Author: Matt Burnham

Gift Cards = Money for Portola
Order your gift cards through Portola PTSA and a portion of the value will be given back to the school! Whether for gift giving or personal use, these gift card purchases are a great way to earn money for our school. See flyer for more information on how to purchase gift cards. First deadline for orders is November 9^th.

Report Cards
Please watch out for first-quarter report cards, which are being sent home this week.

Portola Fright Write
The annual Fright Write featuring scary stories and drawings from Portola students is now available for $2 a copy. Students whose work appears in the volume will receive a free copy.

Celebrate Portola
Please save the date of Feb. 2, 2013, for the Celebrate Portola auction, dinner and show. This event will feature a delicious meal, entertainment from Portola musicians and an auction for products and services donated by community members and local businesses. See the solicitation letter to learn how you can get involved.

Read Books, Then Match Wits
Battle of the Books is a district-wide competition in which students read five books, and compete in teams to answer questions about the books. The winning Portola team will compete with winning teams from other district middle schools. This year, the five books are a combination of new favorites and enduring classics: “Catching Fire,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,”“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,”“The Skin I’m In,” and “Hatchet.”For more information, see Ms. Bogie in the library

Great Excuse to Avoid Cooking
The Ed. Fund (West Contra Costa Public Education Fund) is holding a fundraiser at Rubio’s in El Cerrito Plaza on Nov. 8, 2012. Simply present this flyer and Rubio’s will donate 20% of your purchase to the Ed. Fund. The Ed. Fund sponsors programs including scholarships, art, music, and school-wide grants for educational projects.

Portola Test Scores Improve
Congratulations to all students, teachers and staff for helping elevate Portola’s test scores API to 734 from 704 in the previous school year, achieving the biggest gain of any school in El Cerrito.Let’s aim to keep improving the scores this year.

First Quarter Set to End
The first quarter will end on Friday, Oct. 26. This is a great time to check on PowerSchool to see if your student is missing any work that can be made up. If you need a password and login for PowerSchool, please go to the school office. (Note that Monday, Oct. 29 is a minimum day in addition to the regularly scheduled minimum day on Wednesday, Oct. 31)

Get Ready for School Photo Day
Photo Day will be on Monday, Oct. 29. Your student received the LifeTouch order forms with this Thursday’s packet

8^th Grade Hoodie Design Contest
We need students help to create a unique design for the hooded sweatshirt for the 8^th grade class of 2012-2013. Enter a design by the deadline of Monday, Oct. 22. The author of the winning design will receive a free sweatshirt! Design must fit on 9 inch by 12 inch paper, must include the name Portola Middle School or PMS, must include the year 2013 and must only use four colors: black, white, green and yellow.

Turn in Your Scary Art and Stories
The deadline for students to submit pictures and stories for the annual Fright Write anthology is Monday, Oct. 22. Artwork to be considered for the cover of the anthology must contain the words `Fright Write’ and `2012-2013′. Students whose work is published in the anthology will receive a free copy.

Fright Fest to Be Held Oct. 29-31
Student activities during school lunch hour to include a scarecrow building contest on Oct. 31, contests for guessing the weight of a pumpkin and for guessing how much candy is in a jar.

Support Portola Musicians and Athletes
The school cross country team will be competing in meets on Oct. 22 at Rancho Laguna in Moraga and Oct. 25 at King Middle School in Berkeley. All symphonic and jazz bands will perform at the Halloween Concert on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at the theater in El Cerrito High School.
Don’t Forget To Vote – Your Vote Counts!
You should be receiving your absentee or mail-in ballots if you haven’t already.  Aside from the presidential race, there is also a race to fill two offices for our school board.  The school board is an important office in our school district, and the people we elect will have a big influence as to the direction the district takes.  Also important are the two propositions, Prop. 30 & Prop 38, and the two measures, Measure G & Measure E, that will greatly affect our schools and the ability of our school district to continue maintaining the minimal services that we currently have if not passed. See Props and Measures flyer (PDF) for a comparison of the propositions and measures. Portola PTSA endorses Measure G.

