Author Archives: CK

Influence the Choice: TECH Recruitment

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TECH (Teens Encouraging Community Health) is a youth-led coalition dedicated to mental health awareness and substance abuse prevention through outreach and advocacy.

Members gain critical knowledge and leadership skills to become change agents in their communities through their involvement in conducting community assessments, making prevention presentations to their peers, initiating, and implementing advocacy and other community service projects.

TECH meets twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday in the evening. Location and time TBD.

To Apply: https://bit.ly/Tech_Application

More Information: https://www.influencethechoice.org/tech.html

2020-2021 Slate Announced

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The Nominating Committee has announced their slate for the executive board of the Issaquah PTSA Council for 2020-2021.

The election will take place at our General Membership Meeting on 6/18/2020.

PresidentErin Eaton
Vice President Elementary Schools *SouthNicole Morgan
TreasurerPauline Tamblyn
SecretaryCindy Kelm
Vice President Elementary Schools *CentralLauren Bartholomew
Vice President Elementary Schools *NorthOPEN
Vice President Middle and High Schools**Carla Geraci

Issaquah School District PTSA Reflections State Award Winners

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Congratulations
to the
Issaquah School District PTSA
Reflections
State Award Winners!

Issaquah School District PTSA State Reflections Winners
Issaquah School District PTSA State Reflections Winners

Award of Excellence in Dance Choreography
Chloe Manningsmith
Fault in My Code
Pine Lake Middle School  PTSA

Award of Merit in Film Production
Toko Ryu
The Box
Pacific Cascade Middle School PTSA

Award of Excellence in Film Production
Michael Fowler
Look Within
Endeavor Elementary PTSA: Intermediate 

Award of Merit in Literature
Adya Mohapatra
I’ll Write the Future for Us
Issaquah High PTSA

Award of Outstanding Interpretation in Literature
Katerina Kalinchenko
Shattered
Challenger Elementary PTSA: Intermediate

Award of Excellence in Literature 
Austin Liu
Finding Yourself
Endeavor Elementary PTSA: Intermediate

Award of Outstanding Interpretation in Photography
Benjamin Eskenanzi
Submerged in Self-Reflection
Issaquah High School PTSA

Outstanding Interpretation in Visual Arts
Charlotte Park
Speechless
Beaver Lake Middle School PTSA

Award of Merit in Special Artist
Victoria Karafezov
(Abstract) Pumpkin
Challenger Elementary PTSA

Congratulations to All of the Golden Acorn Award Recipients Across Our District!

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Congratulations to the 2019-2020 PTSA Golden Acorn winners! We are so grateful for your service to our school communities. Thank you for all you have done on behalf of students and teachers!

Apollo

Golden Acorn – Danielle Forsythe

Golden Acorn – Christi Schumann

Golden Acorn – Kristi Hammond

Briarwood

Golden Acorn – Lena Wiegering

Golden Acorn – Kiana Coates

Cascade Ridge

Golden Acorn – Susan Ho

Golden Acorn – Paula Koransky

Golden Acorn – AJ Henderson

Golden Acorn – Sandra Vanderzee

Outstanding Advocate – Chandra Polisetti

Lifetime Achievement – Sandy McNees

Challenger

(Challenger plans to award Golden Acorn and Outstanding Advocate when school resumes in the fall)

