The Livonia PTSA Council will once again be showing appreciation for the LPS Food Service staff as well as the Custodians! We appreciate all of their hard work in the district and for our students, so please help us show them our thanks! We will be collecting goodies, and handmade cards/pictures to distribute to our food service workers and custodians across the district! There are two ways to donate. Visit our Amazon Wish List to donate goodies or visit our MemberHub link to make a monetary donation and we'll do the shopping for you! Please donate before Monday, November 14.

We ask that all units please share this on your social media pages and with your principals so they can share it in their weekly updates. Thank you for your support of this event!

Amazon Wish List: https://tinyurl.com/custodianfoodservicewishlist

MemberHub Store: https://lptsacouncil.memberhub.com/store/items/666267

Andrea Malenfant

Livonia PTSA Council President

Over 50 years ago, two dedicated PTA members, Gloria Root and Pat Renwick, founded the Livonia Clothing Depot in the old Newburgh School. Over the years, the location of this free thrift store has moved several times, finally settling into its current location at Livonia Franklin High School. Today, the Clothing Depot serves approximately 300 customers a year, focusing on Livonia Public School children and their immediate families. Periodically, the Clothing Depot will ask for donations of certain needed clothing items. The PTSA Council has a separate bank account where we accept cash donations from PTA units or persons who would like to donate. Once or twice a year, Council will purchase new underwear or socks in various sizes they are low on. PTSA Council had a large buffer and hasn't sought cash donations in several years but the account is low so we are asking units, who may have extra funds, if they would like to donate. Any amount is appreciated and checks can be made out to Livonia PTSA Council Clothing Depot and mailed to 15125 Farmington Rd. Livonia, MI 48154 or dropped off at this location (Central Office).

If you have any further questions about the Clothing Depot you can contact either Kellie Dummer or Lynda Scheel at clothingdepot@livoniaptsacouncil.org

How about sending them a Star Award from the LPS Education Foundation!

Are you looking for a unique way to thank a Livonia Public Schools staff member? A Star Award honors any LPS employee who has made a difference in a student’s, family’s or fellow staffer’s life. For a $25 donation to the Foundation, a personalized, color certificate will be presented to your honoree, and they will receive recognition on the Foundation’s website and social media platforms as well as the district’s social media platforms. The certificate will be personalized with your praise to show this LPS employee how much they mean to you!

Please click on the link below to send a Star Award to an awesome LPS staff member!

https://bit.ly/LPSEF-StarAward

Donations received will be used to help fund the Foundation’s Grant Program so all funds will be going back into the schools to provide programs and supplies for our students and staff.

Thank you for your support!

If you have any questions, please email lpsfoundation@livoniapublicschools.org

Units, please pass on this info to your families.

Below is the video from the LPTSA Council School Board Candidate Forum.

Reflections Season Is Here!

This year's theme is Show Your Voice.

The deadline for student submissions is Friday, November 11, 2022.

Thank you for your support!

Debbie Yates and Monique Cadoret, reflections@livoniaptsacouncil.org

Livonia PTSA Council Reflections Co-Chairs

Can you believe it's already November?! Are you looking into the future and trying to see how you might be able to boost your PEP score? It's easy! Simply make sure everything is submitted correctly and on time for easy points. This also helps make sure your PTA/PTSA unit is up to date and in compliance. Not sure when everything is due? The PEP checklist has those dates. Want to know more ways to earn PEP points? Are you inviting your liaison to your monthly meetings? Simply CC PEP on those emails and you've just earned 100 points each month! Did your PTA/PTSA do something that you want to share? Submit an article to this newsletter and CC PEP to receive another 100 points each month! Don't forget, you can receive PEP credit for Achieving and Exceeding last year's Membership totals as well. We have several units who are so close to earning more PEP credit based on their Membership totals. How many PEP points you may ask? When you achieve last year's totals, that's 250 PEP points! Exceed that number by 25 and that's another 100 PEP points for each additional 25 members!

Have you missed the deadline to submit something? That's OK. Please still send those documents to PEP and/or upload them into MemberHub. You may not receive PEP credit for those late submissions but it is still very important that they are completed and submitted.

Did you see what you've already received PEP credit for? You can find that breakdown on our Livonia PTSA Council website. If you happen to notice any errors, please email PEP at PEP@livoniaptsacouncil.org.

Sara Bennett

Livonia PTSA Council - PEP Chair

Can you believe October is already over? How have you encouraged families, friends, staff, and students to join your PTA/PTSA? We would love to hear about what you did, what worked, and how successful your unit was! If you haven't had a membership drive yet, it's too late! With the holiday quickly approaching, now is a wonderful time to show you families what you're all about and why they should join your PTA/PTSA.

