Our school will have two teams in the fall, a FLL team which will be ages 9-14 and a jrFLL which will be for ages 6-9. If you think you might be interested in providing this opportunity for your student I would encourage you to attend an informational meeting tomorrow night at Coe Elementary. Please read below for more information on the meeting. If you have any questions please contact Sara Mirabueno at 252-2100.
While there is little you need to do before school starts, there are some helpful things we have learned in the past two years, which if taken care of now, will allow you to hit the ground running in September and prepare for the competition season in WA State.
John Hay will be hosting an informal meeting for parents interested in signing their kids up for the new program at 7 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, June 8, at Coe Elementary School, located at 2424 7th Ave W. At the meeting parents and teachers will get the chance to talk with CoeBotics Coach Willem Scholten about how the CoeBotics team is organized, what they have learned throughout the program, and pose any questions they may have. Scholten encourages those interested to pass this invitation along to other schools and organizations that may also be interested in starting up their own program.
The meeting will go from 7 to 8:30 p.m. tonight. If you plan on attending, please email Scholten at wscholten@learningaccess.org and let him know how many people will be coming so he has a rough idea of expected attendance. Check out more about the Coebotics team here.
Queen Anne’s own Coe Elementary and local nonprofit Successful Schools in Action will be hosting a screening of Race to Nowhere, a film about “the dark side of America’s achievement culture” at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday, May 31 at Coe, located at 2727 7th Avenue W.
From the Race to Nowhere website:
Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.
Race to Nowhere is a call to mobilize families, educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.
Communities around the country are using the film as “a call to action for families, educators and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.” By engaging in a grassroots effort to organize screenings in in schools and neighborhoods nationwide, the filmmakers are hoping to turn the project into a catalyst for education reform–”using the film as the centerpiece for raising awareness, radically changing the national dialogue on education and galvanizing change.”
Tickets to attend the screening are $10 in advance, or $15 at the door, and are available for purchase here. For more information on the film, check out the Race to Nowhere website.
According to Mary Cropp over at the SeattlePI, an interim principal, Terry Acena, is already in place at Coe, and both Acena and SPS Executive Director of Schools for the Central region Nancy Coogan will be attending a meeting at the school for parents and incoming families on Thursday, March May 12 in which they will “briefly discuss the recent changes in leadership and outline a course for the future of Coe.” The meeting will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Coe Library.
The Queen Anne Rotary Club is hosting a document shredding event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday, May 14 at the Upper Queen Anne Safeway, located at 2100 Queen Anne Ave N.
The event, which is being held by the Queen Anne Rotary Club, Safeway, and SEADRUNAR Recycling, is completely free, though donations of non-perishable foodstuffs for the Queen Anne Helpline will be accepted.
Members of Coe Elementary’s “Team CoeBotics” will also be on hand at the event to talk about the program with the community. CoeBotics will soon be traveling to Legoland in California to represent Washington state in the national team competition of robotic technology, design and function. This event gives the community an opportunity to meet the team members, learn about this educational extra-curricular program, and learn how to help support the them.
Nearly 300 students gathered on Wednesday evening at the Ballard High School gymnasium for the Northwest-Cluster Showcase of Choirs.
Penny sent us the above video and says that each choir sang one or two songs alone and all sang Yonder Come Day together as a combined showcase choir. Participating schools were:
Loyal Heights Elementary
Whitman Middle School
Lawton Elementary
Ballard High School Trebel Choir
Coe Elementary
Ballard HS Men’s Ensemble
Whittier Elementary
Ballard High School Concert Choir
It’s time to start digging through those overrun cupboards and drawers searching for old and long unused cell phones and small electronics. Coe Elementary’s community charity committee Coe Cares is putting on another fundraiser, this time benefiting both the school and electronics recycling–or rather, “upcycling”–non-profit UpCycle4Hope.
Upcycling is the process of converting useless electronics into useful items again, creating a second or even third chance at life for these devices. Through upcycling, old electronics get saved from being thrown away, or forgotten about in drawers and closets.
UpCycle4Hope, with a motto of “a second life for electronics,” collects small wireless devices including cell phones, laptops, netbook computers, digital cameras, games and gaming consoles, iPods, DVD players, and even CDs, and either refurbishes them for re-sale or, if beyond being salvaged, disposes of them in an environmentally friendly way.
