Dear Lafayette Community,

I hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break! Ready to come back to school tomorrow? Before that, let's catch up with this week's Dolphin Digest.

In this week's Dolphin Digest:

💖 Volunteer Corner
🫶 PTA Meeting & Elections - April 9
🧐 Eye on School Budgets - Town Hall Meetings
🐬 Buy Your Tickets Now! Annual Gala/Auction - April 26
📖 Thank You for Another Amazing Read-a-thon! Results Are In...
🚲 It's Time to Sign Up for Wheel Kids Bike Camp - Session 2!
📷 Lately at Lafayette (photos)
📅 Calendar at a Glance
👋 Community (Non-PTA) Corner: Miracle of Giving Food Pantry - All Are Welcome!

There are so many ways to help our community! Here are some for this week. Thank you!!

•  Donate soccer balls - These are in high demand at recess, and recess informants have told us that our supply is seriously depleted. The kids would love it if you could bring any extra ⚽ to the school office or to any recess staff. Any brand welcome! If you're buying new, we find that makers like Adidas/Nike/Wilson last longer.
• Be in a short film for the upcoming gala (for kid volunteers) - A crew of creative parent volunteers are making a short film to be screened at Lafayette's Ocean of Support Gala and Auction on April 26. Participation should take no more than 60 minutes and will likely be able to be completed from home with your help! To sign your child up, fill out this form by Monday, April 7th and await your super secret instructions.
• Donate items or experiences for the upcoming auction (by April 10th, Thursday)
• Nominate yourself or someone else for the PTA Executive Board (election is April 9th, Wednesday)

Please join us for this month's PTA meeting at 6pm in the Lafayette Auditorium! We'll be electing our new Executive Board members for 2025/26. Please fill out this form to nominate yourself or someone else.

Child care and light refreshments provided. We'll also have fun door prizes for attendees!
In order to be eligible to vote on our motions, you must be a paid member of the PTA for a minimum of 30 days. The cost is $10 per member and anyone can join (parents, students, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.). Be sure to join the PTA today!

If you can't join in person, join via Zoom.
MEETING LINK
Meeting ID: 873 8723 3183
Passcode: 933176

The district is hosting town hall meetings with Dr. Maria Su across the city to share key updates about SFUSD's budget and stabilization efforts. The one at Presidio Middle on April 17th at 7pm might be the best option for a lot of us.

RSVP for any upcoming town hall date and submit questions in advance right here.

If you can't attend, it's still worth exploring the info at the above link. You'll find questions and answers from the March 13th Virtual Town Hall, including answers to many of the questions they didn't have time to address during the town hall. 

By coming together for our annual fundraising gala on April 26, we intend to:

• Lock up a world class STEAM program
• Provide extra classroom support in the face of teacher reductions by hiring one part-time English Language Development (ELD) educator and 2 full-time paraeducators
• Fund a part-time, student-facing Assistant Principal who will have dedicated daily classroom hours
• Offset General Supplies cuts and support the Health Access Program at our sister school, Sanchez Elementary

Basically, we are COMMITTED to making sure every kid has what they need to succeed next year. And now we need YOUR help to make this happen. We've set an ambitious fundraising target of $250k. We did it last year, and we can do it again!
HERE'S HOW YOU HELP:
🌟STEP 1🌟 BUY YOUR GALA TICKETS NOW! Support the school and have a fun night out.

🌟STEP 2🌟 Donate auction items (including count-me-ins) for the gala (by Thursday, April 10th please).

If you have auction questions, find auction committee members on the yard before school on Fridays all this month! Or, contact them here:

Sarah Katz - sarah.r.katz@gmail.com
Kristen Coleman - kjkrieger@gmail.com
Julia Johnston - jiksjohnston@protonmail.com

Once we tallied up all of the minutes from the 266 reading logs students turned in, we found that students read 105,430 minutes during Read-a-thon Week. That's 1,757 hours of reading in just one week, showing that Dolphins love reading!

And our community clearly supports our budding readers. Students brought in over $35,000 in donations to support our school. Amazing! Thank you to everyone who logged minutes and who reached out to friends and relatives to donate. All participants received a prize: cool blue "Read-a-thon" slime! Additional prizes went to...