First SSC Meeting of the year
SSC meeting will be Friday Oct. 19th at 2:45 pm. Items to be discussed include the previous year’s test data and what programs will be continued to increase student achievement, and the School Site Plan for Student Achievement. All SSC meetings are open to the public. However, only council members may vote on any decisions.

Second ELAC Meeting of the year
ELAC is hosting its second English Learner Parent Informational Meeting on Friday Oct. 19, 2012 at 9:00 am in Room 7. You can learn all about the English Language Advisory Committee (ELAC), and how you can get involved to support and improve the English learners program and services at Portola. Only parents of English Learner students are asked to attend.

Fright Fest Update
Fright Fest, Portola’s first annual Halloween party, will take place over three days, Oct. 29-31, instead of the previously announced Oct. 31 date. Activities will occur during the 4th and 5th lunch periods. Planned activities for Oct. 29-31st include guess the pumpkin weight, and guess the number of candy in the jar. Scarecrow building contest is scheduled for Oct. 31st. See attached flyer for more details. (Fright Flyer PDF)

Teacher Treat Day goes Italian
The next teacher treat day will be Friday Oct. 19th (instead of the usual second Friday of the month). The suggested theme for food donations is Italian. Please let Tre Curran know if you can bring anything. Also, if anybody has a red and white checkered pattern tablecloth they are willing to lend to enhance the theme, please let Tre know at trecurran88@gmail.com.

Preparing for High School
The 8th Graders will be taking the ReadiStep assessment test on Oct. 18th and 19th during class. The assessment consists of three multiple choice tests in areas of Critical Reading, Math, and Writing Skills. Students will have 40 minutes to complete each section. For more information, please visit http://readistep.collegeboard.org/.

8th Grade hoodie design due date extended
Students who wish to submit a design for the 8th grade hoodie contest have until Monday Oct. 22nd. Winning artist will receive a free sweatshirt so make sure you have your name on your drawing! See attached flyer for more details. (8th Grade Hoodie design contest PDF)

PTSA Seeking Graphic Designers
PTSA would like to create more signage to announce events and direct appeal progress to hang on the fences along Moesser and Portola. We are in need of graphic designers to create the designs for the signs. We will take take care of the printing. If you can help, please contact Jenny Parks at jennylparks@hotmail.com.

More upcoming events:
Oct. 18th – Cross Country Team at 4:15 in Cerrito Vista Park
Oct. 24th – Portola Bands Halloween Concert at 7:00 pm in the El Cerrito High School Theater
Nov. 1st – Halloween Dance from 2:35-4:00 pm in the El Cerrito Community Center Main Hall
Nov. 1st – Portola Information Night from 6:30-8:00 pm. Program starts at the Café.

Get Your Ghoul On
Look out for the annual Fright Write student anthology of Halloween-themed stories, poems and artwork. Guidelines were sent home Thursday with your student. Submissions are due by Monday, Oct. 22. Adult volunteers needed to judge submissions, please e-mail Evangeline at emireland@yahoo.com if you can get involved. Selected entries will appear in a bound volume.

Fright Fest, Portola’s first annual Halloween party, is also coming up on Oct. 31. Save the date and e-mail Evangeline at emireland@yahoo.com to start helping with the planning of this event. Past activities include scarecrow building contest, guess the pumpkin weight, and guess the number of candy in the jar.

World Cup at Portola
Get ready for the arrival of the beautiful game at Portola with intramural soccer. Sign-ups begin next week. See Mr. Aloi in Room 25 if interested.

Go Cross Country Team!
Portola cross country team hosts the next meet at Cerrito Vista Park on Oct. 11 at 4:15 p.m. Get out there and cheer on those runners!

Thank you!
A big round of applause to all the volunteers and parents who helped with the work day last weekend to help make Portola more beautiful. Thanks to Nerissa Wu, Bobbie Dowling, Susan Riggle and John Waterson, Sarah Rowell and Tim Warner from the GoPortola group. Thank you also to the following volunteers who helped: Sally and Kadin Foster, Natalie and Tom Page, Kara and Jonathan de la Paz, Michael Suwzinsky, Michael Kunz, Matthew and Reggie Burnham, Peter Ireland, Patty Enrado, Romy Douglass, Joanna Pace and Cass Duggan.

