The PTA funds 100% of our school's Science, Garden, Music & Arts ALIVE! Programs and the Coordinators and supplies that keep them going. Sustainability is critical to the success of these programs being continued year after year for our students.
Sustainable Programs Focus on sustaining our current Programs and Coordinators. Fine tune event fundraising to ensure sustainability for community building.
Sustainable Volunteers Communicate with and engage volunteers.
Sustainable Handoff Develop documentation and checklists to make handoffs of PTA events and activities simpler. ALIVE Program Coordinators also create program and volunteer management systems to sustain yearly success.
Science ALIVE! provides NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) integrated science curriculum and experiments for the teachers. It provides supplies to do experiments and assistance to pre-stage to make them easy to do! It offers support to the teachers to integrate science and it works in conjunction with garden.
Garden ALIVE! coordinates Garden Docents in each classroom who will lead garden activities. The Garden Coordinator provides garden lesson support to Docents on a weekly basis, prepares supplies for Docents and integrates closely with Science while also maintaining the garden and the chickens. Docents will facilitate the garden lessons to students in the classroom they volunteer for.
Music ALIVE! teaches music in all classrooms and introduces and guides all students to appreciate music through rhythm and song. Kindergarten and primary students learn music fundamentals, while intermediate students are introduced to more advanced music theory and instrumental performance. Students showcase their skills in concert twice per year.
Arts ALIVE! coordinates Art Docents in each classroom for Docents to teach art activities. The Art Coordinator trains Docents, provides art lessons and stocks the art room with supplies for Docents to have what they need to the bi-weekly lessons.
Paid Coordinator positions (Garden & Science Coordinator, Art Coordinator and Music Coordinator) have been essential to developing a sustainable model. Volunteers (Docents) are always needed to make everything happen (teaching art and garden lessons directly), but if a program is fully dependent on only volunteers it can often disappear if a critical volunteer leaves. The paid model has allowed us to continue these programs even with turnover. Volunteer, donate, sustain!