Please remember to remit your Michigan PTA does by the 28th of every month for all new memberships. Alos, if you have not submitted your Livonia PTSA Council annual dues yet, please do so as soon as possible as they were due October 28th.

Nicole Dant,

Livonia PTSA Council Membership Chair

Hello Elementary PTA Units!

Please remind your kindergarten families to sign up their students for the Competitive Edge Savings Program, an exciting savings program offered to every kindergarten student entering the Livonia Public Schools. The goal of the LPS Education Foundation is to provide a unique opportunity for LPS parents to begin planning early for their children’s post-secondary education (such as eligible colleges or trade schools) and to help set aside money for their children’s future educational expenses.

The Foundation deposits $100 for every kindergarten student who registered into a pooled 529 account. This account grows over the course of the students' educational journeys. When the student graduates from an LPS high school and is accepted into an eligible post secondary school, they will receive a check from the Foundation after completing the claim form and submitting the necessary documentation.

Here is the link to register for the program: https://bit.ly/CompEdgeSignUp. Current LPS kindergarten students have until February 1, 2023 to register – do not miss out on this wonderful program that is totally free to you!

At Buchanan Elementary, the PTA provided staff with dinner from Cantoro Italian Market during conferences to help them through those long evenings.

The PTA has actively worked on purchasing 500 pairs of headphones for the entire school with over 175 already in the building.

Our first Riverside skate night was Friday, October 21st with an amazing turnout!

To celebrate our amazing staff at Churchill, we gave each staff member a cute, decorative apple shaped cookie along with a little note. The cookies were ordered from Cheryl & Co. They arrived in great shape and very quickly. We got a great price for them. The cookies were apple shaped and frosted red with a green stem. Each cookie was in its own packaging.

We then placed one cookie into a festive gift bag and placed a note on each. If the recipient was already a PTSA member, they received a note thanking them for their support and telling them to look for staff grants coming to their inbox soon. If the recipient was not a PTSA member, they received a note letting them know we'd love their support. Their cookie was also in a festive bag but stapled to a membership form.

Many staff commented on how delicious the cookies were and how nice it is to receive a treat!

The PTA at Cleveland Elementary was excited to host its first in-person Book Fair since the start of the pandemic. Students from every class were invited to attend the fair during their regularly scheduled library times. The fair was also open during parent teacher conferences so that parents could do some holiday gift shopping. A special shout out to our school librarian, Mrs. Comeiz, who (in a stroke of divine genius) suggested hosting the fair during conferences, and to Keadin and April, who chaired this event and made everything run smoothly.

On October 27, the Cleveland PTA held a Fall Fest. There was a petting zoo, hale bale maze, trunk or treat, lawn games, a haunted hallway and more!

Frost Craft Show is Back!

The Frost PTSA has been busy planning for the much-anticipated Craft Show to make its return this year on Saturday, November 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It is our only fundraiser of the year, and is a huge undertaking. We expect 2,000 attendees!

We have been recruiting volunteers and donations for our bake sale, but still need help. If you want to help make our event a success, we would appreciate any time you could give! All volunteers receive FREE admission to the show (as well as a free beverage); if you volunteer for more than 3 hours, you also receive a free lunch! Check out our sign up genius. If you are unable to help at the event, please consider donating to our bake sale.

We are excited to bring this popular event back and can't wait to share how it goes next month!

Every October, our Kennedy Stars are extra loved! We have an “Encouraging Notes” committee who work hard to remind each student that they matter. Each locker is adorned with a special note, and the kids and staff absolutely love it.

In addition to our students feeling loved, they have been busy this past month. Our Kennedy Stars and their families were given the opportunity to enjoy music, food trucks, a petting farm and a candy path at our annual Fall Fest.

Our Stars have also been busy decorating pumpkins for our “Pumpkin Decoration” contest and gearing up for our upcoming costume parade. In addition, our 1st graders recently enjoyed a field trip to the Cider Mill. All in all, it’s been a wonderful month! Excitement can be felt all around!

We can’t believe October is already come and gone! We had a packed month of fun-filled events for our Randolph Roadrunner students/families! We started our month with Dine to Donate at Panera. We always appreciate our local businesses who help support our schools.

On October14th, we had our color run! The kids had a blast getting covered in colors!

Thanks to our amazing Color Run PTA committee we were able to raise $28K! That is over our goal, amazing! The top class that raised the most in donations gets to go up against our Randolph staff in a fun, classic, game of kickball! The kids are amped and ready to take on their teachers.

Our Fall Fest was on October 14th and parents and students came out to enjoy doughnuts, cider, dancing, games and a fun Truck or Treat. This was the first Trunk or Treat for us in some time. We had 17 cars in total decked out in awesome themes. We appreciate every family who donated candy and helped make it a special event for our Randolph students/families!

