Meet your 2020-21 PTA, PTO, PTSO presidents

Here are the presidents of the parent organizations at each Hoover school and what they said about their goals for the 2020-21 school year.

BLUFF PARK ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Brooke Burgess

► Contact: bluffparkpto@gmail.com

► Goals: “BPES PTO’s primary 2020-2021 goal is to maintain the level of service our awesome teachers have become accustomed to, while focusing on supporting all our families within the constraints of this year’s unique learning environment. We’ve continued our annual tradition of welcoming new kindergarten parents with two socially distanced Tears and Cheers events and are looking forward to supporting local businesses with three planned spirit nights this fall. We also plan to cater our teacher’s grant program to this year’s specific needs, such as enhancing the gym, improvement of outdoor learning areas and development of alternative learning spaces.”

DEER VALLEY ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Amy Stephens

► Contact: dvespto2001@gmail.com

► Goals: “We plan to continue to support and show appreciation to our amazing teachers, staff and administrators throughout this challenging year and also help with student incentives. We also plan to work alongside our PE teachers to find safe ways to host their events this year. Our main fundraisers, Change for Cheetahs Coin Drive and Parents Weekend, are both planned for February.”

GREEN VALLEY ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Yashica Elder

► Contact: ptogves@gmail.com

► Goals: “The main PTO goal for this year is to let students, parents, teachers, and administrators know we are here to help and serve them. Being in a pandemic has greatly altered our usual main focuses. Things that have already been done to start the school year are the purchase of benches for our carpool area. We also had significant landscaping done to cutback overgrown trees and bushes around the school. Another thing we are hoping to accomplish this year is getting our STEAM classroom some new items the students can use for coding. Overall, we are focusing on things we can do in the spring semester. We are looking forward to hopefully being able to have our annual Party on the Playground. Possibly also being able to do a reading-focused fundraiser in the spring.”

GREYSTONE ELEMENTARY

► PTA President: Michelle Olson

► Contact: Michellelind23@yahoo.com

► Goals: “We will have our annual Leave a Legacy Fundraiser in October that will be used to fund most all of our programs for the year. This year, we also focus on corporate sponsorships and developing relationships with the businesses in our community. We have already made available for purchase to our children and parents many logoed items such as masks, gaiters and hand sanitizer. COVID-19 has forced our PTA to cancel or change many great activities and programs that we normally do. However, we have an amazing PTA, and we are going to put our heads together to come up with ways that we can support our teachers, staff and school in different ways than we are used to. We will adapt!”

GWIN ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Rebecca Whittle

► Contact: whittle.rebecca@gmail.com

► Goals: “Due to the uniqueness of this year, our goal as a PTO is to make sure we stay connected and continue to build community around Gwin. Our fundraising will look different, but Gwin families have always been amazing with donations. With their support, we should be able to continue funding teacher grants, contributing to facility improvements, supplementing classroom needs, and a variety of other school activities as planned. We are off to a great start and looking forward to an amazing year!”

RIVERCHASE ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Jeni Warram

► Contact: jtwarram@gmail.com

► Goals: “This school year is starting like no other has ever started, and we are working towards finding ways to support our teachers, staff and students in creative ways. This year, our theme is “together we can,” and we know that if we all work together, we can have a great year. As a PTO, we are looking for new and creative ways to fundraise while still planning to host our fourth annual family movie night this spring, our annual coin drive and joining with local restaurants for our monthly spirit nights.”

ROCKY RIDGE ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Christine Huizinga

► Contact: rrespto@gmail.com

► Goals: “During this unprecedented school year, our main focus is to support our Rocky Ridge faculty and staff in educating our children, while also fostering community among our families (with students attending in school and virtually). With COVID-19 reopening challenges, we aim to invest in improving our school’s outdoor spaces so that kids can safely enjoy time outside of their classrooms. The PTO will also provide supplies to support a healthy school environment (ex. hand sanitizer refills, touchless water bottle refilling stations). This year, more than any year, we want to build and strengthen relationships among our school and its families — to show that while we are in Many Houses, we are One Family at The Rock!”

SHADES MOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Anne Weil

► Contact: smes.pto.president@gmail.com

► Goals: “We plan to be a resource for our parents if they need help with things. That may look different than in previous years. We’re trying to find community resources that can provide help for our families if they need help with tutoring or food shortages or things like that. We’re going to continue our financial planning so we can do a few school improvement projects. We want to be able to provide new playground equipment for the big kids and hopefully begin a teacher grant program.”

