Back-to-School Announcements!

~ Lowell PTA

It’s almost back-to-school time, Lowell dragons! Here are some announcements from our principal:

  • We will continue to be a late-start school. Here are our bell times:
    • M, Tu, Th, F – Doors open at 8:40, school starts 8:55, and school releases at 3:25.
    • Wed – Doors open at 8:40, school starts 8:55, and school releases at 2:10.
  • Bus route information will be sent directly to families closer to the end of the month. If you have specific questions, please utilize the “Let’s Talk” option on the SPS-Transportation website: https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/transportation/contact-us
  • Breakfast and lunch will continue to be free to all students at no-cost this year.
  • The First Day of School for 1st – 5th graders will be Wednesday, Sept 4. School doors open at 8:40 and school releases at 2:10. Preschool and Kindergarten’s first day is Monday, Sept 9.
  • Enrollment continues and class lists are in process. Your child’s teacher will reach out to you with a personal introduction via phone or e-mail the week of August 26.
  • If your children will no longer be attending Lowell, please email Tammy Watson at tawatson@seattleschools.org to let us know about the enrollment change.
  • Welcome to Kindergarten:
    • When kindergarten teachers call to introduce themselves the week of August 26, they will also schedule a Family Connection Conference. These 1-1 family-teacher conferences will be held between Sept 4-6, either in-person or over Microsoft Teams, depending on your preference. 
    • Please check out this welcome video from our Kindergarten team, sharing ideas that can support readiness.
    • Due to budget limitations, there will not be a Kindergarten Jump Start event this year at Lowell.
  • Monday Food Hub: This August, the Lowell Food Hub is excited to offer meal kits for pick-up every Monday from 12pm-4pm! Meal kits will include recipes for two lunch/dinner meals and one breakfast. Expect tasty options like cereal, pancakes, stir-fries, and casseroles! To reserve a food bag, sign up here: https://calendly.com/crademacher/recipe-food-bag-pickup
  • Childcare: The Boys and Girls Club operates an after-school program on-site at Lowell. If you would like more information about registration, please email Erika Kerr at EKerr@positiveplace.org
  • School Supplies: Lowell does not have a school supply list – and please do not feel like you need to purchase anything. Students may bring their own backpack and/or pencil case if they would like. Our supplies are shared collectively. If you would like to contribute, please work directly with your child’s teacher to see what specific needs they have for their classroom.
  • All families are invited to our annual kick-off engagement event, Popsicles on the Playground. This will be on Tuesday, Sept 3 from 2:30-3:30. This will be a chance to meet your new teacher, connect with friends, enjoy music, do some chalk art, play outside, and high-five our Dragon mascot. Our Community Partners, including the school-based Health Center, will be on-site to support with questions. Backpacks will also be available for pick-up.
     
  • Here are some ways to stay connected to Lowell staff and families:
  • Download the Talking Points app. It is through this app that the district, school, and your child(ren)s teacher(s) may communicate with you. Be sure to regularly do app updates to ensure you continue receiving these messages throughout the year.
  • Set up your Source account. The Source is Seattle Public Schools’ tool that allows parents to view attendance, grades, test scores, and schedules.
  • Visit the Lowell PTA website where you can learn about how to get involved in supporting the school and join the email listserv to get regular updates. Direct questions to PTA President Courtney Zier at president@lowellelementary.org
  • Visit the Lowell Website. This will provide information about upcoming events and our current newsletter, along with photos of the school and staff rosters/contact information.
  • Sign up to volunteer in the school: https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/volunteer/
  • We will send out family email updates at least monthly, beginning in late August. If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to e-mail cldziedzic@seattleschools.org

Welcome back Lowell Dragons!

~ Lowell PTA

On behalf of the PTA, welcome back to Lowell. See below for some upcoming events:

CANSSPA Fall Potluck – Saturday, September 23rd at 12:00 PM

Lowell is a part of the Central and North Seattle Schools PTA Alliance, an organization formed to help advocate for adequate and equitable education in the Seattle schools through network building, resource sharing, and collective advocacy. Join us for a fall potluck in Volunteer Park to kick off our year. Bring yourselves and a dish to share.

