Thursday, March 31, 2022 Volume 16 Issue 25
We just finished our budget for next year and I wanted to share the details with you. The budget process is a lengthy one – really beginning in late fall of each year, as our Building Leadership Team (BLT) discusses our school’s needs and values, always keeping our students furthest from educational justice at the center of this conversation. We monitor the progress of our students and our interventions to see what is most effective for our students. Finally, we work hard to think creatively about how to best serve all our students with the limited funds that we are allocated. We seek input from our full staff and our full parent community. Seventy-seven of you responded to the survey we sent out to families. We also have three parent representatives on our BLT who can share ideas and suggestions throughout our process.
Thurgood Marshall benefits from a few additional funding sources. Title 1 funding (since last year!) provides extra intervention staffing, funding for teacher professional development and family engagement. TM is also a Levy School which means we receive funds from the city to target specific initiatives to support our students furthest from educational justice. Additionally, we are one of six district schools who are part of the Learning for Equity Network, a partnership between the district, Seattle University, and the Gates Foundation. This Network is focused on math improvement and family engagement. You can learn more here: (insert link to flyer). Finally, our school benefits from the support of our Friends of Thurgood Marshall Elementary (FTME) group. We would not have been able to keep the same level of service to students without your help! FTME again funded .2 of Librarian Mr. Zetterberg’s salary, bringing our total Librarian time to .7, or 3.5 days per week.
The district experienced overall drops to the budget due to decreased enrollment overall – a drop of about 5,000 students district-wide. This impacted every school’s budget. This year, we had to get especially creative with our spending to make our reduced dollars cover the supports we need to help our students reach grade level standards and beyond, especially as we come out of the pandemic. In addition to 19 homeroom teachers (1 less than this year due to enrollment decrease), and continued Art, Music and P.E., here is what our budget is providing this year (positions are shared as FTE or full time equivalent. For your information, .1 FTE=1/2 day per week).
.7 FTE – Librarian
1.7 FTE – Reading Intervention (spread across 3 Reading Intervention Teachers)
.8 FTE – Counselor – this is an increase of 1 day per week from this year!
1.2 FTE – Multi-Lingual Learner Support (increase of .4 FTE)
1.0 FTE – Family Support Worker
.5 FTE – Math Specialist
.5 FTE – Levy Coordinator (manages paperwork and reviews data for Levy, also champions our APTT program!)
4 Literacy Tutors (17 hours per week each) to support early literacy.
Our exciting budget news was the $50,000 we received from the Learning for Equity Network in the eleventh hour. This was earmarked for our Math Specialist salary, and it freed up other funds to increase our literacy tutors and buy an extra day of school counseling each week. I am thrilled with this budget and really appreciate the hard work and input that so many put into this. I feel confident that we will be able to do our very best for students next year with these resources.
Our students have been voting on a name for our new Bullpup Mascot. On Tuesday this week, the votes were tallied and the winning name was announced!
Check out this video announcement we shared with students this week!
Have you been hankering to volunteer at school? Have we got the opportunity for you! We are inviting 3 volunteers for each of our recess times to come volunteer and help supervise our playground. During the spring months, this is a great opportunity to spend some time outdoors with the most amazing students ever.
In order to volunteer, you must complete the district volunteer paperwork, either be vaccinated or have a negative COVID test within 72 hours of each time you volunteer, and complete a recess supervision training with Ms. Lorow. Each of these things must happen prior to volunteering.
Ms. Lorow will be offering the recess supervision training twice – Volunteers only need to attend 1 session. Links to the training are below.
Monday, April 4 from 4-5 PM Click here to join the meeting
Wednesday, April 6 from 6:30-7:30 PM Click here to join the meeting
To complete the volunteer paperwork and district-required trainings, please visit the SPS volunteer site here: https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/volunteer/ .
Because there are a number of steps you must complete in order to volunteer, we encourage you to make this volunteer position a regular part of your schedule and to come on a repeating basis. To sign up, please visit our sign up genius link here:
Thank You For Your Support
What a way to show your love for Thurgood Marshall! We came so close to our meeting our goal to raise 10K these past two months - raising nearly $9,300! With this push we are now 90% of the way towards meeting our 2021-22 Annual Fund goal of $50,000. All donations go to the Annual Giving Fund- which is used to provide classroom grants; salary for our Librarian, Mr. Zetterberg; enrichment and supplies for students; and more. Your generous donations make this possible. If you haven't had a chance to donate to Thurgood Marshall's Annual Fund yet (or are inspired to donate a little more) there is still time. Please help us raise the remaining 5K to achieve our overall fundraising goal for this school year.
Order your student's 2021-2022 Yearbook by May 2, 2022!
A 40-page full color yearbook of students, staff, and eventful memories!
$17
Order online
2021-2022 is a historical school year and we’re documenting history. Don’t miss the opportunity to own this amazing keepsake.
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