PTA

March 2015

Lemon Road Elementary

7230 Idylwood Road, Fal ls Church, Virginia 22043 ● 703-714-6400

From the Principal’s Desk … DON’T

FORGET!

Mar. 27

Freaky Friday

Twins and Triplets

Theme - We are

Family!

Monday, March 30-

Monday, Apr 6

NO SCHOOL!

SPRING BREAK!

Spring is here!

We had a very successful Multicultural

Night last week with over 30 nations rep-

resented through musical performances

and cultural tables. A huge thanks to our

teacher co-chairs, Ms. Mortson and Ms.

Patterson, for coordinating this event.

Our parents were entertained in a packed

gym through a strings performance led by

Ms. Su and a multicultural choral perfor-

mance of grade 2-4 students directed by Ms. Turshen and Ms.

Kim. We are strong at Lemon Road because of our diversity and

the rich fabric of cultures. This diversity provides our students

with an enriching environment preparing them for their future

in our global society. We are very fortunate and it was definite-

ly fun and worthwhile to celebrate this aspect of our school envi-

ronment.

We are almost at our goal for the Boosterthon. It is not too late

to get pledges in for your child. Please visit funrun.com today

and make one last pledge!

Next month on April 16 at 6:30 PM, we will be hosting our huge

STEM Night with brand new activities, including some outside

and some in water! Come out and learn about the science, tech-

nology, engineering, and math connection…. And we won’t forget

about integrating art either! It will be a carnival of the mind!

Also, do you know that Lemon Road has an extremely powerful

Science Olympiad Team? Our middle school Olympiad team

competed two weeks ago and, despite being the youngest team

there, took many awards including a few first and second place

trophies. The team qualified for and are off to compete in the

State Competition and we wish them luck! Go Lions!

Thanks!

Andy

Reminder...

Register for After-

school enrichment

classes by THIS Fri-

day, March 27!

Registration forms

are available on our

website

(lemonroadpta.org).

Join us for STEM

night, Thursday

April 16!

PAGE 2 LEMON ROAD ELEMENTARY MARCH 2015

Dear Parents,

We’re well into our 3rd quarter now, Spring Break will

be upon us next week, summer plans are starting to

crystallize – it’s hard to believe we’re that far into the

year, isn’t it?

And the PTA is already looking to form its 2015-16

Board and committees. We have a few slots open that

require varying levels of commitment. If you’re interest-

ed in being more active in the PTA, please let us know

your particular interest and availability. We take all

sorts: stay-home dads, full-time working moms, anyone who has some energy to help build

our community! Please email me at mcsmurray@gmail.com if you’re interested (or if you

know people who would be – I won’t tell them that you gave me their names)!

It’s been an incredibly busy month since our last newsletter, especially with all the resched-

uling we’ve had to endure. We finally got to enjoy our wonderful Multicultural Night just last

week, and it was as lovely as ever. Our community is so rich in its diversity, but also in its

spirits of joy and pride! Thanks so much to all families who participated or simply enjoyed

themselves!

And of course there’s Boosterthon – still going strong! Pledges can be made until Friday,

March 27. We’re not quite to our goal, at 78% this weekend, and still have a few states that

haven’t given to Lemon Road yet! Mr. Camarda’s given us two incentives: if we reach our

goal, the school gets a school-wide dance party! And if we get all 50 states, he’ll think of

something else. (There are some great videos of how to duct-tape principals to a wall. Just

sayin’.) So please use these last few days to boost us to our Boosterthon goal!

One bit of this newsletter I’d like to highlight is the list of volunteers from the 2nd quarter

(November to January). It’s a long list, some new names and some names that have racked

up incredible hours helping at school, not just this year but over many. We thank all our vol-

unteers so much, for all you do at the school – and for those at home doing behind-the-scenes

work! You help make our school a great place for our children.

I look forward to seeing you all at school!

Best,

Mary Clare Murray, President, Lemon Road PTA

From The PTA President

Lions Share Food Recovery Program

This month we collected 126 pounds of food bringing our yearly total to

808 pounds. What a great way for kids to serve their community!

PAGE 3 LEMON ROAD ELEMENTARY MARCH 2015

WE LOVE OUR VOLUNTEERS!

