It’s been a fabulous beginning to the school year and I hope all of your students have gotten back into the swing of things.

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 our website and our 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 a quick response to completing this information online, if you haven’t done so yet, please do it right away at www.cascaderidgeptsa.org. The “First Day Packet” link is down along the left hand side of the page. You’ll be glad you did!!

Like last year, we will continue to join forces with the school for weekly communications with the 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 or signup to receive it directly in your email inbox. 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; First Lego League; Eager Reader; Caring Through Sharing; Talent Show; Fine Arts Night; Safety Patrol; Math Club; 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 the theme is “Kickin’ It Coyote Style.” If you haven’t already, please mark your calendar for October 14th 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 mainstay for our Walkathon as well as 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 families this year. In addition, this is a great family event so plan to spend your Friday with us and enjoy dinner and some exciting entertainment. This is 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 on our website at www.cascaderidgeptsa.org so feel free to check it out! Please plan to donate and participate in all the fun. I hope to see all of you there!

Deanne King,
PTSA President deannewking@live.com