Springer Buzz!

May 16th, 2014

In This Issue

Calendar Dates

Principal’s Letter

News and Announcements

Student Extracurricular Activities

Quick Dates for your Calendar

May 23, 1:00 pm: Spring Concert, grades 4, 5 & 6

May 24, 5 pm: Springer Day at the San Jose Giants

May 26: Memorial Day, No School

May 26, 9:00 – 11:00 am: Campus beautification day

May 27- 30: Volunteer Appreciation Week

May 28: Springer Singers Concert; 1:00 pm (for students) & 7:00 pm (for parents)

May 29, 7:30 – 8:30: Volunteer Awards Breakfast

Principal’s Letter

Honoring Two Fine Teachers

It's funny how circular life can be.   Many of you know that prior to becoming principal of Springer, I was a history teacher at Blach for 15 years.   So, when I came over to take over the helm at Springer, one thing that I was struck by the realization that I actually taught a number of our staff's own children while at Blach.  At the beginning of my career at Springer, I could count no less than 9 staff members whose own children spent time in my classroom at Blach.  I thought this was a great connection; to know these Springer faculty members first, as parents, and then as colleagues.

I had the great pleasure of teaching both Mrs. Marie Smith's and Mrs. Barbara Hennings' sons while at Blach. Then, I had the even greater pleasure to work with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hennings here at Springer over the last 5 years.   And now, the circle of life has me being the last principal that these two exemplary educators have worked with.   Please join me in wishing both Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hennings a happy and successful journey--as both will be retiring at the end of this year.

Both Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hennings are skilled, caring, dedicated and outstanding teachers.  The impact they have made on the lives of so many children cannot be measured.  They will be able to look back on their teaching careers knowing that they gave their all to their students through loving support, while pushing them to do their best.  Their former students know the quality of teacher they had if they spent a year in either Mrs. Smith's or Mrs. Hennings' classroom.  A common sight on campus is to see their former students finding their teacher and giving them a hug.   I know the Springer community will miss them greatly.  I know I will as a principal, friend, and former teacher of their own children.

I will announce staffing for the 2014-15 school year in a couple of weeks.

Have a great weekend.

News and Announcements

Springer 2014 Auction Parties are still available for sign-up!

Open Auction Parties

This year the 2014 Springer Auction raised $95,000 for Springer School!!!

Special thanks to our generous donors and the Springer Community for a very successful auction!

The auction team would also like to thank all volunteers who helped make the auction happen.

2014 Auction Co-Chairs: Rachel Michelson, Kirsten Tashev and Elizabeth Thompson

Questions? springerauction@gmail.com

Spring Book Fair and Spring Picnic

Kudos to Elena Baquero and Kathy Stiles and the entire book fair team for the amazing job they did in pulling off the Spring Book Fair! They sold over 1600 books and raised $13,371.83!!!! Amazing!

And many thanks to Amanda Steele and her Spring Picnic team!! This year, they worked in conjunction with the Book Fair team to create another fun family-oriented evening! The relaxed atmosphere and food trucks were a major hit!

Linda McCartney and LeeAnn Steffen

2013-2014 Springer PTA Co-Presidents

Congratulations Springer: We Won the Drive Less Challenge!

The 2014 Drive Less and Greenest Schools challenge has ended with Springer Elementary taking top honors in 2 categories: Greenest Elementary School and School Community Award.  

Springer students won the Greenest School Challenge with 65% of Springer students Walking or Wheeling to school on May 7, Bike to School day – Great job students!!  And thanks to parents for supporting this effort.  Springer also beat out other schools for having the most parents pledging to "Drive Less" during the two week period- great job!!

As a reward for winning the Greenest School Award, GreenTown will host an after school party at Springer with Jamba Juice on Thursday June 5th, for all students.  We will send out another reminder later.

On Bike to School day, we noticed at Springer school that the maximum number of cars in the drop off pull-through was 6 cars at peak time for just a few minutes; whereas on a typical day, there is a line out onto Rose Avenue, about 12-15 deep total, lasting for 5-10 minutes.  This is a huge difference for us!  Let's continue the great work, keeping cars off the streets and our healthy kids walking and biking!

