoon of the dance, Friday, Feb.11th, some of our volunteers will be giving mini-manicures for a $2 donation, in the Kindergarten Yard from 2:30-3:30pm. We will require that your child has a signed release with them before we can polish their nails. Please check your child's backpack for details.

This should be a great event and will help us raise funds to ensure that our children will continue to have the kind of education that they deserve. We are asking for donations, please look for a needs board by the parent center the week before the dance. We also have volunteer opportunities for the above mentioned activities as well as for the dance itself. Please look for a sign up board by the parent center or sign up online by clicking here. We will be selling presale tickets from Monday ( Feb.7th) -Wednesday(Feb.9th) in the mornings by the Parent Center, so come and get your tickets early and avoid the line at the door. This is a night your kids DEFINETELY won’t want to miss!

Coffee with the Principal, Friday, February 11th at 8:15am

Please join us for the second session of coffee with our wonderful Principal, Mrs. Valentino.  Come by the Parent Center on Friday, the 11th at 8:15am to chat about issues and upcoming events over some coffee and baked goods.

Room Rep Meeting on Feb.14th at 8:30 a.m. at the Parent Center.

Hello Wonderful Room Reps.  Please join Anvi and the rest of your fellow room reps for an informational meeting.  We will find out and discuss what's in store for the rest of the school year.  Please RSVP to Anvi at anvi@mwpta.org.

The Snack Shack Needs You!

Every week Tuesday to Thursday from 2:30pm-3:00pm the Snack Shack is open for business selling nutritious snacks to our hungry children.  We are in need of volunteers to insure that Snack Shack can stay in business.  If you can help out on Wednesdays or Thursdays from 2:15pm-3:15pm, please contact Gill Correa at fin_secretary@mwpta.org or Anvi Kevany at volunteers@mwpta.org. Thank you for your support.

Bye-Bye Eblast. Hello Blog.

At the beginning of this school year, the PTA began an effort to reduce paper waste in order to decrease printing cost and our carbon footprint.   One of the ways we’ve accomplished this is through more use of electronic communication with the parent body.  Over the last few months, we’ve collected your thoughts and comments on our progress and one thing is clear:  email is a more effective and convenient method for receiving notices and reminders, but there is just too much.    Well, we listened, we heard, and we’ve developed a more unified and consistent process to avoid over-burdening your inbox without compromising the exchange of important information.  Please read the following carefully as these changes will affect how we send notifications.

1. Room reps will send one email per week with messages from the PTA.  Any additional emails will be either at the teacher’s or principal’s request.

2. All PTA notices, announcements, reminders, etc, will be posted on our blog: http://mwpta.org/blog.html.   This page will be updated frequently with the most up-to-date information.  You have an option to either visit the page regularly to keep abreast of all the latest information; or you can sign up to receive an email whenever a new post is added.  We strongly urge you to subscribe to the blog, as this is will be the primary source for communicating all PTA messages.  To subscribe now, click here.  You will be asked to enter your email address and then confirm your subscription.

PLEASE NOTE:

-  If you see a message that states “You are already listed on the mailing list of MWPTA New  Blog Posts … “ This simply means that you simply need to confirm your subscription, so please look for an email from Feedburner and follow the confirmation instructions.

-  If you see a message that states “yourname@youremail.com is already subscribed to the mailing list of MWPTA New Blog Posts” then you need to do nothing further.

3. The eBlast will be discontinued as of February 2011.  To refrain from inundating your inboxes with duplicate information, we will no longer send a monthly eBlast with the usual reminders and announcements.  That information can be found in our blog (http://mwpta.org/blog.html). Again, we strongly suggest that you subscribe to ensure that you receive timely information.  Click here  to do so now.

4  GREAT NEWS! You can now follow us on Twitter!  To be reminded of important events and meetings in real-time, find us @mwpta_la.

Please remember, there will be no more eBlasts after the final one in February 2011.  To avoid missing pertinent information, please subscribe to the PTA Blog by clicking here. 

As always, thank you for your continued support

Save the Date -FOMWS Silent Auction "A Night of Comedy"- April 29th

A message from our friends at Friends of Mt.Washington School


Save the Date!
Friends of Mt. Washington's Annual Silent Auction
A Night of Comedy
At the Los Angeles River Center
Friday, April 29, 2011 - 7:00 - 10:00 pm
Pre-sale $15   Door $20

Please join The Friends of Mt. Washington School (FOMWS) for an unforgettable evening of side-splitting standup humor to benefit Mt. Washington Elementary School.  

Each year, FOMWS helps raise funds for much needed programs at our school, one of the top schools in Los Angeles.  As we prepare for the next fiscal year, we look to our friends, family, colleagues and community to help us cover school-associated expenses.

Your support is the vital link in sustaining programs such as Focus Fish (physical education), classroom aides, school buses and extra-curricular activities.

For more information on sponsorships, donating items for the auction, tickets or volunteering to put on the event, please contact Pilar Buelna at (323) 243-9340 or pilar.buelna@yahoo.com.