General PTA meeting – Tuesday, September 26th at 5:30 PM

Please join us in the Lowell Elementary School library for our first PTA meeting of the year to discuss our goals and activities for the year. Children welcome, and dinner will be provided.

Want to join the PTA but can’t make the meeting? Have questions about what membership involves? Email PTA president Courtney Zier at president@lowellelementary.org.

June Updates

~ Lowell PTA

CANSSPA Field Day

The Lowell Elementary PTA is thrilled to have joined CANSSPA (The Central and North Seattle Schools PTA Alliance), a newly-formed organization who mission is “to advocate for all children to receive adequate and equitable education through a model of network building, resource sharing, and collective advocacy.” CANSSPA is holding a kick-off Field Day event on Saturday, June 10th from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM at Carkeek Park. All are welcome to join for fun, games, refreshments, conversation, and community building. Learn more about CANSSPA at: https://www.cansspa.org/.

Lowell Spring Beautification

Join members of the PTA and the Lowell community on Sunday, June 11th to spruce up our school grounds before summer! We’ll be planting bushes and flowers, weeding, picking up trash, playing games in the field, and enjoying snacks together. If you have gardening gloves and/or tools, feel free to bring them, otherwise we’ll have some on hand.

Dragon Tales: New Board and More

~ Cedar McKay

Note: We are going to try to engage our members with more frequent, more casual communications so that everyone knows what the PTA is up to. In the past we’ve gotten bogged down by feeling our communications had to be overly polished and detailed, then never getting around to it. 

Here is what your PTA has been up to lately:

At the general meeting, we elected next year’s board and officers.
President: Sara Ross-Viles
Vice-President: Jen Anderson
Treasurer: Ali McKay
Secretary: Kate Alesandrini
Events Chair: Lacie Charles
Volunteer coordinator: Charlie Ellis
Communications Chair: Cedar McKay
Communications/Events: Courtney Zier

Ali McKay served on the selection committee to bring Boys and Girls club to Lowell to provide childcare starting next year! Yay!

Ali McKay is collecting last minute Mov-a-thon donations. Last day to be counted is tomorrow, so get them in!

The board has been advocating with the district to take into account the return of Mary’s Place to our school next year. This would have a big impact on the number of teachers and staff Lowell gets. 

Lacie Charles is busy organizing the Luau dance this Saturday.

The board approved two $395 opportunity grants for Special Education teacher Karen Giroux and speech-language pathologist Eileen Donahue to go to Washington State School for the Blind for Professional Development this summer.

As usual, on Friday Jen Anderson led a group of Lowell Food Pantry volunteers who sent home 125 bags of food with children experiencing food insecurity. 

At the general meeting we voted to fund $2000 for Writers in the Schools (WITS) next year.

The board approved a $1,175 opportunity grant to fund the Lowell Girl’s Running Club.

As always, we welcome the involvement and input of all families, regardless of race, sexual orientation, housing status, language, or religion.

We are facing big staff cuts next year

~ Cedar McKay

We are facing the loss of many staff positions this year because of budget cuts, and strangely low projections of our student numbers next year. Lowell has crazy high student mobility (kids joining and leaving the school in the middle of the year) and we need these staff to help these kids transition in and out. This year 178 children have joined or left the community after the start of school. Kids transitioning in and out is stressful and time consuming for them, for staff, for the classroom teachers, and students. It disrupts a class to settle a new kid in, and the kids are unsettled when their friends unexpectedly dissapear. Lowell has been doing a really nice job lately (in my opinion) and does a great job helping settle these new kids, and help emotionally support those who remain. But it takes a lot of staff effort. According to our latest projections, next year we are looking to lose:

  • 0.5 FTE Assistant Principal (our current, very effective AP will not stay on at 0.5)
  • 1.0 FTE Counselor
  • 1.0 FTE Classroom Teacher
  • 0.5 FTE Family Social Worker
  • 0.7 FTE ELL teacher
  • 0.5 FTE Attendance Secretary
  • 0.3 FTE PE, Art, Music
  • unknown number of Instructional Assistants 

FTE = Full Time Equivalent

All this is based an a low projection for our student numbers next year, and doesn’t account for the fact that Mary’s Place is scheduled to return to our area mid-year next year, and we fully expect an influx of homeless students mid-year.

