Volunteers Needed for Community Partners Sign-Up

Friday, October 16th, we need volunteers to sit at tables outside of Smith's and Albertson's to encourage and remind people to link their cards to Tiebreaker Elementary. This has to be done every year and it is a large part of our fundraising income each year. We need volunteers for the following times:

Smith's - Friday, October 16th

3:30 to 5:30 p.m. (2 people)

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (2 people)

Albertson's - Friday, October 16th

3:30 to 5:30 p.m. (2 people)

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (2 people)

If you can help, please call Jeana Hansen at 604-4759 or e-mail her at jeana@fatgecko.com. Thank you!

PTO Meeting Agenda - Thursday, October 8th

1)  Principal's Report

2)  Treasurer's Report: We have $21,274.28 in our checking account and $1,053.34 in savings. Of this money, $1,600 is allotted for class parties and we still have to pay for Cookie Dough.

3)  Teacher Report

4) Fundraiser Report: Lisa Hunsaker - We collected $19,269.94 for cookie dough, but out of this money we still have to pay for it.

5)  October Events:

9th - Macaroni Theater (Amy Stenquist)

19th-23rd - Red Ribbon/Spirit Week (Mattie Weatherly)

19th-23rd - Scholastic Book Fair (Glennette Hillyard and Kimberly Wynn)

21st - Family Fun Night (Misha Britton and Natalie Grover)

22nd - Muffins with Mom (Mattie Weatherly)

29th - Halloween Parties (Jennifer Carlson/Room Moms)

6) $.25 Friday (Brenda Patterson)

7) Carnival Discussion

8)Accelerated Reading (Brett Holyoak): We need suggestions and/or connections with businesses for prizes. We are in need of ideas for two of the larger prizes. Please call Brett Holyoak at 528-7509 if you can help or if you have any ideas.

9) Community Partners (Jeana Hansen): We will have tables set up for Tiebreaker at Albertson's and Smith's on Friday, October 16th and we need help manning them. We need people to work two-hour shifts at each location as follows:

Smith's - Friday, October 16th

3:30 to 5:30 p.m. (2 people)

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (2 people)

Albertson's - Friday, October 16th

3:30 to 5:30 p.m. (2 people)

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (2 people)

If you can help please call Jeana Hansen at 604-4759 or e-mail her at jeana@fatgecko.com.

PTO Budget for 2009-2010 Approved

The following budget was approved at the PTO Meeting Today:

Accelerated Reading Program - $3,000

Art Supplies - $500

Babysitting at Meetings, $180

Back-to-School Night - $150

Bank Fees/NSF Charges - $45

Class Parties (over what was collected), $200

End of Year Assembly, $250

Family Fun Nights, $1,500

Gifts, $200

Hand Sanitizer Refills, $550

Kindergarten Graduation, $75

Macaroni Theater, $350

Meeting Refreshments, $100

Office Supplies, $300

Patriot's Day Observance, $100

Playground Equipment, $1,500

Postage, $75

Registration Food, $75

Registration Magnets, $338.07

Spirit Week, Donuts with Dad, $300

Spirit Week, Muffins with Mom, $300

Spirit Week, Other, $150

Teacher Appreciation, $1,200

Veteran's Day, $175

Total Budget = $11,613.07

Smith's Earn & Learn Program

Smith's is another one of our Community Partners, and Tiebreaker can receive up to 5% of your purchases when you use your Fresh Values card when you shop. All you need to do is link up your card with Tiebreaker, and remember to use it when you shop at Smith's. Here's how to do that.

Enroll our school online here. Click on SIGN IN/REGISTER. Once you sign in, or register if you haven't accessed the site before, click on MY ACCOUNT at the top right side of the page. Then, go down to Community Rewards Information and click on EDIT EARN & LEARN INFORMATION. Next, you should be able to enter Tiebreaker Elementary with our Organization Number, which is 82857. To finish, click on SAVE CHANGES.