Blach won the Middle School challenge with 70% of kids choosing to WoW to school.   Loyola continues to make steady strides in its WoW program again winning “Most Improved Elementary School” with a huge jump from 39 to 59% Walking or Wheeling to school as counted once in the fall and once on May 7th.  GreenTown reports that overall WOW commuting is up 7% across the school district!

Thank you to Mr. Spenader, and all the encouraging students, parents, teachers for your participation and enthusiasm!

The WOW team:  Kacey, Sharon, Kevin

ANNOUNCING THE GRIZZLY FUN RUN!

Gardner Bullis is so excited to announce the very first annual Great Grizzly Fun Run on Saturday, May 31!! This will be the first school sponsored fun run in all of Los Altos and it will be a terrific community-building event.  We are welcoming all of our local schools to participate with us, as well as neighbors and friends and family.  This 5k (3.1 mile) run/walk will take place in the beautiful hills around Gardner Bullis School and will end at the Gardner upper field with refreshments, prizes, smaller runs for the younger kids and a visit from our local fire department. Strollers, dogs, wagons are all welcome!

All proceeds from this run will go directly to the LAEF - benefiting all of our district's wonderful schools.  

Hope to see every school represented at this fun event!!  

Click here to register: http://www.active.com/los-altos-hills-ca/running/distance-running-races/gardner-grizzly-fun-run-2014?int=

REQUEST FOR NEW OR GENTLY USED BOOKS AND TOYS FOR KINDERGARTEN

For 2014/2015 school year

The Kindergarten teachers are requesting donations for the following:

Books- picture books, easy readers/leveled readers, beginning chapter books-for the classroom libraries

Plastic Magnetic letters-upper and lowercase

Puzzles – letters, numbers, anything fun with not too many pieces

Toys – For example:  Boggle, Hi Ho cherry-o, Candyland, What’s Gnu, Make 7, Shut the Box, Geometric Shapes, Math Memory Match

Legos, Lincoln logs, Brillo blocks, Unifix cubes, pattern blocks, Counting bears, Building blocks, strings and beads, or anything else at a kinder level

For the PE/Recess Shed:

• Whiffle balls

• Foam tennis rackets

• Tennis balls

• 4 Basket balls

• 4 soccer balls

• Scoops with balls

• Parachute     

Please bring by the Springer School Office.

Thank you!

The Kindergarten Staff

Campus Beautification Help Needed

If you are not going away for the holiday, please join us for a Campus Beautification Work Day on Memorial Day (Monday, May 26) from 9:00-11:00.   We’ll work on sprucing up the campus by weeding, trimming and planting shrubs.  Bring gloves, gardening tools and a refillable water bottle.  Cold filtered water will be provided.   Children are welcome; however, no play supervision will be available.

If you are not available on Memorial Day and/or are interested in other ways to get involved, we are also looking for help with:

• landscape design/plant selection advice

• sinking the logs in the teaching garden to make a more permanent seating arrangement

• sanding/refinishing the wooden Springer School sign on Rose Ave

• repairing the garden fencing

Please contact Donna Murphy (at jcdrm[at]ahoo.com or 650-965-8320) if you have any questions or are interested in helping with any of these special projects.

The Los Altos Art Docents are 80 dedicated volunteers who have taught more than 790 art lessons to the elementary school children in the Los Altos School District.

This year at Springer, the docents taught 118 art lessons.

Thank you to Springer parents Katie Cowley, Kirsten Davis, Kacey Fitzpatrick and Lara Rahn who contributed to the success of our program this year.  Congratulations to our newest docents, Hansook Lee and Joan Schein for completing our training, look for them in the class next year!

New docents are taught the LAAD lessons by experienced docents on Wednesday mornings from September through April. The Los Altos Art Docents welcome new members to join the next docent-in-training class in September. To learn more, you are welcome to come to our informational coffee on August, 27th at 10:00 in the board room of the district office.

For more information, check us out at www.losaltosartdocents.org!

Diapers For Care

The Springer 5th Grade Junior Girl Scout Troop is working on earning the Bronze Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout Junior can achieve. Our project needs to address a problem within our community and provide a sustainable solution.

We have chosen to help “There With Care”, an organization that provides support to families with critically ill children.  The items they are in most need of are diapers and baby wipes, so we have chosen to help them in this area.  Our goal is to collect 2,000 diapers and 4,000 wipes.