The PTA has written a letter (see below) to the district which explains the reasons why we need to retain the staff we have. We are asking you to write your own letters to the school board (schoolboard@seattleschools.org) and Superintendent Juneau (superintendent@seattleschools.org). Here is the letter, which you can feel free to use a template for your own letter:

Dear Superintendent Juneau,

The Lowell PTA is extremely concerned about the proposed staffing cuts to our school. Though we know you receive a lot of outraged emails about staffing cuts, Lowell is a Title I school with one of the highest populations of homeless students in the city. As of this writing, one-hundred-and-seventy-eight (178) students have come or gone from our community after the start of school. Last year our official student mobility rate was 48%, and it may be higher this year.  This is a shocking number, and deserves special attention from the district. If the Seattle Public School District is serious about equity it must reach beyond the typical staffing formulas, and respond to the unique challenges that Lowell faces.

Lowell serves a number of shelters in Seattle. Among them is Mary’s Place, which will return to downtown Seattle, and Lowell’s attendance area, in January of 2020. We expect an influx of homeless students at that time, and it is only reasonable and right to plan and staff for that eventuality.  If we do anything less than that, we will fail our students.

As a result of Mary’s Place returning to downtown Seattle in the 2019/20 school year, we know that we can expect between 30-50 additional students experiencing homelessness  to enroll mid-year. Because Mary’s place will be returning to our boundaries mid-year, these students are not reflected in our projected enrollment numbers.  Because of institutional and systemic racism, these are disproportionately students of color. These are also low income students who, it has been widely acknowledged, need additional support in order to thrive in school.

If SPS believes in doing something to move toward equity, rather than simply talking about it, SPS must fund our current staff, including:

Full time Family Social Worker
Full Time Counselor
Full Time Assistant Principal
Attendance Secretary
ELL Teacher
Instructional Assistants

These staff don’t just meet the “normal” needs of a high poverty, racially diverse school with large SPED, ELL, and homeless populations. These positions are essential to helping mitigate the challenges to students and staff of our extraordinarily high turnover rate, a mobility rate unlike any other elementary school we are aware of, except Northgate Elementary, which serves Mary’s Place North. Integrating this many new students, averaging more than one a day, into our community requires these dedicated staff. Think of the person-hours it takes to integrate a student, often with traumatic backgrounds, homelessness, and other challenges, into a school. This year, without Mary’s Place, our dedicated staff – the ones you propose to cut, have done that 178 times. We simply must have the staff to meet our responsibilities to these children.

Losing staff only exacerbates opportunity gaps and contributes to the segregation of our low income students and students of color. For years, Lowell has been in crisis, with huge staff turnover, and a parade of principals. Some Lowell students have experienced 4 different principals plus several long-term substitutes. Finally, just this year, we are finding some stability, and until the announced staffing cuts, we felt we were turning the corner. We only lost a handful of staff this summer, and Dr. Talbot, our new Principal, and Mr. Zillig, our new Assistant Principal, are proving to be effective at improving stability and creating a safe learning environment – they are making a real difference. The mood in the building is palpably better and if you visit a classroom you will find kids learning and working. It would be a disaster for this community to, once again, destroy this fragile progress and our newfound optimism. 

We know SPS is facing a budget shortfall, that you must make difficult budgeting and staffing decisions, and that many schools are facing cuts. But considering the extraordinary, and quite unique challenges our school faces, these staff must be funded. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss the issue with you directly. 

Sincerely,
Lowell PTA