Clark

Golden Acorn – Lauren Bartholomew

Golden Acorn – Ashley Conner

Cougar Ridge

Golden Acorn – Dorothy Davis

Golden Acorn – Stephanie Sladic

Golden Acorn – Jenne Greene

Outstanding Advocate – Ewelina Hickey

Creekside

Golden Acorn – Marissa Corona

Golden Acorn – Sue Horton

Golden Acorn – Laura Hassel

Discovery

Golden Acorn – Yeon Kim

Golden Acorn – Portia Wilcock

Outstanding Advocate – Michelle Moon

Outstanding Advocate – Craig Sakai

Endeavor

Golden Acorn – Tabitha Gilscarbo

Golden Acorn – Kavitha Naidu

Golden Acorn – Amy Myhre

Golden Acorn – David Keith

Outstanding Advocate – Ashley Dunn

Outstanding Advocate – Hillary Harris

Grand Ridge

Golden Acorn – Nathalie Isensee

Issaquah Valley

Golden Acorn – Ashley Kowallis

Golden Acorn – Cortney Eldridge

Golden Acorn – Ki Lan Black

Golden Acorn – Kitty Morris

Newcastle

Golden Acorn – Heather Ackermann

Golden Acorn – Nicole Anderson

Golden Acorn – Tammy Chin

Golden Acorn – Ram Sarma

Sunny Hills

Outstanding Advocate – Kendra Villasana

Golden Acorn – Shilpa Schuettenhelm

Golden Acorn – Jennifer Marks

Honorary Lifetime Membership – Stephanie Shipley

Sunset

Golden Acorn – Galit Scandrett

Golden Acorn – Meghan Landon

Beaver Lake

Golden Acorn – Khristie Tobler

Golden Acorn – Stefanie Magnuson

Golden Acorn – Tara Farhad

Issaquah Middle

Golden Acorn – Karissa Mobilia

Golden Acorn – Angie Warren

Golden Acorn – Carla Geraci

Maywood

Golden Acorn – Dawn Carr

Honorary Lifetime Membership – Korista Smith-Barney

Pacific Cascade

Golden Acorn – Tracie Jones

Golden Acorn – Jennifer Frederick

Outstanding Advocate – Tracy Drake

Pine Lake

Golden Acorn – Evan Shieh

Golden Acorn – Karen Hoetzel

Outstanding Advocate – Chris Miske

Outstanding Advocate – Caroline Dwyer Sanik

Outstanding Advocate – Amy Saylor

Issaquah High

Golden Acorn – Wendy Marucheck

Golden Acorn – Victoria Evans

Golden Acorn – Wendy Cummins

Outstanding Advocate – Valerie Yanni

Outstanding Advocate – Jennifer Crewe

Outstanding Advocate – Joanne Wrightson

Liberty High

Golden Acorn – Stacy Morford

Golden Acorn – Dawn Peschek

Honorary Lifetime Membership – Shelly Russell

Skyline High

Golden Acorn – Stacie Lacina

Golden Acorn – May Gauvin

Golden Acorn – Nga Selbig

PTSA council Awards

Golden Acorn – Sara Carmichael

Golden Acorn – Valerie Yanni

Honorary Life Membership – Leslie Kahler

Reflections: Fall 2020-2021 Theme

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These days we are looking for silver linings wherever we might find them.  More time at home means more time to create! Each year the National PTSA sponsors an art competition for writers, composers, dancers, photographers and visual artists.  Next year’s Reflections Theme is “I Matter Because…” and with extra time at home, we want to encourage kids passionate in these areas to get to work on a fabulous piece of art to share at your school in the fall.  Directions and guidelines can be found at: 

Reflections

Questions can be emailed to Kristen Allen-Bentsen at kallenbentsen@hotmail.com

VIS Information & THANK YOU!

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Ballot results were posted by King County Elections Tuesday Feb. 11th at 8:15pm. We passed with a 61.52% approval rate!  There are still ballots to be counted in the next couple of days, so each day there will be an update on ballots and percentages.

Hurrah! Such good news to see it pass! A huge thank you to ALL OF YOU – Our PTAs who sent postcards to their school community, shared the messaging and Facebook posts, hosted VIS speakers at your PTA Meetings, sent out information via Enews to their membership. Another Thank you to everyone who came out to Honk and Wave in support of our students! Thank you also to our PTSA Council for sharing the information on their Facebook page and support!

All of this work together made a HUGE difference to “Get out the vote” to our community!

Note on Yard Signs:  For those of you who helped with Yard Signs – THANK YOU! They were everywhere during the campaign. We need to have them all down by next Sunday 2/16.  If you see one, please take it down and recycle the sign, but KEEP the metal stake – we are keeping the metal stakes for the next campaign. Please bring your metal stakes to the March Council meeting and we will pick up!

Thank you all for helping make this Levy Campaign a success!

We will be at the March Council meeting to give wrap up statistics on the campaign. See you then!

