Posted October 2, 2010 by Tina Yerges

It’s been a great beginning to the school year and I hope all the students have gotten back into a great routine despite the missing late summer weather that helps to make the transition easier.

I want to thank the community for your continued passion and support of the school through your support of the PTSA. Hopefully everyone has found the revised website and the new online “First Day Packet” process to be an easy one and a huge improvement to previous years where there were mounds of paperwork to sort through and complete. We don’t have everything online yet, but we are working on it! It is an enormous amount of work, but implementing these processes online creates a win-win for everyone as we reduce paperwork and repetitive completion of information, and at the same time, we significantly increase the accuracy of our information. Although we encouraged quick response to completing this information online, if you haven’t done so yet, please do it right away at www.cascaderidgeptsa.org. You’ll be glad you did!!

As you’ve probably noticed, in an effort to consolidate information we have joined forces with the school for weekly communications with the new Coyote Connection. In the “Connection”, you’ll find current information that is relevant to both school and PTSA activities. We will continue to publish our monthly Howler at the beginning of each month with more detailed articles, so don’t forget to check our “News” link on our website to ensure you stay up-to-date on all the many ongoing PTSA activities. In addition, when you go to the website, you’ll see key announcements on the front page to keep you “in the know”!

Speaking of staying up-to-date, people are often surprised to hear of the many school programs and events that are funded by the PTSA so I try to communicate often about this. Here are just a sampling of programs the PTSA is proud to support: Arts & Sciences Enrichment and Teacher Grants where the teachers, individually, and at grade levels, determine how to best spend their allotment to expand and enrich our kids’ learning opportunities; expanded reading and drama programs; Reflections; Destination Imagination; Science Fair; Eager Reader; Caring Through Sharing; Festival of Cultures; Fine Arts Night; Safety Patrol, Math Olympiad; Spelling Bee, and Dad’s Day on the Playground.

Finally, we are just a couple of weeks away from our only major fundraising event of the year, our Walkathon and Fall Festival, this year called the “Wild West Stampede”. If you haven’t already, please mark your calendar for October 15th right after school. Our committee is hard at work pulling together an exciting event, and you will see some of our typical entertaining activities that have become a main-stay for our Walkathon, a country barbeque, and some new and exciting surprises!! The Walkathon is a great opportunity for the kids to get actively involved in fundraising and we would love to have 100% participation of our kids this year. In addition, this is a great family event, so plan to have your Friday entertainment and dinner with us. This will be a huge community undertaking and one where we can all be a part of something big! There are more details, including participation permission, donation, and food and raffle preorder forms on our website at www.cascaderidgeptsa.org so feel free to check it out! Please plan to donate and participate in all the fun and I hope to see you there!

Tina Yerges, PTSA President