The PTA OFFICERS for the 2011 - 2012 School Year are:
- President – Rachel Hicks
- Vice-President Fundraising – Sharri Freedman
- Vice-President Programs – Karla Berggren
- Treasurer – Steve Schuck
- President-Elect – Eric Williams
- Secretary – Angie Dixson
Join the PTA
The Ritchie Park ES Parent Teacher Association (PTA) invites you to become a member of an organization that not only works for our children at the national, state, and local levels, but is also a great way to meet and connect with other RPES families. PTA is a wonderful way to get involved in your child's school. By joining the PTA, you will personally help support many wonderful programs and funding of needed supplies here at Ritchie Park ES.
We welcome and need your involvement and participation in order to help make our events a success. PTA Meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday of the month at 7:30pm, generally in the Media Center, and we would love to see you there.
Join Ritchie Park ES PTA today! Download the membership form here.
Thank you for supporting the PTA and helping to make Ritchie Park ES the best learning environment for our children!
Direct Donation: Help Put an ELMO in Every Classroom
WHAT IS AN ELMO? A type of document camera that displays documents and other objects that are not translucent, and uses a projector to display the image on a large screen so that an entire classroom of children can see at the same time. It differs from a projector in that what is being projected is often 3-dimensional, moving or changing (like a clip from the Internet, or a stopwatch counting down, or a worm wiggling!)
The teachers who have access to an ELMO today love it because it provides them access to cutting edge technology that enhances the children’s educational experience. But to incorporate it in lesson plans – on a regular and consistent basis – it cannot be shared with other teachers for limited periods. Right now, RPES teachers are forced to share the ELMOs.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP? Make a Donation. Your contribution is 100% tax deductible. Each ELMO and projector costs approximately $1,500.00. We need $15,000.00 to reach our goal of 1 in every classroom.
Know of any grant or corporate donation possibilities? If so, let us know. Check with your employer’s human resource department to see if your employer participates in a program that will match the funds you give to the PTA.
Download the donation form here.
Should you require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Sharri Freedman, PTA Vice-President, Fundraising at sharribeth@aol.com, or Rachel Hicks, PTA President at rachelginac@aol.com.
Download the flyer here.
Free Kid’s Meal at California Tortilla in Rockville
Our friends at California Tortilla in Rockville would like to congratulate RPES’s hard-working students. Bring in your student’s current report card and receive a free kid’s meal. Offer is valid February 1 through March 1. Rockville location only! A lot of students from RPES redeemed their free kid’s meal last time and California Tortilla hopes to see everyone again.
Music and Dance Night
Let’s twist and shout at RPES annual Music and Dance night celebration. Families and friends of RPES are invited to come dance and play games led by the deejays on Friday, February 24th, 2012 from 7-9pm. This event is in conjunction with Manna Mania (see below), to help fight hunger in our community. Please join us for this FREE event. Download the flyer here.
Manna Mania
Manna Mania will be happening at Music & Dance Night! Please bring non-perishable food donations to the event, where we will collect food for Manna Food Bank. In past years, Ritchie Park families collected and donated over 400 pounds of food in this one evening!!! Let's break our own record and help fight hunger in our community again this year. Thank you to everyone who signed up to work at Manna's warehouse as part of Manna Mania! Both slots are filled, which shows that Ritchie Park Panthers believe in community service!!!
Lunch and Recess Volunteers Needed!! To sign up for Lunch & Recess Volunteer shifts using Volunteer Spot, go to: http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/6523456346936540113. Download detailed instructions here if you need them.
Yearbook
Help us capture memories for our children to last a lifetime! We are looking for the following:
- MARKETING/SALES – In this position, you will be responsible for all marketing related to the sales of the yearbook, including the collection and accounting of orders and sales. Marketing will begin in January and the sale will begin in March. This person(s) will also assist in distribution of the yearbook in June.
- PHOTOGRAPHERS - We must have pictures to make a yearbook! Please, please, please take pictures at all events! There are so many things coming up we need pictures for...Pizza-Bingo, Restaurant Nights, Ice-Skating Night, and all other school-sponsored activities, classroom activities, cafeteria, field trips, recess, etc. If you are at school, bring your camera! Superior quality pictures are not necessary -- only a minimum 3MB is required. E-mail Michelle Logsdon at michelle.logsdon@verizon.net for directions on how to submit your photos via e-mail or by importing them onto a website.
For additional questions, please contact Michelle Logsdon at michelle.logsdon@verizon.net.
PTA Paperless Sign-Up 2011-2012
To save on paper, copying costs and volunteer/teacher time, Ritchie Park PTA would like to offer you ECommunication. You will receive e-mails from our listserve, grade reps and PTA board with links to all flyers, newsletters and other PTA material that would have come home in your child’s backpack. Download the PTA Paperless Sign-up Form here.