Electronic waste is the most quickly growing waste concern worldwide. The average life span of a cell phone is only eighteen months. On average 130 million cell phones are retired annually in the U.S. alone. Therefore, cell phone recycling is imperative. Nationwide, it is estimated that less than 10% of retired cell phones are recycled or reused. The remainder litter closets, drawers, and unfortunately landfills.
From 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 10 outside the Upper Queen Anne Starbucks Coe Elementary students will be collecting used cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones, laptops, laptop and cell phone batteries, satellite radios, digital cameras, iPods, iPod docking stations, digital picture frames, and other small electronics (nothing too heavy to ship cost effectively) to send to UpCycle, which will then clean, test, repair, recycle and sell the donated items. Coe will then receive 70 percent of the profits from the sale of the items collected through the drive.
For more information on Coe’s electronics recycling drive, or for more information on getting involved in the Coe Cares committee, please contact committee chair Stacy Lawson at 206.999.6274.
Coe Elementary’s robotics team, ‘Coebotics‘, will be traveling to California in May to compete in FLL (First Lego League) national competition at Legoland, according to a story by Mary Cropp in the Seattle PI. The eight-person team made up of 4th and 5th graders will be the sole representatives of Washington state at the competition.
Using the Lego Mindstorms systems, Coe students work together in FLL competitions to solve realistic world issues, “such as using a robotic unit to rescue victims from, or deliver supplies to a burning or unstable building,” according to Cropp. From the Coebotics website:
Robotics is the ultimate team activity. All good robots and robotic devices are created by teams of engineers, biologists, artists and programmers to name a few disciplines. Because of this need of integrating many science, engineering and social science skills into a great Robot, it is an ideal discipline to start teaching as young as Kindergarten. It allows students of any ability to be part of a great accomplishment.
Last week we reported on Zaw’s month-long fundraiser for neighborhood schools called Zaw School Days, coinciding with the shop’s one-year anniversary on the hill. On every Tuesday and Wednesday through the end of the month the bake-at-home pizza place will be donating $5 to the neighborhood school or PTA funding effort of your choice for every order of $20 and up.
Just one week into the fundraiser Zaw released its donation totals so far, and Coe Elementary and Queen Anne Elementary are two schools leading the way, earning 35 percent of the donations each. From Zaw:
Our first week was a great success, the families and friends of Coe and Queen Anne Elementary came out in force, but there are still three weeks left for McClure, John Hay and St. Anne’s to give them a run for their donation dollars!
In addition to donation checks for each school, we’re spicing things up thanks to a suggestion from a Zaw School Days customer this past week! Whichever school receives the largest number of $5 donations, Zaw will gift an extremely special auction item to the winning school – an all-inclusive Ultimate Pizza Party birthday package for up to eight kids (a up to $150 value)!
Taproot Theatre’s Road Company entertained at Coe Elementary last Thursday, bestowing the virtues of problem solving, empathy training, emotional management, bullying prevention to its students.
The Road Company performed its bullying-prevention play Super School to an auditorium packed with children in grades kindergarten to fifth. The young students listened and laughed as the cast of five told the story of Asteroid Academy students who begin a new year confronting challenges of social interaction, like dealing with a bully, managing anger, and the tests of honesty and friendship.
“It was awesome,” said fifth grader Makayla Johnson. “It had a very good meaning and it looks like they did a lot of hard work.”
Fellow fifth grader Melanie Lopez agreed that the play was fun and that she learned a lot.
A Q&A session at the end of the show allowed students to ask questions about the show, which mostly addressed the various props and tricks that gave the illusion of super powers. The session also gave the cast a chance to quiz the students, who had no problem articulating the finer points of the show’s message.
The bullying prevention play addresses a growing concern in schools. Previous coverage about incidents of bullying in Queen Anne schools can be found here.
From Taproot Theatre’s press release:
In the United States, 15-25% of students report being bullied, and 15-20% report bullying others, according to the “Stop Bullying Now!” website of the Health Resources and Services Administration. In some cases bullying has led to suicide. For the offenders, it can lead to suspension, expulsion or even criminal charges. In Washington, nearly 15,000 students were suspended and 442 expelled in 2008-2009, according to data published by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction last January. In King County alone, 2,231 students were suspended and 89 expelled.