You can also enroll by calling 1-800-764-8897 or by e-mailing your information to earnnlearn@sfdc.com. You will need to include the following information:

• Your Fresh Values Card number (located on the back of the card)
• Our school name, city and state: Tiebreaker Elementary School, Idaho Falls, ID
• Our organization number, 82857 
  

You will have to re-enroll your designated school each new school year. If you haven't enrolled this school year, please re-enroll.

Unlike Albertson's, you can only designate one school to support with each card number. For more information, go here.

Albertson's Community Partners Program

One way that Tiebreaker receives fundraising income is through Community Partners. Albertson's is one of our Community Partners, and Tiebreaker receives up to 4% of your purchases when you use your Preferred Savings card when you shop.

In order to link your Preferred Savings card to Tiebreaker, you will need the following information:

• Your 11-digit card number (located on the back of your Preferred Savings card)
• The 9-digit phone number associated with this card.

With this information handy, go here and link up.

Once you log in, click on SIGN ME UP and enter our Organization ID Number which is 49000103266.

You may have up to four different organizations you contribute to, and you may also choose what percentage of your donation goes to each organization. You may also choose to remain anonymous with your donations.

You have to re-enroll your designated school each new school year. If you haven't enrolled this school year, please re-enroll.

Please remember to use your Preferred Savings card when you shop and up to 4% of your purchases will be donated to Tiebreaker Elementary School.

Art Donations Needed

The Art program at Tiebreaker is provided by parent volunteers and the supplies can be quite costly. Therefore, we've come up with a wish list of items we go through quickly. We're very grateful for any donations for art supplies that you might be willing to give. Here is a list of our current needs.

Large containers of  washable  paints in the following colors: black, white, green, blue, and brown. Staple's sells these 16 oz. bottles for $4.79 each. Wal Mart also carries large bottles of paint. 

Large containers of Elmer's White Glue, such as this gallon size for $15.79 at Staple's. Please, no glue sticks or small bottles of white glue. We go through white glue too quickly to use the smaller sizes and they clog easily. The glue sticks aren't strong enough for most of our art projects.

Large sheets of white construction paper, 12" x 18". Staples sells a 50-pack for $4.79. We go through this paper very quickly, so we can always use a lot of it.

Others items are as follows:

• small paintbrushes
• sponges
• 3 oz. disposable cups
• small paper plates
• old shirts to use for paint shirts

We appreciate any donations that you might be able to make for our art program, and thank you!

Committee Volunteers Needed

Tiebreaker PTO has the following volunteer positions for the 2009-10 school year. We're looking for volunteers to fill many of these positions:

• PRESIDENT - Heidi Southwick
  
• VICE-PRESIDENT - Amy Stenquist
  
• SECRETARY - Cara Dye
  
• TREASURER - Jill Scott
  
• 25 CENT FRIDAY - Brenda Patterson
  
• ACCELERATED READING - Brett Holyoak & Stacey Rogers
  
• BARNES & NOBLE BOOK FAIR - Euroca Marrott & Cindy Hammon
  
• BIRTHDAY CARDS - Jennie Abbott
  
• BOX TOPS FOR EDUCATION - Stephanie Edwards
  
• BULLETIN BOARD - Holly Mickelsen
  
• COMMUNITY PARTNERS - Jeana Hansen
• DONATIONS - Kimberly Wynn
  
• EAT OUT FOR TIEBREAKER NIGHTS - Jeana Hansen
  
• FAMILY FUN NIGHT - Misha Britton & Natalie Grover
  
• FIELD DAY/CARNIVAL - Alexa Finlayson
  
• FUND RAISERS - Lisa Hunsaker & LeAnn Atwood
  
• GRANT WRITER - Paula Decoria
  
• MACARONI THEATER - Russ & Amy Stenquist
  
• NEWSLETTER - Cara Dye
  
• READ-A-THON - Holly Faulkner
• ROOM MOM COORDINATOR - Jennifer Carlson
  
• SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR - Glenette Hillyard & Paula McGary
  
• SPIRIT WEEK - Mattie Weatherly
  
• TEACHER APPRECIATION - Mikki Scott & Takara Taylor
  
• TEACHER REPS - Susan Scheer
• T-SHIRTS - GaeLyn Miller
  
• YEARBOOK - Laura Roberts

Please leave a comment or send us an e-mail if you are willing to head one of these committees, or if you have any questions about any of the positions.