Thank you all again for your great work!
Dawn Peschek & Alicia Veevaert
dawn@visvote.org & alicia@visvote.org

Please Share Today on your PTA Facebook Page

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Hello PTA Presidents & Communication Chairs – 

Hope you are all “staying afloat” today! Sheesh!

4 DAYS UNTIL BALLOTS ARE DUE!

Would you please SHARE the new Post from the VIS page to Your School Page today or over the weekend…

it’s easy – just go to Volunteers for Issaquah Schools on Facebook – the Post is at the top (A bunch of happy kids with YOUR VOTE MATTERS Ballots due next Tuesday messaging.

Fun Fact: There are 15,000 ballots turned in at this point – – please help remind people to grab their ballots off their kitchen counters and mail them asap (NO STAMP REQUIRED!)  *Note if people are turning ballots into ballot boxes, they must be in the box BY 8PM!

Honk & Waves – Last two are on Monday (AM & PM) are Monday – hopefully we won’t have to bring our floaty toys (wait…maybe we should…haha!) Here is the sign up if you need to know a location or would like to help in this last effort to remind our community to Vote by Tuesday.https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f4da9a829aaf49-2020

1 Last Enews Reminder Graphic:  ATTACHED JPEG BELOW – it is factual and OK to send via Your Own or School Enews and post on your Website, please send out asap (by Tuesday morning, latest) in time to remind people to vote.

A huge THANK YOU to all of you again for your help! YOU are all making a difference and your help is appreciated!

-Dawn & Alicia
Volunteers for Issaquah Schools
206.391.5120

VIS Info for Presidents 2/4

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Hello PTA Presidents!

How are we all doing??  BALLOTS ARE DUE IN 7 DAYS – NEXT TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11th We are in the home stretch! Woo Hoo!!!!!  Are you as excited as I am???

Thank you ALL for all your support during this campaign! You are doing a GREAT job!

-Dawn & Alicia


Just a couple IMPORTANT things this week – we need to get this info out:

1. Please remind, remind, remind your community of parents to VOTE!  At this point, only 20% of ballots have been returned! YIKES! We need our parents – our YES voters – to get their ballots in ASAP this week. We need to pass this levy for our kids!*NOTE: Ballots turned in at ballot boxes on Tuesday, Feb 11 need to be in by 8pm! https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/how-to-vote/ballots/returning-my-ballot.aspx

2. Please SHARE our VIS posts on Facebook to your PTA Facebook Page. We have a new post (like the image below, posted tonight) PLUS a REMIND TO VOTE post which is scheduled for 8am Wednesday morning. PLEASE SHARE THESE POSTS! You can also share on your personal Facebook pages too!

3. HONK & WAVE – The BEST Honk & Wave is next Monday, February 10th. This is our last chance to remind everyone to vote by Tuesday! If you can help, or have students needing volunteer hours who can help, please sign up here (locations listed). Have a party. Sip  hot cocoa with marshmallows! Bring music and dance and remind everyone to VOTE! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f4da9a829aaf49-2020

4. WINDOW CLINGS – Not too late to put them on your car windows! Make a statement…put a bunch on there!  So exciting seeing these clings all over our district. Makes it feel like we are all working together to get this important Levy passed and reminds people to VOTE YES!

_______________________________________________________________________

THIS WEEK’S MESSAGING BELOW

THE GRAPHIC IMAGE SAYS VOTE YES – SO CAN ONLY BE SENT VIA YOUR OWN ENEWS not via the School Email. You can post this on Facebook with the image – we can put Vote Yes all over the place on Facebook!

Have you mailed your ballot?
Ballots are due by next Tuesday!

The renewal/replacement levy continues support for Mental Health Counselors, Safety & Security, Career & Technical Programs, Special Education, Highly Capable Program, Expanded High School Schedules, Dual Language Program

Local Dollars Support Local Kids. Not a New Tax!