Room Parents
For a list of 2011-2012 Room Parents, click here.
List Serve
Our PTA uses a mailing list server, called a ListServ, as a primary means of communication for all PTA members. Susbscribing to the mailing list is a great way to keep up with the ongoing activities at Ritchie Park. Learn how to subscribe and more here.
Advocacy Corner:
Advocacy Corner: Come Make a Difference
If there is any meeting you attend this year in which your presence can make a real difference, it is this coming Thursday, February 9th at the Montgomery County Council hearing on MCPS's request for funding to build a new elementary school in the Richard Montgomery High School Cluster. In fall 2011, MCPS's Board of Education approved a plan to build a new elementary school in the RM Cluster (RMES#5) with an opening date of 2015. As you know, when this school opens, it will be filled immediately with students from Ritchie Park and other schools in our cluster because each of our elementary schools is over capacity. However, a few weeks ago, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett recommended to the County Council a TWO-YEAR DELAY in opening RMES#5. If we have to wait until 2017 for a new elementary school in our cluster, it could mean more portables taking up valuable playground space, stretching classroom resources more thinly, teachers and staff leaving for less crowded schools, and property values declining because home owners want schools that have enough space to educate their children! This delay will not only effect the children already enrolled in the lower grades at Ritchie Park, but those coming into our school as well.
The reasons for the delay stated by the County Executive do not withstand scrutiny. (See article in Rockville Patch.) The County's Children's Resource Center is currently located on the RMES #5 site and, as you may recall, the RPES and other elementary school PTAs opposed the idea of colocating the CRC as a top floor on the new elementary building. Now the county wants to build the CRC's new building first in order to save the costs of temporarily relocating it, while we wait two years for the school construction to begin. Although it may appear that this is a cost-savings measure, the two-year delay in the school construction may very well cost the county more because of the increase in construction costs. Additionally, there are many places the County can readily relocate the Children's Resource Center for what we believe is a fraction of the cost they claim. The bottom line is that the County Executive has misplaced priorities. The priority should be relieving the RM Cluster's overcrowded schools, as it is relieving the overcrowding at the schools of two other clusters where the elementary school construction was kept on schedule. We deserve the same immediate attention to the needs of the RM Cluster. We can't wait TWO more years!!!
We need you to come support keeping the construction of RMES #5 on schedule by coming to the County Council's public hearing on this budget issue on Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 7 pm at the Council Office Building 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. Our RM Cluster Coordinator Cheryl Moss Herman will be speaking on our behalf to urge the County Council fund the construction of RMES #5 for 2015, as approved by the BOE, and reject the County Executive's recommendation for a two year delay. The exact time and agenda come out on the day of the hearing, so we will notify you of the exact time for the testimony. Plan on spending no more than one hour of your time, but it will be an hour well spent. Thank you. Any questions, contact Jennifer Young or Rich Hart, MCCPTA Delegates.
Advocacy Corner Archive:
For older Advocacy Corner information, please see the archived newsletters below.
Missed it?...Read the 2011-2012 Newsletters here:
2011-2012 PTA Meeting Minutes:
PTA Financial Documents
If you have any questions related to Ritchie Park or the PTA, feel free to contact any of these PTA officers:
The Board of Directors of the PTA also includes the following other members:
- Delegate to the Montgomery County Council of PTAs and Past President:
Jennifer Young
young.jennifer@gmail.com
301-309-8764
Committee Chairs:
A good way to find out who is doing what with the PTA is to check out the various committees and who is leading them.
Ongoing Fundraising Opportunities:
Contributing to your child's school is as easy as cutting tops of boxes of items you already have in your house. Find out more.
Everyone shops for groceries. Ritchie Park can benefit if you let your regular grocery store know you want to support Ritchie Park. Download the flyer here.
Montgomery County Council of PTAs
The Ritchie Park PTA belongs to the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA), which serves as the primary avenue for advocacy on issues that affect our students and our schools. MCCPTA leaders (all volunteers) interact with the MCPS Board of Education, the Montgomery County Council as well as the Maryland Legislature and other elected officials on a regular basis throughout the year. They focus on issues related to the impact of budget cuts on our schools, long-range planning such as capital improvements, curriculum changes/improvements, special needs education, health, safety and the environment and more.
Ritchie Park is represented at the MCCPTA by its Delegates and the PTA President.
From time to time, we will be using this website as well as the list serve to bring you up-to-date on information being discussed by MCCPTA, as well as to seek your opinion as MCCPTA formulates its position on a variety of issues.
Archives
2010-2011 PTA Newsletters:
2010-2011 PTA Meeting Minutes: