Dear Families:

Last night’s PTA meeting was well attended and productive. Bill de la Cruz from Denver Public School’s Culture, Equity & Leadership Team lead us through a Core Values exercise. We left the meeting with many more value statements from our parent community. When the meeting ended, there were still several conversations in progress. The PTA spoke to Bill following the meeting to determine the best way for parents to continue voicing their opinions in a productive manner. As follow up to last night’s meeting, Bill is returning to High Tech on Wednesday, December 2 to allow parents to continue the dialog.

This will be a meeting for parents only, no High Tech administrators nor teachers will be in attendance. In order to fit our meeting in the allotted time, we ask that all attendees arrive on time and take into consideration time to drop off children (ages 3+) in the gym for childcare during the meeting. Child care drop off starts at 6PM in the gym and the parent meeting begins promptly at 6:15PM in Room 226. No PTA business will be discussed at this meeting.

Saturday Snowday at HTES with Santa & Mrs. Claus
Avoid the long lines to visit with Santa and raise funds for High Tech at the same time. Join us Saturday, December 5 from 9AM to Noon. Tickets in advance are $15 each or $50 for 4 tickets. Day-of, you will pay, $17/ticket — after the event you will receive an email with your photo that you can use for any purpose. During the event you will be able to enjoy crafts, games, food, storytelling and more. Look for the flyer to come home with kids soon.

Food Drive Results
The High Tech Elementary PTA Thanksgiving Food Drive was a great success. We were able to give our partner organization Growing Home, a north-Denver non-profit, enough items to assemble 60 meal baskets. The 60 High Tech baskets will help Growing Home reach their goal of 300 meal baskets! Thank you for your support! In reward of our school’s great efforts, all students can wear PJs to school tomorrow, Friday, November 20. Stay tuned for details about Project Comfort and Joy when we will collect donations that will be used to provide grocery cards and other necessities to help the families in our own HTES community who could use some extra support as the weather turns colder and we take a break from school.

Direct Giving Program 2015
The PTA wants to give a heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who was involved in our Direct Giving Campaign! Sarah Cassida and Marty Hebeler, our Direct Giving Co-Chairs, along with 16 co-host families put four great parties together: Tacos & Tequila, the Drop in & Donate Coffee Bar, the Broncos vs. Raiders Tailgate, and the Hallowine & Cheese Party. The high-energy parties were well attended by parents, teachers and our administrators. Additionally, many local businesses donated food or wine and gift certificates or goods to be raffled.

Overall, $47,281 was raised through this campaign. The PTA has already received $24,000 of this amount and the remaining amount will come in through ongoing monthly donations. The PTA has used a large portion of these funds to pay for High Tech’s new FOSS science curriculum. This curriculum cost $43,000; Dr. Gile secured a grant for $23,000 of this amount and the PTA paid the remaining $20,000, so that our children can participate in this cutting-edge, hands-on curriculum. The remaining amount raised though Direct Giving, in addition to the funds that the PTA raises through our annual Auction in April 2016, will be used to pay for our Spanish teacher, additional staff, books and so much more.

Many parents have asked how our fundraising compares to other schools? The amount that High Tech has raised through Direct Giving is very high compared to schools across the state and across Denver Public Schools. There are truly only a few other schools, in Stapleton and peppered across Denver, that receive such tremendous financial support from the community.  We should be proud that our community wants to fill the gap between the budget that Denver Public Schools provides and what we want for our children’s education.

Thank You Allison Pettersson!
If your child came home last week talking about Safety Week, you have Allison to thank! She worked all week to bring in important community members to speak with our kids about safety. And, to top it off, Allison coordinated a successful parent workshop — Parenting Safe Children — last Saturday. Thank you Allison for all your hard work last week!

Save the Date: High Tech Elementary PTA Annual Auction
Mark your calendar for the evening of Saturday, April 9, 2016 for our annual auction, which will be held at the Forney Museum of Transportation. This is our school’s largest fundraiser and a high-quality, fun event! If you are interested in helping plan our event — there are many opportunities — please contact Meagan Partilla.

Reward Programs – Easy Ways to Give to High Tech
There are several ways to donate money to our school through your daily purchases, where a percentage of sales comes back to the school or you bring in an item from something you have already purchased for credit. High Tech Elementary PTA is set up with several rewards programs, including King Soopers, Box Tops for Education, AmazonSmile, and Milk Caps for Moola with Longmont Dairy. If you haven’t connected with these programs, please visit our Rewards Programs page to get all the details and don’t hesitate to contact our program chair Julie Gladnick for more details.

Stay up-to-date on everything PTA – add yourself and your family to MySchoolAnywhere.