Make sure to mark your calendars for the following events at Roosevelt this week:

Monday, October 15
Site Council meeting at 6:30pm in the Faculty Lounge (Room 14). Come and hear the latest district and school news. All are encouraged to attend and Spanish translation is available. (Attendance counts toward your 40 hour time commitment)

Tuesday, October 16
Book fair meeting for 4th grade families at 2:30pm to discuss the November Book Fair. Please contact our librarian Paulette Elliott for more information at pelliott@rcsdk8.net

Restaurant fundraiser at Chuck E Cheese (2541 El Camino) from 3:00pm – 9:00pm. Chuck E Cheese will donate 15% of sales back to Roosevelt. Invite friends and family and help raise more money for Roosevelt!

Important Dates…
October 22 – PTA Meeting at 6:00pm in Room 14
October 25 – Coffee with Principal Girardi at 8:00am in Room 2
October 25 – Picture Make Up Day for anyone that missed Picture Day in September (free dress for students taking pictures)
October 26 – Spooktacular Bingo 5:30pm – 8:30pm (2nd grade families providing volunteers)
October 31 – Halloween Parade in the morning on the lower playground
November 2 – Free dress Friday
November 13 – 16 – Book Fair (4th grade families providing volunteers)

Trivia Question…
How many points has Roosevelt gained in our API score since scores were first reported in 1999?

a. 144 points
b. 164 points
c. 174 points

Make your guess and find out if you’re correct at the bottom!

Candy sale update…
If you haven’t already done so, please turn in your money for the World’s Finest Chocolate Sales. Our PTA has to turn in the money to World’s Finest for all of the boxes that were taken out.

Free dress Friday has begun for any student that sold 5 or more boxes of chocolate (or 8 for families with 2 or more students). Teachers have the list of students that qualify for free dress.

The limo ride to In N Out hasn’t been scheduled yet. The final numbers need to be calculated and permission slips will be sent home with your student when it is scheduled.

Dance Around the World…
Due to popular demand, an after school dance class was added on Wednesdays in addition to the class being held after school on Fridays. The office received over 120 applications for 30 slots. The PTA’s Enrichment Fund paid for an additional 30 student class to be held on Wednesdays after school for students in grades K-2. Students in grades 3-7 were assigned to the Friday afternoon class. If you did not receive a yellow information sheet last week informing you that your child was in a class then your child has been waitlisted. If a space opens up, parents will be contacted in the order in which the permission slips were received. The dance class is being held in the cafeteria. A big thank you to parents that have donated to the school’s enrichment program for making the addition of another class possible!

Speaking of the Enrichment Fund…
Pledge reminders will be sent out soon so please send in your donations. Roosevelt is asking for $100 per student for the year to pay for enrichment programs such as the dance class, the school wide art program by Art 4 All, the girls running club, field trips for all grades and hopefully much, much more! Please make checks out to Roosevelt PTA. Payments may be turned in to your child’s classroom or the school office. Make sure to include your child’s name and room # on the envelope or check memo line so that your family is credited with the payment. Thanks to our generous parents for making funding for these programs possible.

Roosevelt School Choir…
Students in grades 4 and 5 are invited to join the Roosevelt choir. The choir will be meeting on Tuesdays from 2:30pm-3:30pm in Room 25A. Choir practice will begin on Tuesday, October 16. An orange permission slip went home in last Thursday’s folder, so turn it in as soon as possible since space is limited.

School Pictures…
If you do not receive your child’s school picture by Monday afternoon, or if there is a problem with your order, please contact Len Conrad photography directly at (408)364-2750. You will need to have the following information ready: school name, your child’s name, room # and package ordered.

If your child missed picture day in September, the make up day is October 25.

Spooktacular Bingo…
Save the Date! Spooktacular Bingo is back! Come join the fun on October 26 at 5:30pm for a pumpkin/cake walk and other fun games followed by Bingo hosted once again by the incomparable Mr Williams and Mr Anderson!

The 2nd grade parents are asked to volunteer for this event and help with set-up, clean-up, food and ticket sales. Sign up sheets have been posted, so be sure to sign up for a slot. Any time volunteering for this event counts toward the 40 hour volunteer time commitment for the year.

On the Parent Blog…
I’ll be posting pictures from the 2nd graders Motion & Balance RAFT car races. I’ve posted pictures of Roosevelt’s Girls on the Run team from Saturday’s Oktoberun 5k (thanks to Shaleshni Reyes for the pictures!). If you haven’t been on campus since the Beautification Weekend, make sure to take a look at the pictures on the blog. Kinder and middle school tour season is starting early, so more pictures of what’s happening in our classrooms are desperately needed. If you have any that you’d like to send in, let us know.

Groundbreaking Ceremony for SJ Earthquakes Stadium…
Want to be part of breaking a world record and show your support for the SJ Earthquakes? The SJ Earthquakes are having a new stadium ground breaking ceremony on October 21. There is no cost, and participants will receive a free commemorative shovel for attending the event. Here is a link to where you can RSVP: http://www.sjearthquakes.com/newstadium/groundbreaking

Neighborhood Parking…
The office has received calls from Roosevelt neighbors that some parents have been blocking their driveways – either blocking them entirely or partially. Please be considerate of our school’s neighbors and only park your car in a legal space. Please use the drop off zone on Vera Avenue and do not make illegal u-turns. There have been some near misses because of this. If you need to park and walk in to school, there is always plenty of parking space on Upton in front of the field or in the Rite Aid parking lot.

Roosevelt’s Facebook Page…
The district created a Facebook page for every school in the district. Please be sure to “Like” the Roosevelt page to get school and district updates in your news feed. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roosevelt-Elementary-School/214259038634327

Volunteer Timesheets…
If you are volunteering any of your time for the school, don’t forget to fill out a Volunteer Timesheet so that your hours can be counted! Volunteer Timesheets are available in the classrooms and the school office. They may be turned in to your child’s classroom or the office.

Trivia Question Answer…
The correct answer is c. 174 points! It was a bit of a trick question since the table in the district’s press release shows Roosevelt’s 10 year gain of 164 points. In 1999, Roosevelt’s first recorded API score was 613 and our just released score for the 2012 school year is 787. Congratulations once again to our hard working students, teachers and staff for the 62 point gain this year. Next goal = 800+!

The students can do it with your support and encouragement.

To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school
and then fail to support them when they get home.
You can’t just contract out parenting. For our kids
to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to
help them learn. That means putting away the Xbox
and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It
means attending those parent-teacher conferences
and reading to our children and helping them with
their homework.

—President Barack Obama, July 17, 2009

For strategies to help your student, check out some resources offered by the US Department of Education at http://www2.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/edpicks.jhtml?src=ln

Have a great week!