In Washington, a new expanded anti-bullying law took effect in June, stating that although a law had been put in place to prohibit harassment, intimidation and bullying, the problem had failed to decline. The new law expands efforts, requiring schools to institute policies regarding harassment, intimidation and bullying, and requires each school district to appoint one individual to be the primary contact on the issue.
But the play is more than a timely statement on current social issues, said actors Solomon Davis and Laura Bannister.
“I think the message is timeless,” said Davis. “It could have run since the beginning of time because we’re talking about helping kids to understand their emotions and what they can do.”
“And it’s about how to live as part of a community,” added Bannister.
Bannister and Davis, who both have experience teaching children, said they love what they do and take seriously their obligation to impart an important message.
“This show, all of our shows, have an emotional quality to it. You notice that the students get completely silent during some of the more emotional scenes, which means they’re really engaging with the storyline and also the emotion of it,” said Davis. “I think that this is going to make it in their system and they’re going to make a note of that so that when they get into a situation that is similar they have that memory that says ‘I know how to deal with this.’”
This school year the Taproot Theatre Road Company is performing four plays. Don’t Tell Jessica… and New Girl teach junior and high school students the dangers of gossip, rumors and cyberbullying and the consequences their actions can have, while Treasure Ally and Super School are aimed at elementary school students.
From the press release:
Taproot Theatre’s Road Company has been touring dynamic social-issue plays to students throughout the Pacific Northwest since 1985. The Road Company reaches tens of thousands of students each year with productions that address relevant social issues and provide youth with safe steps to approach them.
When Seattle Public Schools released a new ranking of all schools in the district this morning, two of the top 12 ended up being right here in the neighborhood. John Hay Elementary and Coe Elementary both received the highest ranking of 5. That ranking means a high number of students pass state tests and that their test scores are improving. The rankings also reflect how students, staff, and family members feel about the school’s atmosphere. You can take a closer look at the rankings here.
Coe Elementary’s new principal, Stacey Loftin (also known by her nickname Tate) is inviting the community to swing by and meet her at series of weekly drop-in socials the district is calling “Tuesdays with Tate.” Loftin is replacing Coe’s longtime head David Elliott, who is leaving to become the principal at the new Queen Anne Elementary this fall. Current and incoming Coe families are invited to stop by the school, located 2424 7th Ave. W., from 9 to 11:30 a.m. every Tuesday through August 3 to meet Tate. No RSVP is necessary.
Back in January the Seattle School District announced a number of principal changes around town affecting three schools in Queen Anne, John Hay Elementary, Coe Elementary and The Center School, which will all be getting new principals for the fall 2010 year. Yesterday, Wednesday, June 16 schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson announced her pick for the new head of Coe, Stacey (Tate) Loftin.
In a letter to the Coe community yesterday, Goodloe-Johnson outlined Loftin’s experience and her reasoning for choosing her for the position:
Ms. Loftin comes to Coe Elementary from the Edmonds School District, where she worked as an Instructional Intervention Specialist. She served her principal internships at Maplewood K-8 in Edmonds and Dearborn Park Elementary School in Seattle, and also completed an administrative internship in the Edmonds School District.
We believe that Ms. Loftin’s extensive classroom experience – including time as an elementary teacher and physical education instructor in the Northshore School District — makes her an excellent match for the Coe Elementary learning community. She also has significant experience working with special-needs students, a desirable attribute that was identified by the Coe community for their principal.
Ms. Loftin’s professional preparation includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Norwegian and a minor in Social Science from Pacific Lutheran University, and a Masters in Educational Administration from the University of Washington.
Coe’s outgoing principal, David Elliott, will continue to play an active role in the school district and Queen Anne community as the first head of Queen Anne Elementary, a new option school with a “technology enhanced” curriculum.
Don’t forget, if you’re planning on dining at the 5 Spot for dinner tonight, Tuesday, March 23 or tomorrow, Wednesday, March 24, your money will be helping one of two competing Queen Anne elementary schools – John Hay and Coe – as they head it off to see which school can raise the most!