Congrats and Thanks
Mary Schmida, Julie Brown and Saidah Said were elected to join the School Site Council as parent representatives. Thanks to them for volunteering for the role. The SSC reviews and analyzes student achievement data and helps develop the school plan and the school budget. Existing members of the SSC are: xyz.

Reminder: Next PTSA meeting is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 9. We will be discussing the budget, Fright Fest, and the auction. Please bring boxtops!

Drum roll please…

Mr. Burnham was named Middle School Principal of the Year by WCCUSD! Nominated by his peers in the district, he was selected by the members of the administrators’ union as THE Middle School Principal in the district. He is now in the running for best Middle School Principal in the county. Congratulations Mr. B!

Some exciting changes are happening at Portola. Green things are sprouting on the black top.

A big THANKS goes out to the GoPortola parents and the Kensington Dads Club for their efforts moving these cement planters with full grown shrubs donated by Navis in Oakland. Go Portola parent, Bobbie Dowling, who acquired the donation, also purchased and donated benches and picnic tables for Portola.

Let’s keep up the effort by coming on Saturday, Sept. 29 from 2-5 pm to build more planters and plant more bushes around the campus. Donations of plants (bushes, shrubs, or flowers) are welcome. Please remember to bring your own gardening tools.

First PTSA meeting was held on Sept 11

Thank you to all the parents and the one student who came to our first PTSA meeting of the year. Items discussed included:

• Budget for the year: PTSA’s goal is to raise at least $35,000 this year to fund for new computers for the library and the computer lab, expand Writer’s Coach Connection, classroom and department grants.. Other activities to be funded are school beautification and noontime.

• Mr. Burnham requested for parent and student volunteers to help phone bank for Measure G & E on Oct. 2 from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Interactive Resources in Pt. Richmond. It is vital that Measure G, the parcel tax renewal, passes in the November election to maintain the school services we currently have, including class size reduction, librarians, & counselors.

• Communication from school to home – Parents talked about how school happenings are not well publicized and need to be communicated to parents on a regular basis. Thus, the birth of the El Toro Weekly, which will be distributed to students every Thursday, and be posted on the Portola PTSA website, e-tree, and Facebook.

First, it was great to see many people attend the Back to School event. Got to meet new people as well as renew old friendships. Thank you to all the people who helped make this event a success: Lori Klumb, Julie Yamashita, Tre Curran, Lianne Tsujimoto Wong, Tracey Kitaoka, Kara DeLaPaz, Kelly Whitney, Patty Enrado, Kathy Guarneri, Saidah Said.

Second, the Direct Appeal is underway. We are about 10% to our goal of $25,000. Monies raised will go towards replacing the computers in the library, purchase science equipment and supplies, fund lunchtime activities like Math Club, etc. The Donate button at the top right of this site is waiting to be clicked, or drop off/mail your check to the school main office in attention to PTSA Direct Appeal.

Third, on Sept 24th, the schools of El Cerrito will be hosting a WCCUSD School Board Candidates Forum at Harding Theater from 6:30-8:00 pm. This is an informative Question and Answer session to get to know the candidates for the upcoming school board election. Community members can submit questions ahead of time by emailing Bobbie Ohs Dowling at bohs@earthlink.net, or write their questions as they walk in.

Fourth, PE Department’s fundraiser is underway. Check out the catalog of treats and turn in your order forms and collected monies by Sept. 17th. Please support our PE program. Library has also created a wish list of books students have requested. Circulation has skyrocketed this year, and our librarian, Ms. Bogie is dedicated to providing new quality fiction and non-fiction material. The wish list is at Amazon.com/Portola Library Wish List.

Don’t forget, our first PTSA General meeting is next Tuesday Sept 11th from 7:oo pm to 8:00 pm in Room 7. We will be discussing our plans for the upcoming school year. Students are especially invited to come as plans affect them as well.

You are invited! It’s not too late to pre-order your pizza. Email Evangeline at emireland@yahoo.com to let me know how many slices or whole pizza and pepperoni or cheese. I just need a head count to know how many pizzas to order. You can pay on Thursday at the event.

Want to help with this event? Go to and select the activity you can help with.