Hello neighbors!
Thank you to everyone who came to our Riparian Festival last month. We hope you enjoyed visiting our school and seeing what our students have been working on so far this year.
Read-A-Thon Is Back!
One of SES’s most beloved fundraisers begins on February 19th and runs until March 6th. During Read-A-Thon we encourage students to read as much as possible by having them track their reading and compete to see which individual, class, and grade can read (and fundraise) the most. Reading independently, being read to, or listening to an audiobook all count. Students may read whatever suits their fancy—books, comics, magazines, news articles, instructional manuals. Similar to a run-a-thon, students collect pledges for the time they spend reading, as well as flat donations. Prizes are awarded to the individuals, classes, and grades that read the most, as well as to those that raise the largest amount of money.
The competition gets fierce inside the school, where each class has a huge jar to which teachers add dyed beans corresponding to the number of minutes each student in their class read the previous day. This helps students see their progress, as well as motivates them to read more to compete with other classes. Students enjoy Dress As Your Favorite Book Character Day, and decorate their lockers to look like the spines of their favorite books.
Perhaps the best part of Read-A-Thon is the author visits. During these two weeks, a diverse group of local authors and illustrators come to SES to speak about their books, authorship, and share their own personal stories. All grade levels get to attend at least one of these assemblies, and all SES families and community members have the opportunity to purchase signed copies of the works of these local artists. This year, our list of authors who have kindly agreed to present include Mike Lawrence, Lilah Sturges, Cathy Camper, Waka T Brown, Aron Nels Steinke, and Whitney Gardner. Please consider supporting local authors, illustrators, and SES by buying signed copies of our speakers’ books from this website: sesptsa.square.site/shop/read-a-thon/6. If you do not currently have a student at SES please add “community member” in the order notes and we will contact you with pickup options when the books arrive. These are really special books and also make great gifts!
Additionally, if you know an SES student and would like to support them during Read-A-Thon, please reach out to them and make a donation. They will be very excited to receive it. If you would like to donate and do not know a SES student, you can use the QR code or website above and click on “Read-a-thon Pledge.”
Help Our Neighborhood Get a Soccer Field
A coalition of SES parents and neighborhood community members (“Soccer Coalition”) are working together to raise money to get a soccer field placed on the SES grounds. As mentioned in my first column, the school grounds become a public park open to the community after 3:15 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends and during the summer. While this park is lovely, it has a large amount of grassy space that kids struggle to play soccer on because there aren’t any goals. The Soccer Coalition is trying to change that.
The Soccer Coalition has secured a contract from Portland Public Schools for two soccer goals. They are now raising funds to cover the cost of the goals and for ongoing maintenance, such as periodically replacing nets. These goals will be on the grounds both during school and outside of school hours, and everyone in the community will be welcome to play soccer here when school is not in session.
The Soccer Coalition is trying to raise $6,000 by this coming spring. Please help bring access to pick-up soccer to the whole neighborhood by donating here: www.gofundme.com/f/help-bring-soccer-to-sunnyside-this-spring.
Have questions about SES? Email [email protected] and maybe I’ll answer them in a future column!