Thanks to all of these Lemon Road community members who came into school during the second quar-

ter (November 5-January 19), to help in any number of ways. We had 112 volunteers

check in at Lemon Road, providing us with 418 total volunteer hours! Thanks to all of you who give so

generously of your time and energy. And there's always room for more!

A very special thanks to these most dedicated volunteers:

Marsha Franco 22.0 hours Kathy Luke, 22.0 hours

Bridget Jones, 15.5 hours Jenny Growney, 14.0 hours

Dawn Alexander, 12.5 hours Jennifer Miller, 11.5 hours

Melissa Dvorak, 8.5 hours Patricia Figuera, 8.5 hours

Dawn Coburn, 7.0 hours Shruti Wanekar, 7.0 hours

We appreciate each and every one of the volunteers below—Lemon Road would not be the same with-

out you!

Dawn Alexander

Bridget Anderson

Karne Anupama

Anna Bailey

Jude Bindia

Kristin Brace

Christine Calpin

Maria Caso

Jennifer Cerda

Cathy Chase

Jiangzhno Chen

Hiu Chen

Dawn Coburn

Kimberly Coerr

Susan Cole

Kim Cooper

Beatriz Cordero

Susana Coro

Eric Dela Rosa

Catharine Denk

Terry Dontigy

Shannon Duncan

Melissa Dvorak

John Dvorak

Rose-Ellen Eastman

Lara Fabiano

Seema Fewell

Patricia Figuera

Eric Fortunato

Rebecca Foster

Marsha Franco

Noa Gayer

Anna Gottesman

Jennifer Grishkin

Jenny Growney

Jim Growney

Babita Gupta

Katharine Hansen

Cheri Harrington

John Hosinski

Sharon Hymes

Rich Irons

Lisa Irons

Bridget Jones

Rashika Jones

David Jones

Rashika Joshi

Jason Kampf

Charles Kaper

Aaran Koutoulakas

Hanna Kurabachia

Sarah Laprise

Scott Laprise

Dan Laurena

Carrie Le

Cynthia Lee

Cathy Lett

Lenda Li

Kathy Luke

Suelen Macres

Jaya Madus

Kristen Magee

Hassan Malik

Luciana Margarito

Margarita Martinez

Rachel Millburn

Jennifer Miller

Ayesha Mohsin

Wilson Moy

Theresa Mubiru

Rani Mundada

Ajay Nath

Olga Nuri

Leslie Osman

Kathleen Otoo

Tharuna Pandeti

Brenda Parker

Krishnakant Patel

Hyunsun Perez

Chris Peterson

Karon Pryor

Karen Ram

Matthew Ray

Tina Reynolds

Lizbet Rocha

Cheryl Ryan

Danny Rz

Ayla Saerer

Amy Schneckenburger

Desiree Seifert

Ximena Sejas

Abha Shah

Wendy Shang

Ashwinih Shetty

Hanumant Shetty

Jen Shields

Ritika Shrivastav

Pam Slipakoff

Soumia

Todd Spignardo

Shiji Sreevihar

Lakshmi Subeaja

Jennifer Tarutani

B Thompson

Naomi Vaughan

Dana Vaughn

Kristin Vidwans

Tobi Walker

Shruti Wanekar

Hank Wolf

Amy Yam

Weixan Zuo

PAGE 4 LEMON ROAD ELEMENTARY MARCH 2015

Piano Lessons! Lessons taught by an experi-

enced elementary music teacher.

Accepting beginner and interme-

diate students.

Contact Mrs. Finley, 571-294-

6899.

“Mrs. Finley is a wonderful music teach-

er; not only is my daughter learning to

play the piano but she is developing a

genuine love and appreciation of music

overall. She shares her love of music in

an infectious and inspiring way.”

- S. Gruenfelder

SHOP FOR LEMON ROAD!

Have you registered your grocery cards yet this year? Our numbers are down for our grocery card

benefit program, so we encourage you to set aside some time to go online and sign your cards up to

help Lemon Road! When you shop, the PTA earns money!

For Giant cards, go to http://giantfood.com/aplus/register-card/. Be sure to choose the lower case

"Falls Church, VA!" (I wonder where that capitalized city is....)

For Safeway cards, go to escrip.com, click on Shop Locally, find Safeway, then click on Add Club

Card.

Harris Teeter has a "Community" menu, which you can pull down to find "Together in Educa-

tion." Go to the left of that page and "link your school."