Top participating classes: Ms. Chue, Ms. Mendieta, Ms. Lenahan, Mr. Rayala

Top readers:

• Grades K-1: Westley Haywald, Logan Wetzel, Cody Coleman
• Grades 2-3: Daphna, Rylan Mooney, Adan Lee
• Grades 4-5: Storm Midnight, Kathy Pan, Thomas Park

Top raisers:

• Grades K-1: Logan Wetzel, Westley Haywald, Freddy Makowsky
• Grades 2-3: Dax Curtis, Kit Blasdel, Maddie Wetzel
• Grades 4-5: Angie Karas, Robert Hires, Aiyla Hughes

All students also got to celebrate reading with a visit from author Oliver Chin. In three separate sessions divided by grade level, Oliver shared his work and career path, read a book to the audience, shared behind-the-scenes info about how he makes books and collaborates with illustrators and coauthors, and did live drawing that had everyone riveted. He also donated 40% of book purchases to the PTA, totaling over $700.

View author visit pictures here!

The Read-a-thon couldn't have been such a great success without PTA volunteers making it all happen. Thank you to our Read-a-thon co-chairs: Claire Mooney, Patricia Wada, and Meghan Butler for leading the charge, and to committee volunteers Justin Haywald and Margaret Hires for all of their help. Thanks also to Ms. Seaton for event logistics, Ms. Jer for recommending Oliver Chin and familiarizing the kids with his books, and to all of the teachers who made Read-a-thon Week extra special for their classes.

Author Oliver Chin speaking to grades 4 and 5.

Oliver challenged students to a drawing battle in each session. Brave kids took him on in front of dozens of their peers!

Top readers and fundraisers in grades 3-5 had a special lunch and workshop with Oliver!

Session 2:  April 11 to May 30th
 
Wheel Kids Bike Camp session 1 is coming to a close and in order to run Session 2, they need a few more sign-ups!

Does your child love to ride bikes? Or do they want to get better at riding? Sign up for Wheel Kids! It's our new after-school bicycle club on Fridays right after school. They will pick your child up at Lafayette, explore the many trails in Golden Gate Park, teach new biking skills, and then drop the students back off at Lafayette for pickup. And if you don't have your own bike or equipment, Wheel Kids can provide it.
Sign up and tell your friends!

Teachers added book joy to Read-a-thon Week with fun activities like reading in unusual places and bring-a-stuffie pajama day. We received these pictures from Ms. Chue's class. "The children loved reading with their stuffies, and they were excited to fill out their reading logs," Ms. Chue told us! 

How much fun was Spirit Week? We received some fantastic photos of the outfits. Such creativity! Please send in any photos you may have for this newsletter and the yearbook!

Theme: Kids dress as adults, adults dress as kids

Theme: Back to the Future! (wear a clothing style that is from the past or is futuristic)

APRIL 7

- Bike & Roll to School Day

- Deadline for gala film participation form

APRIL 9

- PTA Meeting - Executive Board Elections

APRIL 16-19

- School musical performances

APRIL 26

- Fundraising gala and auction @ 6pm

MAY 4

- Giants vs Rockies with Lafayette @ 1:05pm

MAY 26

- NO SCHOOL - Memorial Day

MAY 29

- Field Day

JUNE 4

- Last Day of School/5th Grade Promotion

Community announcements are shared as a service to our members and are not from the PTA. Do you have events, resources, or other info to share with the community? Email lafayetteschoolpta@gmail.com to request a spot in the Dolphin Digest.

Lafayette families,

My name is Cristina and both my kiddos attend Lafayette. I host a weekly pantry out of our courtyard at our home every week in the outer Richmond. We’ve been proudly hosting our Miracle of Giving pantry for 3 years and have met so many wonderful people.

Some of you may have seen Ms. Amy (our crossing guard) and I offering a variety of produce and dry foods on the corner of 36th and Anza after school or in the the staff lounge, or your child has come to volunteer during a field trip to our pantry.

If anyone from our Lafayette community would like to attend our pantry, help us prevent unnecessary food waste, save some money, and meet some new neighbors - look no further! This is not about anyone’s financial situation, it’s simply a mission to rescue food from being unnecessarily thrown away all while building and strengthening our RD community.

It’s simple to join if you have Facebook.

Please join one/both private Buy Nothing groups below:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/buynothingrichmonddistrictsanfrancisco/?ref=share&mibextid=S66gvF

https://m.facebook.com/groups/418177912756203/?ref=share&mibextid=S66gvF

Make sure to answer all of their questions and wait to be approved. These two groups are where I post about our weekly distributions regularly.

Our goal is to rescue beautiful, fresh produce, bread, dry foods, protein that would be unnecessary composted all while building a supportive, non judge-mental, friendly, and safe environment for people to come. It’s a lot of fun.

If you want more information please don’t hesitate to reach out to me privately. I know some Lafayette parents have been coming and I would love to see more swing by.

Wishing everyone safe, and fun summer!

Hugs!

Cristina

Thanks for reading this week.

Go Dolphins! 🐬

Patricia Wada

VP, Communications 2023–25

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Lafayette Elementary PTA

501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization

Tax ID# 94-6172049