At the start of the summer we asked our students to take on the Read-A-Thon Challenge.  Our aim was to keep our students reading through the summer while raising much needed funds for the our school library.

We our are proud to announce that our students rose to the challenge and made our first ever Read-A-Thon and amazing success!    Particpants strengthened their reading skills and raised $2,462.50 for our librarian!

We would like to thank all our students who participated and Gina Boulais for all the work she put into organizing this event.

Grade Level Winners For Reading The Most Books:

Kindergarten – Elizabeth Blumberg

1st Grade – Maddie Simpson

2nd Grade – Wyatt Wheeler

3rd Grade – Aryaman Rallapalli

4th Grade – Sambodh Mitra

5th Grade – Indigo MacConnell

Our Top Three Fundraisers:

1st Place – Wyatt Wheeler

2nd Place – Mylo Gosch

3rd Place – Elizabeth Blumberg

Participants

Kindergarteners: Michael Berreth, Owen Kinnear, Andrew Ly

First Graders: Bella Boulais, Austin Kane, Hank Matusek  Second Graders: Autry Jesperson, Ethan Rockwell,Rushikesh Pande,Arthur Eldridge, Sebastian Arenas, Jenna Regala, Mohammed Zuhaib  Third Graders: Jonas Holt, Blake Sprow, Dennis Flowers, Jackson Sost, Zaina Hayath, Loyal Terry  Fourth Graders: Elijah Newman, Aaron Cohen  Fifth Graders: Julie McHorney, Jarrett Malone, Isabella Fumes, Connor Boulais, Alysa Rothfuss, Carson Palmer

It is football season!  Although, I’m not a huge fan, I can appreciate it.  Especially the passion that the fans carry for the sport.

NFL football is the number one sport in the United States – at least as far as fan support and revenue goes.  So, when one of their teams say that they want to lessen their impact on the environment, we need to pay attention!  Especially when it’s a big team like the San Francisco 49ers!  California tends to lead the country in environmental awareness so this could be the start of something big!

A game at a professional football stadium requires enough electricity to power 2,269 homes for a day.  That’s a lot of houses!  A stadium holds tens of thousands of fans who come to support their team, but also go home realizing that they too can do something to help the environment.  The new 49ers stadium will be talked about and seen on TV by millions of people.  Hopefully, the eco-friendly theme is something that catches on with other teams.

Football is a big and influential business.  Countless children and adults look up to sports teams and their players.  Now there’s a chance for people who don’t normally live an environmentally friendly life style to hear about green issues and they will be introduced to a greener way of life.

Other sports teams have gotten into the swing of things as well.  The Suns have focused on lowering their carbon footprint by rethinking old habits and providing fans with 100% organic shirts or reusable bags during game giveaways.

In Major League Baseball, each baseball club decides its level of commitment, which can range from recycling paper cups to creating more environmentally friendly ballparks.  Some teams have begun to purchase renewable sources, such as wind and solar to power their ballparks and training facilities.  In the front office, green efforts include buying postconsumer recycled paper, making double sided copies and encouraging employees to separate their recycling from their regular garbage. Every little bit counts.

Teams also engage in public education by providing eco-friendly tips during games and like Stevenson, some baseball clubs have their own “green teams” to collect stadium recyclables.

So, no matter what sport you love, think about it, if they can do it then so can we because it is easy being green!

Jennifer Jesperson

Dear Parents,

Stevenson Elementary School is a place where everyone embraces our motto, “Knowledge is our Treasure!”  We believe that quality education can be achieved through high expectations for student performance and behavior.  The climate for learning that our staff creates at Stevenson results in improved academic achievement f or ALL of our students.

As you may have read in the Burbank Leader, dated September 19, “Students make big API strides”.  API is the Academic Performance Index.  The API is used to measure school performance, set academic growth targets, and monitor progress over time.  The API ranks California schools on a score between 200 to 1,000 points.  The state’s target is 800 for every school.

Stevenson’s API score is 877! We made an increase of 52 points based upon our state testing (STAR) results that all of our second through fifth grade students take each spring.  The following charts show the increased number of advanced/proficient students from 2008 to 2009:

Teachers work together to determine areas of specific need, set goals, and share strategies to assist their students in meeting grade level standards.  We focus on what students need each day.  As a result, we’re seeing the “fruits of our labor now.”  In addition, we implement “Power Clinics” to provide intervention for our students who are not meeting grade level standards.

Finally, our belief in strong family/school/community partnerships also supports a high quality education for our students.  Your continued support and involvement creates a climate of learning that enables every child to experience personal success and develop into a lifelong learner.

Sincerely,

Debbie Ginnetti

It was great to see so many scurvy pirates at Stevenson’s Pirate day.  If you have a picture of a Stevenson pirate that you’d like to share, we’ll happily add it to our website’s Pirate Gallery.

Send you prictures to Emma: emma@xurble.org

Click here to visit our Pirate Gallery.

Boooooo! Did we scare you?!! Hopefully we were able to at least grab your attention! Yes, the PTA Boo Bash is right around the corner. Well, October 30th to be exact, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

To recap just a little bit – the first five weeks of our school year have flown by like a tornado! All kinds of things have already happened. Our big QPS fundraising drive was launched and has already landed… with great success, we might add. The Book Fair exploded on the scene and was jammed packed with activity! Our Back-to-School Night seemed to help us all orient to our new school year at bit better and the PTA Green Team had a tremendous day with all kinds of volunteers running around the campus planting, painting and cleaning things up. So we have started things off with a bang!

Besides all these wonderful activities, we wanted to address another crucial aspect of our Stevenson PTA – that would be the amazing opportunity we have to be part of PTA’s campaign for child advocacy. On a local, statewide and national level, PTA not only represents our children regarding their education but also on the issues of their health and welfare. As a matter of fact, in this day and age where lobbyists from our private sector seem to have great control over our legislators in Sacramento and Washington, the PTA is probably the only lobbying group around that is exclusively working for our children’s needs – their safety, welfare, health and education. The PTA does have a “special interest group” – it’s our children.

The PTA is a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s Book Fair and the Green Team, it’s Boo Bash and Walk You Child To School Day. It’s a gathering place and a conduit for helpful information. It also is a very powerful advocate for our children’s rights. There is a lot to learn and know about how we can all be more involved in this aspect of our PTA. We both plan on sharing more and more information regarding this aspect of PTA with you throughout the year.

The stronger we can make our own PTA the better the opportunity to improve our children’s lives! So if you haven’t already, please join our Stevenson PTA today.

Sincerely,

Tiffany Bakas
Felix Chamberlain
The Tag Team
ptatagteam@stevensonpirates.net

Hello, this is Dr. Kevin Jolly, Superintendent of the Burbank Unified School District, calling about the launch of our K-12 Accelerated Reader program. If your school does not currently participate in AR, you may e-mail susanrife@burbankusd.org to get both your children, as well as your whole family, involved in reading. For $10 per person, you will get a year’s license to have your reading level set, an individual goal established, and access to 120,000 tests on common books you would find in a school, home, or community library. You can also write tests on any book, if a test is not available. People who double their goal will be invited to be on TV at our monthly Board Meetings, while 5 students, one parent or community member, and one staff member will be taken by Limousine to lunch at the Warner Brothers studios if they achieve the highest multiple of their goal in 5 weeks. The first contest has just started, and ends October 23rd. We are also looking into a top prize of a new car for licensed students at our three high schools, for the person who does the highest percentage of their goal this school year.

I and my family are participating, so good luck, and let the reading begin!