Author Andrew Clements recently wrapped up an eight-state tour for his new series, Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School, illustrated by Adam Stower, which debuted last month from Atheneum with We the Children. The tour took Clements to bookstores, schools, and libraries in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts; here, Clements visits with students at Sutro Elementary School in San Francisco. The series centers on a mystery involving Benjamin’s historic seaside elementary school; the second book in the six-book series, Fear Itself, is scheduled to be released in September.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/43158-in-brief-may-13.html

My name is Ed Low, and I am Samuel Low’s father. Sam is in Mr. Illig’s third-grade class. I and eighteen other brave parents accompanied thirty-three students from the two third-grade classes to their annual three day, two night camping trip at Clem Miller Lodge in Point Reyes, California. This trip would be a first for me, since while I had accompanied both Sam’s and my daughter Sarah’s (Ms. Korp, Kindergarten) classes on field trips on previous occasions, I had never been exposed to so many different kids for such a long period of time. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous! In addition to the other parents and me, the adults included Mr. Illig, Mrs. Lau, Mr. Wong, Gerald Creed, and Gerald’s brother Chris--a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department.

Mr. Illig, the other parents, and I all loaded up into the chartered bus and set off right on schedule at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, February 22, 2010 for the ride to Point Reyes. As we were pulling away from the school, Mr. Illig handed me a plastic bag for the “just in case” scenario. Great. For some reason, the theme song for “Gilligan’s Island” started running through my head as I contemplated the upcoming seventy-minute drive and two nights sleeping in an unheated cabin with a dozen eight and nine year-old boys….

I needn’t have worried though, as both Mr. Illig and Mrs. Lau had made advance plans to keep the kids occupied during the trip: hikes, math games, nature walks, craft-making, s’more assembly--you name it, they thought of it. Also, Mr. Wong, Gerald, and the other parents all stepped up and pitched in to make the whole experience a lot of fun for everyone.

Highlights of the trip: the expressions on some of the kids’ faces as we rode across the Golden Gate Bridge (some for the first time, it seemed) and took in the beautiful view of San Francisco Bay and the receding cityscape; doing yoga exercises with all of the kids and adults; watching the kids’ faces and listening to their comments as we made smokes in the rain. There’s so much more, but the biggest highlight has to be spending time with my son and his friends, and seeing how positively he reacted to being “unplugged” for three days!

 All too soon, it was time to pack up and go back to the real world. I brought back with me pleasant memories of my time at Clem Miller, and the satisfaction of making new friends with the other parents and getting to know them better. I will always cherish the time I spent with my son, and the trip took me back to my own youth—no video games, TV, or any other distractions; just making fun out of whatever might be found lying about. Oh, and we made it back to Sutro just in time for the 2:40 bell, no sudden storms or uncharted islands came up….

Due to the strong support that the parents, teachers and students show in opposing larger class sizes,  Unified School District is proposing more furlough days for the next 2 years.  They have also increased the Weighted Student Formula (this is the money allocated for each registered student).  That means there would be a little bit more money to balance out each school's deficit.  If you attended the community meeting in April, to balance out the budget deficit, one of the scenarios was that the classes are going to be combined because we would be losing two of our teachers, but with this new development, things might change for the better.  We will keep you posted with new developments in this matter.  We are all concerned about this matter because it directly affects our children  Lets continue to support our school and our teachers.

 

Our awesome principal, Mr. Poon wrote a grant for Physical Education and we got it! Whoo! What that means is that the PTA would not have to cover our school's PE program.  The grant is good for 2 years and it includes new equipment and a certified PE teacher.  This frees up some money that the PTA hopes to use to enhance the current academic and art programs that would help the children of our school.

 

The Sutro School PTA would like to thank everyone who supported the Scholastic Book Fair at school. We reached our goal of $3500 in sales, and then some. Our school benefits because we get 25% of the proceeds and 5% in Scholastic books. As a parent, I don’t feel guilty spending money for this kind of thing.  It is a win-win situation because it helps our school when we support this kind of fundraising. In return, the money raised is used to fund different programs for our kids. Special thanks to Mariah Wong, Ivy Creed and everyone else who volunteered. Without their hard work, the book fair would not have been the great success it was.

Many kudos and thanks to Laura Urquiaga who has done a great job getting some GREAT prizes together for our Picnic Prize Drawing!  This drawing will take a lot of help to put together and we are looking for someone to oversee/Chair the drawing.  This would involved coordinating the design, printing, collating, distribution, collection and tracking of tickets.  If you are available to Chair this event or can help with any of the other tasks, we could use YOUR help!  Let us know by contacting Leslie Wong at sassenmass@yahoo.com or 415-819-9196.