Back to School Newsletter from PTA
Quick Links — more details about all of these are down below! Join/Renew: PTA Membership Form Pay Optional Membership Dues: Givebutter Donation Page PTA Project/Event/Committee Interest Form 8th Grade Planning: 8th gr Mailing List/Interest Form  Join / Renew PTA Membership Here Every school year, PTA membership needs to be renewed. AND it’s never too early or late in your student’s time at the Kennedy School to join the PTA. Membership is open to EVERYONE! If you care about Kennedy School and our students, PTA membership is for you. New to the idea of PTA? Read about what PTA is, what it can do, and why you should join here. It should only take a few minutes to register/renew! Reach out to your friends and family and invite them to join this email list and/or become PTA members, too. Our #1 goal is to be fully inclusive, and we invite you all to help us make that happen by spreading the word. =================================================== As a 501(c)(3) organization, the Kennedy PTA is required to collect basic membership information to submit to the State and National PTA. We only need your name, email address, and zip code — any other contact information you provide is optional. Regardless of what information we collect from you, the Kennedy PTA will never share any information or offer it to any third party other than the State and National PTAs, which protect your information and are bound by the rules of 501(c)(3) code. An important message from this year's PTA board Welcome back! Whether this is your first September navigating drop-off or your fifth, we hope the year is off to a great start: new backpacks, new teachers, new inside jokes on the walk home. We're so glad to have this community together again. Take a second and think back to a moment from your kid's time at school that still makes you smile. The Ice Cream Social, when everyone was just happy to see each other again. Harvest Fest, with its games and the smell of fall in the air. The Book Fair, where they found "the one" and couldn't wait to show you. Bingo Night, where every kid walks away with a prize and a grin. That field trip they still bring up at dinner, months later. And Carnival, the big, joyful send-off to the year. None of that happened by accident. It happened because parents and caregivers, people just like you, showed up and made it real, together. We're lucky to have some incredible, dedicated volunteers already doing exactly that, and honestly, watching this community show up for these kids is one of the best parts of this job. That's what the PTA actually is: not a board making things happen for you, but a community making things happen with each other, so that our kids grow up knowing this is what school feels like: full of people who care. Our public schools do remarkable things with genuinely limited resources. Educators already give more than their contracted hours, and the PTA fills in what's left: the events and traditions that turn a school day into a memory your kid will carry for years. Here's the honest truth: our board is six volunteers with jobs, families, and very full lives, just like you. Some seasons, we're running on love more than bandwidth. We wouldn't trade this for anything, but we'd be lying if we said we haven't felt stretched thin this last year. What keeps us going is knowing this community shows up when it matters, and we're hoping more of you will feel moved to be part of that this year. This has always been a partnership, and the more of you who lean in, the more we can build for these kids together. So here's our ask, and it's a real one:
It works when it's all of us: some planning, some showing up, some just saying "count me in" for one afternoon. Every hand makes these moments possible for a kid who will remember them long after they've forgotten the school days in between. This spring, we'll also be selecting a new board for 2027-2029. If you've ever wondered what it's like to step in as a partner in a bigger way, we want to talk, no pressure, just a conversation. We're not asking you to carry this. We're asking you to carry it with us, for the kids who deserve every bit of joy we can give them. Here's to a wonderful year ahead, together. --Becky Lopes-Filho, President Kathleen Hornby & Jess Perez Adams, co-Vice Presidents Amanda Beckwith, Treasurer Ryan Williams & Crystal Woody, co-Secretaries  ============================================================ Get Involved!PTA Interest Form - Click Here PTA needs EVENT PLANNERS, ORGANIZERS, SKILLED VOLUNTEERS AND MOTIVATED HELPERS! Using this form, let us know if you can help with: Harvest Fest (an annual inclusive school-wide celebration of gratitude and community belonging. Scheduled for the day and evening of October 22, 2026) Election Day Bake Sale and 8th Grade Fundraising and Events Planning Book Fair (date TBD), tentatively a week in early December December Staff Appreciation Breakfast (typically held on a Friday morning in December in the 30-45 minutes before school begins) ====================================================== Planning to volunteer? Plan ahead…CORI (background check) forms may take longer this year… Kennedy is well-regarded in the district for our high levels of family volunteerism and involvement with school programs. Because the district office has limited capacity to process CORI forms and all schools get a big influx of forms at the start of the year, the Kennedy front office has been asked to only process 10 