Reply to Who said there isn't a North-South divide?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It makes me sad to see so much hatred spewed at my NA school. Our PTA does raise a good amount each year and we also have tried to establish partnerships to help others and build community.

The Partner School concept can really work. Some highlights of what we have done:
- Establishing meaningful teaming at each grade level with our partner school.
- Principal-to-Principal coordination.
- Teachers plan joint projects and activities.
- We alternate doing activities between each school (so bus kids both north and south)
- Our school pays for things like visiting authors, etc. All kids/teachers benefit.
- At each activity, we pair up “buddies” (one kid from each school). My kids enjoy meeting new people and talk about how they saw their buddy from the other school and what they did.
- At the holidays, our Partner school set up a Sign-Up-Genius for individual children in need (anonymous - eg Girl, age 9). The social worker at our Partner school asked each family in need what their kids could use. Some families needed winter coats, tennis shoes, a new backpack, etc. We sent out the Sign-Up Genius to our families for people to sign up for a shopping list for an individual child. We filled it in less than 24 hours. Kids in need got new items and what they actually need (instead of hand-me-down, cast-offs that might not be quite right.)
- This Spring, we used a similar Sign-Up-Genius concept for people to sign up to pay the fees for Summer School or Enrichment through APS. Also great success.
- This partnership continues to expand. I like it because it is creating more meaningful bonds than only sending money or planning a fair event (as mentioned by a PP) that might require a lot of parent involvement. This involvement is really at the student and teacher level.

We were also really excited for the Glebe Odyssey of the Mibd team who went to the International competition and our PTA supported them, too.

I see people say horrible things about my school all the time and lots of assumptions about what our families are like - lots of very negative stereotypes. Just sharing a few ways our school has tried to partner and share with our community - despite what others may think.[/quote]

This is fantastic and I wish more people across the system even knew that two schools are doing this.  Sister schools in the past have been limited and short-lived because they were more of a charity case than true relationship, interaction, sharing, and community-building.  Perhaps you could have someone from each of your two schools visit other schools' PTA meetings to tell them about your partnership - or ask CCPTA if they will host you to do the same in front of reps from several schools at once.  I know the new CCPTA president is very supportive of ways to increase SED and ways to bring schools with different demographics together. [/quote]

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