This past week has been difficult for many of us. Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, there has been a wave of hate directed towards our Asian friends and community members. With the latest horrific news of anti-Asian hate crimes, we want our school’s AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) families to know we stand in solidarity together with them and are committed to work harder to combat racism. Thank you to those who have reached out and checked in on us. We appreciate you! ❤️
We came across this quote and found it essential for our community. “The antidote to white supremacy is connection” (Tema Okun). In this spirit, let us build connections in our school community, celebrate the relationships we have and build new ones, be role models to our kids and support each other to create the safe space we want our children to learn and grow in. If you are wondering what you can do right now in this moment, we have a few suggestions:
- Check in with your Asian friends, neighbors and community members. During last year many families have been directly affected by verbal assaults and harassment and everyone is coping in different ways and has different needs.
- Offer to walk home your Asian friends from school or give them a ride.
- Ask your Asian elderly neighbor if you could run errands for them or if you could help them get to places.
Please remember, not everyone may want this kind of help but reaching out and checking in will certainly be appreciated. Should you witness any act of hate crime, please distract or intervene safely and report it to local authorities and the Stop AAPI Hate organization here.
In addition, we have curated a list of resources for addressing anti-Asian hate for any families who are interested. Thank you for your support.
Also with the recent announcements from the CDC and the Mayor about relaxed guidance on social distancing in the classrooms, and subsequently, having another opt-in period for in person learning, a reminder to please be patient and wait for official communication from the administration on what this means specifically for our school community. Please be on the lookout for more information in the coming days.
AEA Family Spring Survey 2021
The administration is looking to gather feedback from our AEA families to provide the highest quality support and instruction for all of us. They will be using this information to plan for next year so please take a few minutes to fill out the survey by Fri, Mar 26. Please only fill out the survey once per family.
Read-A-Thon Ends Tomorrow / Monday
We are almost to the finish line! Thank you to all the families who have donated and participated in our reading events so far. We have hit $10k in our donation profit, and our students have read over 51,000 minutes! Great job to all our readers out there! The Read-A-Thon will stop collecting minutes by EOD Monday so get your minutes in, and we will start tallying up all the minutes read for the raffle and prizes!
Story Time with Ms. Weissbach
To close out our Read-A-Thon, we will have one more virtual story hour with our former Pre-K teacher, Ms. Weissbach! She will be reading another pigeon book by Mo Willems followed by a discussion and a small art activity on Monday, March 22 at 4pm. It will be geared towards students in grades Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st grade, however all students from AEA are welcome to join. Please RSVP here for tomorrow’s event.
Earth Day Ambassador Program
An AEA parent volunteer is organizing a program called Earth Day Ambassadors! This free week-long program will be a series of live and asynchronous virtual events held during Spring Recess for kids to learn about recycling, composting, and more! Please see the flyer for more details and to RSVP. Please reach out to Kiki (kiki.blazevski@gmail.com) if you have any questions, thanks!
Racial Equity Committee Meeting and Virtual Event
The next meeting of the Racial Equity Committee will be on Tues, Mar 23 at 7pm. Parents who’d like to join can email 303racialequity@gmail.com. Furthermore, please save the date for Tues, Mar 30 at 4pm for another virtual event for all AEA students during spring break. We will be learning about the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. In addition, we are planning a virtual talking circle for parents to process the Atlanta shooting. Stay tuned for more information on how to RSVP to both events.
PTA Board and SLT Nominations Needed
A reminder that the 2021-2022 PS 303 PTA Executive Board and SLT elections are coming up! The PTA nominating committee is seeking nominations for PTA board positions, as well as four members of the School Leadership Team (SLT), for the 2021-2022 school year. The PTA positions have one-year terms, from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022. The SLT position has a two-year term. We welcome all nominations and encourage parents to run individually or as co-chairs. Please see additional details and how to nominate a candidate here.
Input for Bylaws Needed
Every 3 years, the PTA general membership needs to update the PTA bylaws that dictate how our organization is run. Thanks to our Bylaws Committee, we already have a good start on suggested changes but need all of your input too! Please take some time to review the Bylaws document and A-660 document and give us your input via the Bylaws Committee Google Form, all located here. Or if you’d prefer to use the Padlet platform to input your changes, please see here.
Parent Advisory Board Meeting
Queens Borough President, Donovan Richards, invites you to the next virtual Parent Advisory Board meeting on March 23 at 6pm. The School Construction Authority will do a presentation of their Capital Plan so come learn about new school construction projects and needed upgrades to school amenities coming to your school district and how you can include a capital request for your school. For more information and to RSVP, please visit the website here.
Weekly FACE email
Please see the weekly FACE email for additional district and city wide school announcements, news and events including the new Chancellor’s letter to families.
In unity,
Your PTA of AEA