Community Events

Solarbration Video

Here comes the sun!

Irving students celebrated solar energy during Earth Week by having a Solarbration. Thanks to a generous grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, which was matched by the 2011 Ragnar team and private donations, Irving School now has five solar panels that are part of the plan to improve the schoolyard and integrate the environment into curriculum.

The Solarbration video celebrates the enthusiasm Irving students have for renewable energy and the environment.

You can watch a video of the Solarbration here. Music was performed by Irving students during the 2011 Winter Concert.

Please share this video with your friends and family, and ask them to consider a donation to the Irving Schoolyard Project!

Julian is seeking a 6th grade co-president

Attention parents of rising 6th graders!  The Julian PTO needs you–  to represent the goals of the 2012-13 6th-grade class as 6th-grade co-president. Together with the 7th and 8th grade co-presidents, you will help plan and oversee programs and events that support our fantastic students and encourage parent engagement. 

It’s a great way to get familiar with the workings of the school, to make a difference, and to meet some fantastic people. Questions? email Lynn Olson: olsons22@comcast.net

May Update from the PTO

Staffing update

Mrs. Massarello is retiring after a long and wonderful career teaching First Grade at Irving. We hope you get a chance to wish her well before the end of the school year. We will miss her and we hope to see her around often. Current Title 1 teacher Ms. Pelling will be the new First Grade teacher. Here’s looking forward to her familiar face in a new setting!

Also in First Grade, we are saddened that Ms. Collins has decided to move back to sunny L.A.. We will miss her smile, energy and choreography! Please welcome Ms. Elena Kekatos, currently a Title 1 teacher at Whittier, to the First Grade team. Next year there will be an additional section of Third Grade. Ms. Kaunelis will move from Title 1 to the new classroom. We’re looking forward to having her in that position.The Title 1 program is being modified to use tutors instead of full-time staff.

PTO officers
The PTO voted to reelect all current PTO officers for the 2012-2013 school year. Since that meeting included changing the PTO By-Laws to make officer terms two years instead of one, the current board will stagger some positions at the end of next school year so that new officers can overlap with experienced ones. You can find contact info for everyone on the About page of the PTO website.

Wellness initiatives
With increasing awareness of the importance of preventing childhood obesity, all District 97 schools are making improvements in this area. The PTO recently voted to be more conscious of wellness in all activities, without limiting fundraisers. Examples of wellness efforts that are already underway include Smoothie Fridays, the Irving Pacers, and researching a Fun Run fundraiser for this Fall. Room parents can help by providing healthy food to class activities. Of course, improving our outside Schoolyard is a high priority to promoting wellness at Irving.

New by-laws
The PTO voted to make three main changes to the By-Laws. They include updating the mission statement, changing the board term limits to two years, and changing the requirement of an annual audit to a bi-annual financial review. Detailed changes can be found in the Documents section of the PTO website.

Extra (fun) PTO meeting
If you’ve read this far in this email, we encourage you to attend our last PTO meeting of the year. We’ve added another meeting on Thursday, May 31 at 6:30pm in the Library/Media Center to wrap things up after a busy month of May. The focus will be on reflecting on the past year’s activities in order to plan for next year over the summer.