The 5 Spot will be donating 25 percent of all of its food and beverage sales from 4 p.m. to closing to Coe tonight and to Hay tomorrow, so there’s no doubt students, parents and teachers will be packing into the cafe to make their orders and get an edge up on the competition.
All funds both nights will be donated directly to each respective school. Coe plans to use the money to purchase age and reading level appropriate books for their classrooms, while John Hay is going to put its donated funds toward hiring math and reading tutors.
Don’t forget, Coe night is tonight (Tuesday), and John Hay night is tomorrow (Wednesday). Go Coe and Hay!
Which school can raise more money? That’s the challenge Upper Queen Anne cafe 5 Spot has proposed to two neighborhood elementary schools, John Hay and Coe.
On Tuesday, March 23 (Coe) and Wednesday, March 24 (Hay) students, parents and teachers will pack into 5 Spot and see how much they can earn by eating out. For these two days the 5 Spot will be contributing 25 percent of all their food and beverage sales from 4 p.m. to closing at midnight to each respective school. So if you eat at the 5 Spot either Tuesday or Wednesday next week, a quarter of every dollar you spend will go straight to Coe or John Hay.
Additionally, the children in the classroom from the winning school that has the highest level of family participation—families will be asked to write their teacher’s name at the top of their guest checks—will win a $10 Chow Foods gift card for each child in the class of the “highest participation level” classroom.
All funds raised over these two nights will be donated directly to each respective school. Coe Elementary, who will be fundraising on Tuesday the 23rd, plans to utilize the proceeds to purchase age and reading level appropriate books for their classrooms. John Hay Elementary, who will be represented on Wednesday the 24th, plans to put its donated funds toward the hiring of math and reading tutors.
Before joining their friends and family to watch the Superbowl on Sunday, Queen Anne parents, teachers and students volunteered their time running the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, raising just shy of $20,000 for post-earthquake aide.
This is the second time Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School have gotten together to run a major sale event for charity. The three schools first teamed up in 2005, just after the tsunami, and successfully raised $10,000. When the earthquake hit Haiti, the organizers decided to run the event again. This time they raised $19,200.
“The same group all came together and decided to do it again,” said organizers and former John Hay parent Mimi Gan. Their goal was to beat their previous record. “We’ve almost doubled it!” she said.
As for the sale itself, items varied from used toys and clothes, to housewares, baked goods (the in-house bake sale raised $755 alone) and even some last-minute surprise donations, including a car! According to Gan, the principal of Coe Elementary, Mr. Elliott, drove his car to the rummage sale and began taking bids, eventually selling it for $350.
“I don’t know how old it was,” Gan said. “He was very honest about it – there were some things wrong with it. But it sold!”
Volunteers said the rummage sale stayed relatively busy from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., when the crowds were taken over by football frenzy.
“We had a steady flow of people most of the day. At the end, we did a Craig’s list blast to get rid of as much as we could. We advertised $5 for what you could take out,” said fellow parent and volunteer Stacy Lawson. As for the results, “We were ecstatic,” she said.
“It was great fun,” Gan said. “It was a great community builder and people were so generous.”
This is just a reminder that the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, a joint venture between neighborhood schools Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School, is this Sunday, February 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Coe gym (located at located at 2424 7th Ave W).
Donations of gently used goods to be sold at the rummage sale can be made from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 5 at Coe and Hay, and on Saturday, February 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coe. All proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross.
There will also be a bake sale at the rummage sale, headed by the folks at John Hay. Baked goods can be dropped off at Coe Elementary on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Parents and kids interested in volunteering their time at the bake sale should contact Kim Clements at 206-963-9589 or kclements@jasdesignbuild.com, or simply show up between 10 .m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday. More information here.
To get involved, contact the following representatives:
John Hay: Susan Sweeney at susweeney@seattleschools.org and Lynn Baker at lybaker@seattleschools.org:
Coe: Becky Lederman at lederman4@msn.com, Lisa Cole at davidandlisacole@mac.com, and Stacy Lawson at slawson7@gmail.com.
McClure: Margarita Vanegas at mvvanegas@seattleschools.org.
General Information: Lindsay Foody at honeyfoody@yahoo.com, and Mimi Gan at mimigan@msn.com or (206) 390-2312.