CORI forms per week. The forms can be found in the Kennedy front office or at this link and be submitted, along with a valid ID, to Clerk Kya during office hours, 7:30-2:45, M-F. If you have a volunteer role already lined up, please turn in your form at your earliest convenience. But if you are hoping to volunteer or chaperone later in the year, please wait at least a few weeks to submit your form. PTA will next need volunteers for Harvest Fest on October 22 and the Election Day Bake Sale to benefit 8th Grade on November 3. ================================ For Caregivers of 8th Graders…8th Gr Mailing List - Click Here 8th grade parents/caregivers - join the 8th Grade Planning and Fundraising Committee mailing/interest list by clicking above.This is not a committment to committee participation, but lets the PTA know you want to stay in the loop and may be willing to help more.8th Grade Committee members will decide on what exciting events and activities you’d like your students to experience, with the guidance of School Administration and the 8th Grade Educator team, and then coordinate the planning and operation of events, as well as organize fundraisers to pay for the chosen activities.The sky is the limit (within reason) for what the 8th Grade Committee can plan for the kids, but the goal is to make all 8th grade activities fully paid for via fundraising. That way, no student or family will have to pay out of pocket individually for anything, including all activities, events, and Yearbooks. The PTA’s role in the Committee is on an advisory basis only, but all 8th Grade funds must pass through the PTA treasury. You will work closely with our President and Treasurer and need to adhere to PTA 501(c)(3) best practices, which we’ll help you navigate. ===================================  Coming EventsUpcoming Events open to all Families9/10 | 5:30-6:30pm Kennedy PTA’s Annual Ice Cream Social - open to all students and their families at Kennedy Basketball courts RAIN DATE: Thursday, 9/17 5:30-6:30 — would be announced via schoolwide email if necessary 9/22 | Kennedy Back to School Night / Open House - Educators present to families and share tours of their classrooms Date TBD, late September/early October: First PTA General business meeting of the year, open to all* …and Save the Date 10/22 | 5:30-7:00pm PTA presents Harvest Fest - annual school-wide celebration of gratitude and belonging, held at Kennedy Cafeteria *Please stay tuned for a general meeting date, evening time, and zoom link. All are encouraged to attend our first meeting, including first-timers and any interested community members and partners. The agenda and a draft ‘26-’27 PTA budget will be shared in a dedicated email prior to the meeting. Members will vote to approve or amend the 2026-27 PTA Budget, without which we can’t operate, fundraise, and organize fun events, activities, and field trips for our students! ================================================== Resources & Ways to Stay Tuned and ConnectedKennedy Facebook Group * Join for community discussion & updates PTA Website * Forms, calendar, updates and more PTA Google Calendar * Subscribe Click here for a (under construction) listing of Grade-based parent-led chats / forums — the content shared in these groups are not official school communications are led by parents/caregivers, and should not be seen as a replacement for official school communications. If you are having any problems receiving school-wide emails or Talking Points texts, or seem to be missing communications from your teachers, please contact the Kennedy School Front Office, the Kennedy School Family Liaison, and/or your classroom teacher. Front Office Senior Clerk, Kya Wakefield: kwakefield@k12.somerville.ma.us Kennedy School Family Liaison, Francesca Vo Broekman fbroekman@k12.somerville.ma.us 2026-2027 Kennedy Staff Directory
A final note about PTA communications this school year.We will do our best to share a newsletter every 6-8 weeks as a one-stop shop for PTA updates and ways to get involved. We will also send out one-off calls for volunteers or announcements, but we try not to overload you and capacity for creating these newsletters is limited and going down! If anyone would like to volunteer to help the newsletter writing or collecting contributions, please email Becky at jfksomervillepta@gmail.com If you’d like to be connected to more daily and weekly information from PTA and fellow caregivers, the Kennedy School Somerville Facebook group provides families with even more of-the-moment updates and community conversation. While we recognize Facebook isn’t for everyone, social media provides an easy way to stay in touch! Most important updates will also get shared on the Kennedy PTA’s website at jfkpta.org - click on News & Updates in the menu for the latest posts. There is even an option to subscribe to those website updates via text/SMS. The PTA board hasn’t been made aware of how official school communications may look the same or different from prior years. So far, we have seen communications come through a school-wide email and a school-wide text shared via Talking Points, a phone-based text app. We urge you to make sure your preferred contact information is up to date in Aspen (the district’s portal for student information, progress reports and grades, and transcripts.) Questions about school communications need to be directed to our front office Administration and school Family Liaison. |
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