Lastly, we passed out Boo Grams on October 28th! Instead of candy, we opted for fun stickers and erasers to ensure each student could enjoy a Boo Gram! In total we had 831 Boo Grams and these were such a great way to end the month!

Next up for us is our November Calendar raffle! We are really excited to raffle off some amazing donations for our families.

This year has been a busy one at Riley and we have worked hard on increasing our membership numbers. So far this year we have over 40 more members than we did last year.

In September, we held a super fun and successful Color Run. We had two fundraising goals: first if we raised $20,000, our principal, Mr. Wennstrom, would dye his hair purple, and secondly if we raised over $25,000 our assistant principal, Mrs. Gray, would add purple highlights in her hair. We successfully surpassed both goals. The kids were super excited to see their principals with purple hair.

With our amazing fundraiser under our belt, we were able to purchase lunch twice for the teachers this year and give them each a $100 classroom stipend to spend on anything they want or need for their classrooms.

We had a busy October at Stevenson! We partnered with George's Livonia Gardens for a Homecoming corsage and boutonniere fundraiser. It was the first time we did this and raised over $500! Thank you to our students and families for supporting the PTSA and a local, family-owned business! We look forward to working with George's again in the future. For conferences, we wanted to make sure our staff had snacks for the long days. We were able to stock the staff lounge with amazing snacks like nuts, granola bars, chips, crackers, chocolates, etc. due to the generous donations from our families. Thank you for supporting and spoiling our staff!! We also set up a membership table on conference night to encourage parent/student sign up. We are raffling off a Stevenson Spirit basket including a family season pass to home games. Can't wait to see what next month brings!!

Webster held our annual Walkathon fundraiser in early October. It was a beautiful day out on our track, where our Wildcats were celebrated for helping us with our only fundraiser. The Churchill Marching Band was able to join us this year and lead the students around the track for their first lap. They added such a special touch to our event. We had a family donate a beautiful balloon arch that went beautifully with our theme of Walk on the Wild Side. We had a goal of $12,000 but we surpassed that with a final total of $13,001. We have some exciting things planned for the coming year.

Our next event wass our annual Fall Fest. There was a trunk or treat, spook walk, DJ Scott, Photo Op Area, three food trucks, pumpkin decorating contest as well as the creepy animal display that the Reptarium put on for us. We had over 500 people RSVP. This is a really fun free event that we put on for our families.

Some events have set dates while others have tentative months. Please watch for finalized dates or any date changes.

Please mark your calendars now for Founders' Day, Officer Training and the 2022-23 Audit Party.

2022

November (week of Nov. 14) - Food Service and Custodial Staff Appreciation

11/16 - LPTSA Council Meeting & Workshop | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

2023

1/18 - LPTSA Council Meeting | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

1/21 - Chili Cook Off | 11 a.m-2 p.m. | Franklin High School

January - Reflections Ceremony | TBD | TBD

2/15 - Founders’ Day | 6 p.m. | St. Mary's Cultural Center

March - Transportation Appreciation

3/15 - LPTSA Council Meeting | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

4/19 - LPTSA Council Meeting & Elections | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

4/27 - YMAD Celebration | TBD | TBD

5/24 - Officer Training | TBD | TBD

6/7 - LPTSA Council Meeting | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

7/19 - LPTSA Council Audit Party | 6 - 8 p.m. | Central Office

Please note that these dates and times could be subject to change due to any change in COVID-19 regulations. We will inform all units of any updates or changes as soon as possible.

Use the link below. Please include school in the comment.

If you are a PTA/PTSA officer or committee chair, please make sure to join our group for important information, discussions, and more! Be sure to answer the questions when you request to join. A lot of great information is shared on this closed group page. It's also a great way to network with other units, share ideas, and ask for help.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/541318689333449/

Michigan PTA Website: https://www.michiganpta.org/

Michigan PTA Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/everychildonevoice

National PTA Website: https://www.pta.org/

National PTA Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ParentTeacherAssociation

National PTA Blog: https://onevoice.pta.org/

The Livonia PTSA Council is a group of 22 local PTA/PTSA Units within the Livonia Public Schools District. The Council is organized under the authority of the Michigan PTA for the purpose of promoting conferences, communications, leadership development and coordination of the efforts of the local units.

Interested in joining Council? There are chair opportunities available! Contact President Andrea Malenfant at andrea.malenfant@livoniaptsacouncil.org

Email: newsletter@livoniaptsacouncil.org
Website: www.livoniaptsacouncil.org
Location: 15125 Farmington Road, Livonia, MI, USA
Phone: .
Facebook: facebook.com/LivoniaPTSACouncil
Twitter: @LivoniaPTSAC