WAYS YOU CAN HELP:

1.   Donate packages of diapers and baby wipes - all sizes and quantities accepted. They have a significant need for preemie, newborn, size 1, 4T and 5T pull-ups.  We will donate them to There With Care.  Dates:  May 8 – June 12

2.   Coins for Care:  Students and parents can donate coins to the Coins for Care jar in the office.  Dates:  May 8 – June 12

3.   Recycling Collection:  We will collect soda cans and plastic bottles that are CRV eligible.  Please consider bringing your recyclables from home to add to our collection.  Dates:  May 8 – May 23

All coins from the jar and money earned from recycling will be used to purchase diapers.  Please look for diaper/wipes donation boxes and recycling collection bins on campus.

Thank you for helping us achieve our goal!  Any questions please contact Anita Rao at sg.arao[at]gmail.com.

LAEF NEWS

Participation matters. This year’s grant was the highest goal in LAEF’s history, and we still need your support! If you haven’t already made a donation, or would like to contribute a little more to smaller classes, art, PE, music, Living Classroom, STEM and more, please go to www.laefonline.org today.

A “BIG” LAEF Thank You to Ms. Aubrey’s 6th grade class at Almond for making your Project Cornerstone lesson meaningful for our schools and our community. The “BIG” bake sale donation to LAEF supports excellence in education at all the elementary and junior high schools in the district.

LAEF representatives at Springer are:

Susan Longyear, sue.longyear[at]gmail.com

Brooke Schiller, bbwc[at]sbcglobal.net

Kristin Najarian, kristin_najarian[at]yahoo.com

Make Your Tax Deductible Donation Today!  www.laefonline.net

Tickets on sale NOW for Springer Day at the San Jose Giants!

Game time is Saturday, May 24 at 5 pm. At the start, our very own Springer Singers perform the National Anthem; and 1st-grader Colby Basset throws out the first pitch!

Look for the Giants' ticket booth on the quad, before school or simply stop in the office to purchase tickets. Tickets are $5 per person. There is no admission charge for children 4 years and under.

Don't miss out celebrating our great Springer Nation, the amazing Springer Singers, and Spring ball!

Questions? Contact Chris Leahy (cleahy94025[at]yahoo.com) or Karen Eichstadt-Coy (eichcoy[at]yahoo.com).  Go Giants!

Springer Singers at the San Jose Giants

Calling all past Springer Singers….

The Springer Singers will be singing the National Anthem at the San Jose Giants Opening Ceremonies Saturday, May 24th and we would love to have you join us.

If you participated in the Singers at any time we would love for you to join us again for this special evening.

Please contact Heidi Rockett at rockettland[at]comcast.net to participate.

Pertussis Booster for Students in grade 6: Students currently in grade 6 must have proof of a Tdap or Dtap (Pertussis or Whooping Cough) booster given after their 7th birthday (after 10th birthday is recommended) in order to begin seventh grade in August of 2014. Please provide a copy of your child’s immunization record to your school office as soon as possible!

Student Extracurricular Activities

DezignKidz Summer Camp @ Springer this Summer!

DezignKidz, a fun, locally-run program for aspiring designers (which made its debut at Springer in 2009) is returning to its roots on Rose Avenue with even more options for creative kids.

Choose from our popular Fashion and Accessory Dezign sessions (including Fashion Dezign 3 for middle school fashionistas), add some style to your space with Interior Dezign, create beautiful handprinted fabrics in Textile Dezign, perfect your fashion sketching skills or try our BRAND NEW SESSIONS in Plush Toy Dezign and Cutting -Edge Quiltz.  "Dezigners" will learn turn hand and machine sewing and other textile arts techniques as they turn their ideas from sketches into completed garments, accessories or home decor items. Check out our web gallery for photos of last year’s fun!

Week-long programs run 6/16-6/20, 6/23-6/27, 6/30-7/3, 7/7-7/11 and 7/14-7/18.

Sign up online at www.dezignkidz.com or call 650 346-5896.

How to submit an article to the Springer Buzz

If you have an article to submit to the Springer Buzz, please send it to the editor at springer.buzz@gmail.com by noon on Monday for inclusion in the next edition.  Late arrivals will be included if possible but can’t be guaranteed! All flyers must be in either WORD or PDF format, accompanied by a brief summary of the activity in the email.