______________________________________________________________________________

Here is Factual information which can be put on your homepage:

Have you Voted Yet? Ballots are due by Tuesday, February 11th

No stamps? No problem. Return Your Ballot Postage Free! According to King County Elections, only about 20 percent of ballots in the levy election were returned by noon yesterday. Is yours one of them? If not, don’t worry! All you have to do is fill it out, sign it, and drop it in the mail. You don’t even need a stamp. Or you can put your ballot in one of the more than 70 ballot drop boxes around King County, including ones at Issaquah City Hall, Sammamish City Hall or Newcastle City Hall. Find a drop box at https://www.kingcounty.gov/…/returni…/ballot-drop-boxes.aspx

Lunch for the Break, Mid-Winter Edition

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Lunch for the Break is working to make sure all Issaquah School District students have enough to eat, even when students are out of school over a long break.   LFTB provides a week’s worth of free grocery items for each student in the family that can be used to make breakfast, lunch and snacks.

Donors: drop-off is Wednesday, February 12 at each of our three partner sites. Register as a LFTB donor and let us know how many boxes you can help provide.  Download our UPDATED LFTB shopping list and visit your favorite grocery store to purchase the complete shopping list for each box. 

Pressed for time? Skip the shopping and box packing and please consider ordering boxes directly through our partner agency, Supply All Kids – they will pack and deliver all LFTB food right to our distribution sites!

You can also make a financial contribution to Lunch for the Break to help cover the cost of fresh produce and bread

Clients/Families: Family pick up is Thursday, February 13 at each of our three partner sites.  Register online to come shop for Lunch for the Break food at any of our partner locations. Registration is important as it helps us have the right amount of food available at each site.

VIS info – Copy & Paste and Facebook Posts for Week of 1/28-1/31

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Hellooooooooooo Presidents!!!!

Thank you for getting your postcards out! Woo Hoo! Everything went smoothly and thank you again for getting this project completed! Ballots were mailed last week, you should have received yours. Many of you may have received a phonecall with kids voices reminding you to vote (so darn cute!!!)

The important thing we need to do now, is to remind people TO VOTE. Every vote counts and we need to remind people to put them in the mail or drop them off at a local drop box. Ballots are postage paid, so they don’t even need to look for a stamp!

COPY AND PASTE INFO BELOW FOR ENEWS – OK to sent out via Enews through your Our School Pages OR through the School! (approved by L Michelle, ISD Communication director, this is all factual information.

Note the link for the levy information translated into several different languages on the Enews! A huge thank you to Cultural Bridges for translating this information to share with our community!

FACEBOOK IMAGE SAYS VOTE YES – ONLY USE THAT GRAPHIC ON FACEBOOK

HONK AND WAVE:  Final is Monday, Feb 10th – 2 times 7-8:30am and 5-6:30pm. This is the last push to remind our community to get their ballots in by the next day when they are due February 11th. Click here for locations near you: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f4da9a829aaf49-2020

WINDOW CLINGS:  Please put them on your car windows to show your support!  We have distributed almost 3,000 of these throughout the district – let’s put them on our windows and remind people to vote!  If you need more, contact dawn@visvote.org or alicia@visvote.org and we will get some to you!

SPEAKER SERIES:  We are still presenting information at PTA meetings, HOAs, community organizations. Please contact Alicia if you need a speaker at any event: alicia@visvote.org

Issaquah Reporter – Renton Reporter – New articles on online about the Levy – please share on your FB pages (also on VIS FB page, can easily share from there!)

Thank you all again for your great work!
Dawn & Alicia
dawn@visvote.org and alicia@visvote.org

____________________________________________________________________________
THE COPY AND PAST INFO BELOW IS FOR YOUR ENEWS – 

Ballots arrived in the mail last week – please remember to vote by February 11th, 2020

The 2020 EP&O Renewal Levy Continues Support For: Career & Technical Education • Mental Health Counselors in Our Schools • Special Education • Early Childhood Learning • Safety and Security • Highly Capable Programs • Dual Language Program • After School Activities and Athletics

This is not a new tax. This renewal levy replaces the previous two-year levy expiring in 2020. With voter approval of this renewal levy, we can ensure these programs continue benefitting our students for another 2 years. 

Click here to download a fact sheet with details

Click here to read levy information in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish or Vietnamese (on pages 16-17)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THIS GRAPHIC BELOW IS FOR YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE ONLY – OK TO SAY VOTE YES BECAUSE IT IS NOT LINKED TO DISTRICT OR SCHOOL SITES: