We want to give huge thanks to the Montlake PTA, whose membership recently voted to donate 5% of their projected revenue in 2018–19 ($10,300!) to Lowell Elementary.

Montlake is just over the hill from Lowell, and the Montlake PTA wanted to help Lowell as a Title I (high poverty) school within the same Meany Middle School cluster—i.e., many of our kids are and will be classmates together at Meany.

With our many challenges and high turnover rate (in addition to 65% of Lowell students qualifying for Free and Reduced Lunch, upwards of 30% are homeless and 40% leave within the school year), Lowell doesn’t have the ability to fund-raise within our school community at the level of Montlake and other schools, so this gift really makes a big difference.

Let’s all keep working towards the day that all of our schools are funded adequately—but in the meantime, thank you to the Montlake PTA for showing solidarity and helping us work toward equitable funding!

Thanks to Ms. Shelby working together with the music teacher at Stevens, the Tractor Tavern will be hosting a Monday Night Square Dance fund-raiser for the Lowell music program!

Here are the details:

The cafeteria is newly festooned with flags, and teachers and students have put a lot of work into tonight’s cultural celebration.

Everyone is welcome, hope to see you there! Tours start at 5pm, potluck dinner and pizza 5:30 to 6:30, performances at 6:30pm.

Update 3/6/17: 

• STEM Powered Girls – No gender restrictions (this needs to be cleared)
• Anyone Can be An Artist (1^st Session/178203) age restriction changed from K-3 to K-5
• Launch It! (2^nd Session/178222) age restriction changed from K-3 to K-5

Does your student love soccer, art, chess, or martial arts? Miller Community Center has a busy after-school enrichment program that’s available to all Lowell students—with classes *at* Lowell.

Spring session is 4/16 to 6/15. You can register through the Seattle Parks and Rec website (https://class.seattle.gov/…/Activit…/ActivitiesAdvSearch.asp) or call Miller Community Center at (206) 684-4753.

For details, see the full schedule below. Classes have a minimum enrollment of 5. Prices adjusted for 8- and 9-week classes. (Miller also has a great selection of summer camps—registration opened on February 6!)

Remember: scholarships are available for all Miller Community Center camps and classes. For more information, email Eric at eric.luu@seattle.gov.

*Age restrictions may be lifted

We received an exciting invitation for parents and guardians of Lowell students who want to attend classes designed to help you communicate with teachers and find your way around the district.

See the flier below, and here’s an introductory email from the kind folks at Seattle U with more details:

I’d like to share an opportunity for Lowell families through Seattle University’s Youth Initiative. At Seattle University’s Center for Community Engagement, our Family Engagement team offers free English (Family Talk Time) and computer literacy classes to parents and guardians at Bailey Gatzert. We would like to extend the offer for these free classes to the parents and guardians at your school. These classes hosted at Bailey Gatzert are drop-in classes, so no pre-registration is required.

Family Talk Time is offered Monday and Wednesday mornings. Our English learners have various proficiencies, and we adapt our classes to suit the needs of each individual. Much of our content is based around the school environment; some lessons include parent-teacher conferences, talking to your students’ teachers about performance and behavior, accessing the Source, and the various holidays students are celebrating at the school and how families choose to celebrate holidays at home. We try to make the class as accessible as possible for our families, so we include free child activities for younger children who aren’t in school yet.

Our Computer Literacy class is offered Tuesday mornings. As with the English class, the curriculum is adaptable based on individual student needs. We also offer free child activities for participants in this class. With Computer Literacy, participants not only learn more about the school webpages and communicating with teachers, we also work on developing resumes and job-searching skills, and navigating the wider Seattle community. While this class is developed with English learners in mind, we have gladly helped native English speakers one-on-one to work specifically on resumes and job searches.

Our greatest goal is creating a strong community for families.

Here’s more info from our friends at Miller below. It looks like the brochure hasn’t been posted on Miller’s site yet, but check out the screencap of the schedule, the camps should be up in the SPARC registration system.

Hello Miller Community Center families!

We hope that everyone is off to a great start of the new year. We are writing you because, believe it or not, 2018 Summer Camp registration begins on February 6th at noon. We are offering 30 BRAND NEW Activity Camps at Miller Community Center in addition to our School Age Care Summer Camp. There is a wide variety of activity camps including Art, Cooking, Carpentry, Parkour, STEM, and more! A brochure is attached with the schedule and more information. At the time of registration, a $15 nonrefundable deposit is due for each camp registration.

Summer Camp scholarships are available!
The new 2018-19 scholarship application is available and I’ve attached it to this email. [Email lowellparents@gmail.com and we can forward this to you.] Please submit the application in person and not via email as we don’t want sensitive information transmitted over email. If you submitted a 2017-18 scholarship application it’s only valid through June of 2018. If you are interested in using scholarship on Summer Camps, you must complete this new form. Keep in mind scholarship funds are limited so submitting the application early is very important. It does take a couple weeks to process. The new application looks a bit different than previous years so don’t hesitate to email or call if you have any questions.

Miller also has many new programs including Jewelry Making, Yoga, Recycled Art, Guitar Lessons, and more! We hope to see you and your family at Miller soon!

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