Thornhill Elementary PFC Newsletter

• From our PFC co-Presidents

• 2024-25 PFC Board Slate - Only Two More Spots to Fill!

• Get Cleared to Volunteer at Thornhill

• Step Up for Safety – Volunteer for Traffic Duty!

• Join the BIPOC Advisory Council for a New Family Welcome!

• Inclusion and Belonging

• Thornhill Encourages Zero-Waste Lunches for a Cleaner School

• Shop and Earn for Thornhill

• Konstella & ParentSquare: What’s the difference and why do we have both?

• Community Info

• OUSD Announcements

• Calendar of Important Dates




FIRST PFC Meeting is TONIGHT via ZOOM

and

Tomorrow morning is the BAC New Family Welcome Coffee Chat!!

We invite you to join our Parent-Faculty Club (PFC) meeting TONIGHT at 6pm via Zoom, where we’ll be covering key topics that directly impact our school community. It’s a great chance to stay informed, share your input, and connect with other parents and faculty.

Our agenda features several important updates, like the Teachers' Report from our PFC Teacher Liaisons, followed by Principal Steve Daubenspeck's report.

You’ll also hear the latest financial updates from our treasurers, Madeleine Buck and Tonya Young, along with a fundraising overview for the 2024-25 school year, including details on the upcoming Annual Fund. There’s much more to cover—be sure to check out the full agenda here!

Your participation is valued and we hope to see you there.

Warmly,

Catrina Vrankovich & Becky Gonzales

PFC co-Presidents

PFC Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 839 9115 5209

Passcode: thornhill

If you have an interest, there is definitely a volunteer opportunity for you, no matter how much time you have (or don’t have). The PFC is organized with an Executive Committee and Board Members. We have two open positions below where we need your help!

There will be plenty of volunteer opportunities and committees to join, even if you don’t hold an official board position. Keep an eye out for calls for volunteers throughout the school year for events like our Fall Festival ThornChill, Read-a-thon, Walk-a-thon, Auction, and more! There are so many ways we can come together and give our time to make Thornhill an extraordinary place for our students!

If you want to get involved, but aren’t sure where to start, email president@thornhillschool.org; Catrina Vrankovich & Becky Gonzales are happy to help.

Thank you to those who have volunteered!

Executive Committee

Presidents: Catrina Vrankovich, Becky Gonzales

Secretary: Morgan McDonell

Treasurers: Madeleine Buck, Tonya Young

VP, Communications: Jill Evans

VP, Fundraising: Tamara Chao

VP, Personnel: Evie Nagy

Member-at-Large (TK-2): Selam Brown

Member-at-Large (3-5): Chelsea Boniak

Principal: Steven Daubenspeck

Teacher Representatives: TBA

Board Members

5th Grade Liaisons: Rosana Garcia, Kim Diaz

Auction Chair: Bart Lounsbury

Annual Fund: Stefani Miller, Selam Brown, Deepa Lounsbury, Annie Sartor

Inclusion & Belonging Chair: Sophie Astier

Grants & Solicitations Chair: Open!

Hospitality Chair co-Chairs: Angela Fautt-Gatdula, Philip Gatdula

Merchant Partnership co-Chairs: Ibby Sasso (Brands), Jessica Serratos (Dine-outs)

Newsletter Editor: Annie Sartor

Parliamentarian: Open!

Read-a-thon Chair: Marie Fox

Room Parent Coordinator: Kathryn Miggels

Site/Safety Chair: Bruce Cowles

Spirit Wear Chair: Nisan Perera

Fall Festival ThornChill Chair: Malcolm Goodwin

Sustainability co-Chairs: Deepa Lounsbury, Marine Thibault

Prospective Family Liaisons: Adrienne Selke, Katie Clark, Alexis Hayman

Traffic Safety Chair: Ian Storrar

Walk-a-thon co-Chairs: Alison Bunker, Brenna Gustafson

Webmaster: Sylvia Sudat

Major props to Ian Storrar and EVERYONE who has volunteered to help with traffic at drop off and pick up!! Sign up to volunteer on the regular or pick random days that work for your schedule.

Morning Drop-Off Volunteers

Afternoon Pick-Up Volunteers

It’s simple and takes as little as 30 minutes (dropoff and minimum day pickups) and no more than 45 minutes (regular pickup).

We need at least 4 volunteers in the morning and 4 in the afternoon every day the school is open. In the past, we had a smaller number per day but with a change in our procedures, we are asking for more of you to step up and join the 12+ regulars who held things together last year.

Please see the After School Pick Up Process Revision from our Traffic Team HERE

At Thornhill we’re committed to making every student feel seen, heard, and valued. Our Black Indigenous People of Color Advisory Council (BAC), established in February 2023, is dedicated to ensuring that Thornhill is a place where all students, especially those from underrepresented communities, experience a true sense of belonging and inclusion. Whether you're new to the school or have been with us for years, we’d love to welcome you to our community!

Hello Thunderbirds!

The Inclusion and Belonging Team would like to welcome you to a new year at Thornhill!