And Target REDcard has a Take Charge of Education program. We could go on and on! Escrip

doesn't just accept Safeway cards, they'll give benefits on all your general credit cards, Visa, Master-

card, etc. We could really be earning some big money! Go out and shop for Lemon Road!

Don't forget to cut

those Boxtops for Ed-

ucation! Many items

you buy at the gro-

cery store, including

boxed and canned

goods, have Boxtops

for Education cou-

pons. Those Boxtops

can be turned in to

the classroom teach-

er, who sends them to the PTA, to earn free

money for Lemon Road! Look through the pan-

try, get the kids busy cutting before they bring

out the recycling! A collection page for taping

boxtops is attached to this newsletter.

2015-2016 BELL SCHEDULE Last year, the Fairfax County School Board approved a recommendation to change start times. Un-

der this recommendation, the planned start times for the 2015-16 school year will be as follows:

High schools will start at 8 or 8:10 a.m. and dismiss at 2:45 or 2:55 p.m.

Middle schools will start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 2:15 p.m.

The elementary schools window remains unchanged, with elementary school students beginning

their day between 8 and 9:20 a.m.

The new bell schedule means that every school will be in session for 6 hours and 45 minutes per

day. As a result of the change, Lemon Road will start a few minutes later than our current bell

schedule. Beginning in September, Lemon Road will begin 10 minutes later at 8:15 a.m. and

dismiss at 3 p.m. This change will not impact the programs and services we provide as it is only a

10 minute shift from our current start time. Superintendent Garza and the School Board have indi-

cated that the changes to the bell schedules are just a start. They want to work on making adjust-

ments to the middle and elementary school schedules in future years.

The transportation team has been performing dry runs of all the bus routes in preparation for next

fall. The bus schedules will be sent to families this summer as has been done in previous years.

PAGE 5 LEMON ROAD ELEMENTARY MARCH 2015

SPRING IS HERE… TIME FOR GARDEN CLUB!

The Garden Club will resume on Monday, April 13th. Lauren has met with all of the teach-

ers during Fairfax County's teacher work days, and they have come up with many engaging

activities planned outside for the spring semester. A big "Thank You!" to all the teachers,

students and volunteers who made the fall semester such a success! In additional news, the

trout are growing well with much care from the students, and will be released this spring.

And more garden news….We will be having our spring garden work day on Saturday,

April 26, from 9 am-12 noon to spruce things up around the school. This is a great family ac-

tivity for a few hours in the morning, as well as service hours for middle and high school stu-

dents. More information will follow in an upcoming Wednesday folder. Contact Bridget

Jones with any questions (bridgeta410@yahoo.com).

SPORTS CLINIC

Students from Marshall High School will host a Spring Sports Clinic at Lemon Road on Mon-

days, Wednesdays and Fridays, April 8-24, 3:00 - 5:00 pm. A teacher from Marshall will also

be present. The Clinic costs $20 which covers snacks and a t-shirt. Mondays and Fridays will

be dedicated to playing sports while Wednesdays will be reserved for Homework Club and

learning about healthy eating from a nutritionist. For more information, including requests

for financial aid , please contact our Parent Liaison, Pamela Huffman at

pshuffman@fcps.edu or 703-714-6407.

PAGE 6 LEMON ROAD ELEMENTARY MARCH 2015

GET THOSE BOOSTERTHON PLEDGES IN!

Thanks to everyone who has supported our biggest

fundraiser, Boosterthon, now in our third year! We

are at 78% of our goal, with donations from 42 states

and 18 countries. Please be sure to submit your

pledges and collect donations by Friday! If we

reach our goal by Friday, students earn a school-wide

dance party! And if we complete the 50 state chal-

lenge, another surprise is in store! So if you know an-

yone in Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, or Wyoming

please be sure to encourage their support of Lemon Road! Funds raised by this year's Booster-

thon will go towards the PTA budget and technology upgrades, as well as other programs.

Here are some great pictures of various Boosterthon activities: the opening pep rally, team hud-

dles throughout the week, and the Fun Run -- a really great event that teachers and students en-

joy.

Multicultural Night was lovelier than ever!

We had a great crowd (200+), great food, and great musical and fashion entertainment.

Thanks to all families and students who contributed information and cuisine from their her-

itage, and to those who came to enjoy!