Students from Coe Elementary spent the day yesterday, Saturday, January 23, running a bake sale benefiting those in Haiti. They set up shop outside the closed Peet’s on Queen Anne Ave N and Boston St, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., raising $1,645 for Partners in Health, a non-profit organization founded by Paul Farmer that has been working to support advocacy and health care in Haiti for over 20 years.
Although parents stood watch, it was clear the bake sale was run by the kids themselves, who sent volunteers with trays of treats down a block in each direction to lure in more customers. And for those not in the mood for sweet snacks, a small donation could also buy a magic trick.
Parent Stacy Lawson, who helped organize the event, says it was about teaching the kids that they can make a difference in the world. Read more from her here.
Coe will also be teaming up with John Hay and McClure in just a couple of weeks to host a rummage sale benefiting Haiti on Sunday, February 7. For more details on that and information on how to make a donation, click here.
Kids from Coe Elementary will be hosting a bake sale tomorrow outside the Starbucks on Queen Anne Ave N and Boston St. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to raise money for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Red Square Yoga owner and mom of two at the school, Stacy Lawson, is helping to organize the event. She says Coe has a long track record of charitable work in the community and abroad, powered first and foremost by the students.
“We have a real history of doing social justice work on a level the kids can appreciate,” Lawson said, noting that the school has run a number of succsesful fundraisers in the past, raising over $800 at a bake sale for their sister organization, an all girls school in Afghanistan, and over $10,000 at a rummage sale benefiting tsunami victims.
According to Lawson, the events are about more than just coming together to help those in need – they’re also about teaching students, from an early age, that they can make a difference in the world around them. “The kids play a big part in the organization,” she said. “They host the sale. If they’re old enough, they can help with the baking. They post the fliers. They really understand that they can help impact things that go on around the world. It’s much more about their effort.”
Although Coe is teaming up with John Hay and McClure in just a couple of weeks to host a rummage sale benefiting Haiti, the parents and students from Coe decided that there was more they could do to help the country in wake of such a devastating earthquake, beginning plans for the bake sale on Tuesday.
“We decided that we need to put some focus on Haiti,” Lawson said. Though there will be parents volunteers supervising the event, the kids will be walking up and down Queen Anne Ave promoting the sale and talking about the group the proceeds will benefit, Partners in Health, a non-profit organization founded by Paul Farmer that has been working to support advocacy and health care in Haiti for over 20 years.
“Really this is about the kids. They’ll be on the street and they’ll be walking around and trying to get people to go come to the bake sale,” Lawson said. “We encourage them to talk about the issues and speak to about the organization that we’re contribute to.”
Lawson says they chose Partners in Health because of their longstanding work in helping Haiti from the inside out. “He’s on the ground in Haiti and he’s doing work,” she said. “[Paul Farmer is] not just about bringing in international relief teams, but he’s about helping locals solve their own problems.”
If you can’t make it to the bake sale tomorrow, you can still help by participating in the rummage sale between Coe, John Hay and McClure, which will be held on on Sunday February 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Coe gym, located at 2424 7th Ave W. You can donate gently used items for the sale from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 5 at Coe and Hay, and on Saturday, February 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coe.
Lawson hopes that the rummage sale, which has been a successful fundraiser in the past, will again raise a large sum. “We feel that even in this down-turned economy, this is still something people can do, buying second-hand,” she said.
For more details and contact information for the rummage sale, click here. To support the bake sale, swing by Queen Anne Ave and Boston St. between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. tomorrow.
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John Hay will be following in the footsteps of another Queen Anne school and adding a new after school robotics program in the upcoming 2011-2012 year. The new offering will be part of the same popular program at Coe Elementary – Coebotics, which took students to a national competition back in May. From the John Hay Daily Bulletin:
From the Race to Nowhere website:
It’s time to start digging through those overrun cupboards and drawers searching for old and long unused cell phones and small electronics. Coe Elementary’s community charity committee 
UpCycle4Hope, with a motto of “a second life for electronics,” collects small wireless devices including cell phones, laptops, netbook computers, digital cameras, games and gaming consoles, iPods, DVD players, and even CDs, and either refurbishes them for re-sale or, if beyond being salvaged, disposes of them in an environmentally friendly way.