SOUTH SHADES CREST ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Tonya Tishaw

► Contact: sscpto@gmail.com

► Goals: “We are using this unique year to work on going paperless with our communication. We would like to cut down on sending out paper flyers and newsletters and, instead, utilize social media platforms to communicate with our SSC family. We have also come up with virtual or online ways for parents to volunteer, since visitors are not allowed in the school building due to COVID. For example, we are looking for parent volunteers that would help us share social media posts to their neighborhood HOA pages.”

TRACE CROSSINGS ELEMENTARY

► PTO President: Layla Hamilton

► Contact: layla.c.hamilton@gmail.com

► Goals: “My goal as PTO president will look a little different this year as we find ways to support the school, staff, students and community. I foresee that much of this year’s fundraising efforts will go directly towards giving our principal, Mr. Collins, the ability to make purchases as needed for COVID and other needs as they arise for the running of the school, including but not limited to, teacher and student incentives. As a whole, the TCES PTO will be focused on communicating with school parents, creating a sense of community, and supporting school families as they adapt to a new normal.”

BROCK’S GAP INTERMEDIATE

► PTO President: Heather Lolley

► Contact: bgipto.com

► Goals: “Our goal this year is to create as much normalcy for the students and staff as possible, whether they are learning virtually or in school. We want to support our teachers with their classroom needs and encouragement throughout the year. Last year, we created a strong sense of community within our school with events like a family movie night and our “Paint the Ceiling” fundraiser where students decorated ceiling tiles to be displayed at the school all year. We hope to continue those again this year, but because of COVID, we are having to brainstorm other ideas to raise funds. Our focus is still to create that sense of community within our school while taking precautions to maintain social distancing guidelines. To kickoff the school year, we sold Hoover mask/lanyard packs and had a traveling spirit night event.”

BERRY MIDDLE

► PTO President: Ashley Gregory

► Contact: agregory113@yahoo.com

► Goals: “We have a history of assisting in many ways, including grant funding, sponsoring school field trips, purchasing library books and supporting our student groups like the Diversity Council. Our annual Armchair Fundraiser will be held in the fall. COVID-19 has impacted Berry PTO in numerous ways, with uncertainty being the main factor. Our teachers, staff, students and parents all have done, and continue to do, a fantastic job of adapting to the changing situation. We have been mindful in developing our current PTO budget to consider the financial impact the virus and the response have had on us all. I am hopeful we can do more as the year goes on and we figure out what the new normal looks like.”

BUMPUS MIDDLE

► PTO President: Cyndi Hodges

► Contact: bumpuspto@hcs-students.net

► Goals: “The Bumpus PTO’s main goal for 2020-21 is to make purchases that will allow the students and faculty to feel more safe and comfortable during this unprecedented school year. We also want to continue with the teacher appreciation events that our faculty so greatly deserves. While we recognize that fundraising this year presents many challenges, we are hopeful that the amazing families at Bumpus will be patient and generous with our efforts. Bumpus has an incredibly dedicated and hardworking faculty. Our PTO is eager to assist them however we can during this challenging time.”

SIMMONS MIDDLE

► PTO President: Kathryn Krawcheck Marett

► Contact: kathrynkmarett@gmail.com

► Goals: “The Simmons PTO is a very dynamic group of parents/guardians. This year, we are working together even more to split up duties in order to achieve all goals. During this school year, we strive to increase parent engagement and support positive changes for the kids, teachers and faculty, under the amazing leadership of Kevin Erwin. We want to help the new families entering Simmons feel welcome and aware of all that is available. While this year may look a bit different, we plan to serve our teachers in various ways, including snack carts and meals to be dropped off. We are putting our traditional fundraiser to the side for now and hope that families will donate as they feel able when they begin to log on to myschoolfees. We are still soliciting businesses to purchase banners. We hope that through the many donations we will be able to raise enough money to fulfill all classroom grant requests from teachers.”

HOOVER HIGH

► PTSO President: Angelia Johnson

► Contact: angeliagj@hotmail.com

► Goals: “As we all navigate the challenges that this new school year brings, the PTSO, more than ever, will be a resource of support to our faculty and staff, an advocate for our children and a strong parental medium. We want to continue providing our teacher quarterly luncheons, allocate funds for teacher grants and use social media platforms to engage more parental involvement and participation. We currently have a great group of people working together, and we welcome more.”

SPAIN PARK HIGH

► PTSO President: Tonia Ballintine

► Contact: Tonball36@aol.com

► Goals: “Our goal for Spain Park PTSO this year is to maintain our longtime commitment of funding as many teacher grants as possible. The past several years we have funded 100% of our requested grants. This year more than ever, we are committed to helping with communications through our social media page, etc. We find ourselves in unprecedented times with COVID-19, and we are there to support our parents, faculty, staff and students in anyway possible.”