Newsletter 04/21/25

The PTA is excited to launch the 2025 Fun Run. Not only is it our biggest fundraiser of the year, but it's also one of our most fun!

May 2, 2025, 9:00 am - Noon Grant Track

This year's goal is to raise $35,000 to support the PTA's operational budget, funding beloved community events such as Spook-a-rama and the art show, direct support of teachers and staff through classroom grants, artist-in-residence programming, and more.

To learn all about the Fun Run, please read the Info Letter and check out our website. You may also download a pledge sheet, a copy of which will also be sent home with your student soon.

INFO LETTER | WEBSITE | PLEDGE SHEET

To make a direct contribution, visit our donation site. Important: read how to set up your student's account.

FUNDRAISING SITE

Many hands make light work! A team of volunteers is critical to our success. Thank you to those who have already signed up. A few more spots are open--check out our Sign-Up Genius for more info.

VOLUNTEER

We appreciate the community's support of this event and the PTA's fundraising efforts. Reach out with any questions, otherwise we'll look forward to May 2nd!

Laura Schwab             Sara Hallvik

Fundraising Chair     Fun Run Lead

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EVENTS

PPS Seismic Risk Meeting Tonight

Monday, April 21, at 6:30 pm in the BCS Library.

School Board Member Julia Brim-Edwards will be meeting with BCS parents to discuss BCS Seismic Risk. Come out to learn more and read the below message on Seismic Risk Advocacy to find out about how you can support these advocacy efforts.

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Spring Community Cares Day - April 26, 9 am to Noon

Please sign up to help make the school sparkle this spring. We need help from all ages for weeding, picking up trash, and sprucing the outdoor spaces. Please bring your own gardening/work gloves and tools including - shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, pruning equipment, weeding tools, etc. Click below to let us know that you will be coming.

Sign-up Now

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week & Family Night

The BCS 3rd Annual Neurodiversity Celebration Week will be held from April 21-25. The entire BCS Community is invited to come out and enjoy Neurodiversity Family Night on Thursday, April 24th from 6:30pm to 8:00pm in the West Gym. Come out and enjoy dinner, dessert and community building around all things Neurodiversity.

Flyer

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Earth Day Bike Bus - Special Guest

Bike Bus is every Wednesday from 8:10-8:40... and we're having a special Earth Day bike bus ride on Wednesday, April 23, with special guest Principal Presley! This is a great time to join Bike Bus just as the weather starts to get nicer.

Bike Bus Details

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Ridwell Plastic Film Drive 

This week BCS's Green Team is teaming up with Ridwell to host a Plastic Film Drive and celebrate Earth Week. Please bring clean dry plastic film (ziptop bags, grocery bags, bubble wrap, and lots more) to school and drop in the Ridwell labeled bins at either the front or back entrance. Ridwell will make sure it stays out of landfills by working with Trex who turns it into new decking materials instead! Let's see how much plastic we can repurpose!

In addition, BCS will earn a free pickup of the school’s plastic film for all of the ‘25/’26 school year if we get 10 new members to sign up for Ridwell by May 23rd at the BCS site: https://get.ridwell.com/bcs Ridwell collects hundreds of common household items you can’t recycle curbside, like plastic food packaging, lightbulbs, clothes, Styrofoam, and more. It is a great way to be more environmentally friendly. Pro Tip: You may be able to reduce your garbage bin size to offset the cost!

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Support BCS Bottle Drop this Earth Week

BCS Community-you are amazing! We have raised $5340.00 toward our Bottle Drop goal of $7500.00 for the 2024/25 school year!

BottleDrop Oregon is continuing their tradition of Earth Week Give - this is an excellent way to squeeze out just a bit more $$$ out of those can and bottle returns.

All Blue Bags dropped off between April 15 thru April 26 will earn BCS 20% more than usual…that could be a $2.00 bonus per bag!

If you have a favorite local business (restaurant, bar, gym, orthodontist, dentist etc) that you can convince to fill even one bag just this one time…now would be an excellent time to turn on the charm.

As incentive to get those bags in, I will bring your full blue bags in to the recycle bins myself - easy peasy! In fact, I have10 sitting in my backyard waiting to drop off (I swear I didn’t drink all that’s in them)

Please email me at bottledrop@beverlyclearyschool.org and we can schedule a pick up. Contact Christina Kirby via the email above with any questions - thank you again for your support!