Firstly, we would like to thank those who took part in our series of Summer Socials. Over the summer, Thornhill families met up to join in local hikes and music events around Oakland, including Oakland Museum of California and Sibley Regional Park. It was a great way to keep in touch with Thornhill friends over the summer and show our kiddos more of what Oakland has to offer. We hope you will join us at future events and we will keep you posted on upcoming dates!

We have a lot to look forward to during the Fall months and would love if you would join us to support our annual Fall Festival ThornChill, organize our second annual Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day and give families more reading recommendations through our monthly Inclusion Book Club. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer, join in and get to know more Thornhill families!

Additionally, we run Thornhill’s BIPOC Advisory Council’s (BAC) Allies Group to support the wonderful work the BAC does in promoting equitable and just learning experiences for all of Thornhill’s students. If you would like to find out more about what the Allies Group does, please come along to our first meeting on Wednesday, September 4, 6:00pm at El Agavero Restaurant in Montclair. Check out more details of the BAC and Allies Group activities and how to join here:

We look forward to celebrating our community’s inspiring diversity with you throughout the year! Please reach out any time if you would like help to celebrate your culture, festivals or simply find more ways to connect with our community; we will be happy to help plan activities and celebrations with you. You can contact us at diversity@thornhillschool.org or via Konstella @SophieAstier anytime.

Thank you!

Preventing a world (and a playground) filled with single use plastic starts with all of us kid lunch-packers at Thornhill. Do you know how to pack single-use plastic free lunches? Check out this handy "recipe" for a Zero Waste Lunch. Who wants all those microplastics anyway?

Looking to beautify our campus or join or other campus sustainability initiatives? Join Thornhill's Sustainability and Beautification Team by emailing sustainability@thornhillschool.org or come to our first meeting on Friday, August 30 at 5pm at Taps & Takeout.

ShopRaise Partnership
We’re excited to introduce our new partnership with ShopRaise this year! Whether you're buying daily essentials like groceries, shopping for home office furniture, or booking your next trip, the ShopRaise app allows you to raise funds for Thornhill Elementary while you shop online—all at no extra cost to you. Now, your everyday shopping can directly support our school. Click the link here to learn more and download the app.

• Konstella is Thornhill’s communications platform for Parent Faculty Club (PFC) announcements and parent-to-parent communication. There are classroom groups, committees, the school directory, a calendar, the opportunity to share photos, and more.

• ParentSquare is the official communications platform for OUSD as well as for Thornhill’s administration and teachers.
  
  

While official school information will come from ParentSquare, there are many features Konstella offers that ParentSquare can’t do!

Konstella provides a space for us to reach everyone (like we are doing now!) with information about community events, fundraisers, and other activities. PFC committees need a space to brainstorm and plan, and Room Parents in each classroom need to be able to communicate about class parties, gifts for teachers and other important things. Thornhill families need to be able to find each other for playdates and other kinds of parent-to-parent communication.

In the next few weeks, you’ll see that you and your child(ren) have been assigned to your classroom groups and any committee you’re in (or join in the future!). Konstella is also a schoolwide directory—not only can you contact the other parents/guardians in your class, you can search for anyone at the school by name or kid's name.

OUSD uses ParentSquare across the district for OUSD and school/classroom announcements. This is linked to your Aeries account.

We will use Konstella for everything else—our school/parent directory (ParentSquare doesn't provide this), room parent communication, teacher and staff appreciations, community and fundraising events (Annual Fund, Walkathon, Fall Festival and Benefit Auction), groups/committees, PFC meetings/announcements, photos, etc.—essentially everything that is organized and communicated by parent volunteers.

If you’re still looking for an after school activity, check out the following Fall 2024 after-school Enrichment classes:

• Mary Ellen’s fabulous, fun and creative FAD PAD
• Dana Zed’s after school ceramics

Congratulations! Now you’re in the know about everything going on at Thornhill! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions relating to Thornhill Communications (Konstella, Newsletter, Website and Room Parents). Thank you to this year’s awesome team: Annie Sartor (Newsletter), Kathryn Miggels (Room Parents) and Sylvia Sudat (Webmaster).

- Jill Evans (VP Communications)

The Thornhill Parent-Faculty Club (PFC) eNews team publishes this weekly newsletter each Tuesday in the school year to communicate school, PFC and OUSD news, events and information. We all have plenty of other things to do, but please try to read it weekly, as it will more than likely answer most questions you have about what’s up at school. Information about how to submit to the newsletter is below, but you can reach out to us at any time at newsletter@thornhillschool.org.

Email submissions to our Newsletter Chair, Annie Sartor, at newsletter@thornhillschool.org by 8 p.m. Thursday for approval—nothing sent after this will be included in the following week’s newsletter unless there are extenuating circumstances. It’s fine to include text in the body of the email with links and no formatting, and attach photos preferably as 150 x 150, 72 dpi JPG or GIFs only (not embedded in email or word file). Submissions may be edited for spelling, grammar, brevity and clarity. Advertising and items not related to Thornhill are not accepted, as we need to keep the newsletter focused on need-to-know info for the community.

THANK YOU to everyone who submits articles and to PFC Board Members, Teachers, PFC co-Presidents Becky Gonzales and Catrina Vrankovich, VP of Communications Jill Evans, and Principal Steve Daubenspeck, member of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).