Teacher Appreciation

Tiebreaker students and parents love their teachers, and we want them to know it. During the 2008-09 school year, the Tiebreaker PTO provided lunch for the teachers on the first Wednesday of each month, with the final month being catered by Johnny Carino's.

For the 2009-10 school year, Tiebreaker PTO will provide lunch every other month and a treat or a small gift for teachers on the off months. 

We're always looking for volunteers to help bring food for these lunches.

New Playground Equipment!

Tiebreaker's new playground equipment has arrived and it's in the process of being installed. Last fall on election day, the students voted for the new playground equipment they wanted. These pictures show the equipment they chose in that vote, on that historic day.

The zip line that you see here in the foreground won hands down. If you click on the picture, you can get a closer look. We're hoping to get a big tire set in the ground and partially buried so the little ones can reach it.

Our entire fundraising income for the 2008-09 school year went towards putting in this new playground equipment. This equipment cost nearly $20,000 and the Tiebreaker PTO covered half of that cost. We hope this makes you feel better about all that cookie dough you bought last year, because cookie dough is our biggest fundraiser each year.

The kids have been breaking in the equipment that's installed so far and they love it. All of it will be ready for the kids to enjoy when they come back to school in August, and we are so excited.

The next time you're at Tiebreaker, we hope you'll take a peek at our new playground.

Box Tops for Education

The Box Tops program is essentially free money for schools. There are many products that have Box Tops. For a complete list, go here. Some of the Box Tops we clip regularly come off the bottoms of Kleenex boxes. Each Box Top is worth ten cents and they add up fast. For the 2008-09 school year, we collected $2,485.50 in Box Tops. Tiebreaker kids are amazing Box Tops collectors.

We have Box Top collection competitions with each class competing against every other class in the school to see which one can collect the most Box Tops. The winning class gets a pizza party with ice cream sundaes at the end of the school year. The class in second place gets an ice cream sundae party and the class in third place gets ice cream sandwiches.

We also have daily Box Top prize drawings. This motivates the kids to keep bringing their Box Tops in. This is important in order to discourage hoarding. Box Tops have expiration dates on them, so we don't want the kids to hoard them so long that they expire. If they bring them in each month, or every other month, we can avoid having too many expired Box Tops. 

AR - Accelerated Reading Program

Tiebreaker PTO runs and supports a successful Accelerated Reading Program. The AR program was implemented to encourage students to read more, because it has been scientifically proven that the only way to become a better reader is to read, and Tiebreaker students read.

Our AR program has an individual reward component, with students earning prizes all year long as they accumulate AR points, and a classroom competition which encourages classrooms to compete against each other.

During the 2008-09 school year, our students read so much that we gave out more AR prizes than we ever have before! We think that makes our AR program pretty successful.

The AR program requires multiple volunteers to be successful. Generally it takes two people to head the program. These committee heads keep track of the points and keep the PTO room stocked with prizes for the students. They also assign and distribute class prizes and maintain a progress display in the hallway.

In addition to the committee heads, the program requires two volunteers from each grade level to assign individual prizes once a week, with the two people alternating weeks.

The AR program is a fun way for parents and grandparents to help out at the school, and it encourages their students to become better readers.

Birthday Cards

This volunteer position consists of making or buying approximately 60 birthday cards for Tiebreaker teachers and staff and distributing them on their respective birthdays. The volunteer will be reimbursed for the costs incurred.

25 Cent Friday

Has your Tiebreaker student ever asked you for money for 25-Cent Friday? We started 25-Cent Friday as a way to support Tiebreaker's AR program. Each Friday, our 25-Cent Friday committee sets up a table outside the lunch room and sells candy, popcorn, and small toy items for a quarter. We have a $2-limit per student each Friday that is strictly enforced. We encourage you to allow your student(s) to participate in this program, as it fully funds our AR Program.