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ADVOCACY

PPS Seismic Risk Advocacy

The seismic risks at our schools are real and can feel overwhelming. But there are things you can do and actions you can take that can make a difference, especially right now, as the PPS Board is planning what to do with a new $1.8 billion bond measure that will be put to voters in May. According to recent reporting, there are still significant decisions to be made about how that money will be spent - we need to engage the Board now to make sure our concerns are addressed.

If you are interested in advocating with the PPS School Board about the seismic deficiencies at Beverly Cleary and other elementary and middle schools, this email outlines some of the actions you can take (with more info on each action below).

1. Email the PPS Board

2. Participate in meetings with PPS Board members as they get scheduled

3. Engage other parents, at BCS and at other schools

1. Email the PPS Board:

The most immediate need is to email the PPS board. They need to hear that this is an issue we care about.

Here are the email addresses for the board members: csplitt@pps.net, ghollands@pps.net, mdepass@pps.net, jbrim-edwards@pps.net, psullivan@pps.net, eddiewang@pps.net, Hermangreene@pps.net, jkunsevi@pps.net.

It would also be good to copy the PPS Board's general inbox: schoolboard@pps.net.

It is important to put your concerns into your own voice (form letters/emails tend to get dismissed or ignored). That said, there are some key points we'd encourage everyone to make:

• We, the parents of Beverly Cleary, want to meet with you to discuss our concerns.
• It's not acceptable to not have a plan for how the District is going to address the deficiencies at Beverly Cleary and other high-risk schools.
• It's also not acceptable to develop a plan without the input of the families most impacted - those that send their kids to school every day in the buildings that pose the greatest risk
• PPS cannot focus exclusively on modernizing high schools. The needs at several elementary and middle schools - including Beverly Cleary - are just too great to ignore.
• The May 2025 School Modernization Bond needs to be used to address the greatest risks - it makes sense to finish the high schools, but it does NOT make sense to build bigger high schools than are going to be needed.
• As much of the $1.8 billion bond as possible should be allocated to addressing the elementary and middle schools most in need of retrofits.
• We want you to meet with us so we can have a real discussion about how the 2025 bond money will be used.
• Will you commit to meeting with us?

2. Participate in meetings with PPS Board Members:

Which brings us to the next way to effectively advocate - when those meetings get scheduled, participate if you can. The PPS School Board needs to hear from us directly how much it matters - emails are great for getting the ball rolling, but there is nothing like a face-to-face meeting (even virtually) to make sure our concerns are heard and addressed.

We already have two board members willing to meet with us, based just on the Willamette Week article and a handful of parents sending emails with the points above - Michelle DePass and Julia Brim-Edwards. That is very encouraging.

3. Engage other parents at BCS and at other schools:

Another way to make sure the School Board focuses on the issue is to engage families at BCS and at other schools, especially families at other high-risk schools. The Willamette Week article increased attention on the issues, but there are still a lot of parents who don't really know how risky the building is. We need to increase everyone's awareness and help as many BCS families as possible have their voice heard.

There are also 18 other unreinforced masonry (URM) schools in the District, and an even longer list of schools that have significant seismic deficiencies beyond URM concerns.

We need to engage parents at those schools as partners and allies as we press the PPS Board to engage the broader PPS Community on these issues. If you know families who attend other schools - especially other high-risk and/or URM schools - reach out to them. Feel free to share this email with them and encourage them to engage their PTA, school principal, and the PPS Board.

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School Board Election Day: May 20

PPS School Board Elections are coming up on May 20th. Check out this infographic.

Learn More

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Support Scott School Food Drive

Our sister school, Scott School, is in need of help. Twenty percent of its students rely on food being sent home each weekend through the Portland Backpack organization. However, this program is being put on pause, leaving food-insecure students and their families without the food they depend upon to get through the weekend. Scott School has asked us to reach out to our community to help fill the gap for these students while this program is unavailable.

You can help out in two ways:

1. Donate food items off of this wishlist. Scott has an especially high need for for breakfast items, main meal items, and snack items. These wishlist items are suggestions only, similar items are also accepted. You can drop these items off at the BCS front office at a designated spot.

2. Donate money here, which will then be spent by our PTA on needed food items that will be delivered directly to Scott School. Let's come together as a community to help a sister community in need!

The PTAs of BCS and Scott School thank you for every donation!!!

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