The PTA has had a wonderful fall at TECA, creating opportunities for the community to connect, celebrating our amazing staff, and giving TECA students opportunities to learn and grow!
Events
Back for the second year, the PTA provided ice cream to the community at the Class List Reveal just before the school year started. Several parents got a great workout on their shoulder muscles scooping some very-cold Mitchells ice cream, but they prevailed and much fun was had by all.
Fall Fiesta was an absolute rousing success, and we're so grateful to everyone who attended and volunteered, especially our co-organizers Jamie Katz and Lauren Jeter. We had two inflatable play structures, free face painting, tons of games, and amazing food for sale, donated by TECA families. TECA's Folklorica Dance Club delighted us with several dances, and the Mission High Mariachi band serenaded and impressed the crowds.
We transitioned our regular PTA meetings to be exclusively in the evenings for better predictability, and added a separate dinner section featuring language exchange tables for anyone wanting to practice their English or Spanish. And we're so happy to be able to keep offering free childcare (donated by the amazing Mission Grads) during the meeting portion! Dinner highlights included La Med, Pica Pica, and
Communications
The PTA moved to WhatsApp for our online community, and we've had great adoption & participation so far, especially with the younger grades. The is a group for every grade, and several interest groups, like parents interested in organizing sports opportunities, and a yard improvement group. Not on the WhatsApp? Email president@tecapta.org with your kid's name & grade and your phone number!
This very website got an overhaul, and now has sections explaining the structure of TECA itself and its relationship to SFUSD, and what the PTA does. We also recently added a page linking to our monthly financial reports and our annual budget.
AND we also added a calendar to the website, which you can subscribe to, and as we add community and school events to the calendar, they'll show up on your calendar automatically!
Staff Support & Appreciation
The PTA expanded our teacher stipend program to be available to all staff, and have gotten a lot of appreciation from support and office staff for the help from TECA parents via the PTA. With our help, teachers & staff have bought a color printer for the classroom, books for classroom libraries, projector clickers, timers, and phoneme mirrors.
Did you know that the TECA staff didn't have a coffee maker? PTA rules prevented the PTA itself from buying staff a coffee maker, but several members of the PTA board chipped in to purchase a Keurig machine, and the PTA is supplying the school with compostable k-cups, which the teachers & staff are just WILD about. The PTA also provided a ton of snacks for the teachers during the week of parent/teacher conferences and those were also very appreciated.
Diversity & Inclusion
The PTA now features professional side-by-side Spanish translation at all of our monthly membership meetings, so that all members of the community have equal access to the content of the meetings. We also added an online component for families that aren't able to make it to TECA in person. You're welcome to join us for our next meeting on Feburary 11, 2025, in-person or online!
School & Community Programs
With one-time COVID funding running out, there were several pivotal programs that the counseling office had run for our Junior Academy (grades 6-8) students, and the PTA supported those this year. Those include a workshop for sixth grade called The Mask You Live In and an event called Challenge Day for the eighth grade.
We also helped with smaller programs, like sending the Dual Kinder classes to the Mission Cultural Center to see their ofrendas, passing out a billion pieces of donated candy at the Halloween parade, paying for inflatables at Mission Grads' Trunk or Treat program, and funding part of the amazing Hispanic Heritage Celebration organized by Mission Grads and TECA staff.
We've been continuing to up our merch game, and our merch lead, Megan Morse Steinwedel expanded our in-person offerings to include purple t-shirts, and also set up a ONLINE SHOP, where you can buy shirts, bags, and accessories with several different designs on them: https://teca.myspreadshop.com/. We also are giving away stickers!
The PTA also helped the fifth grade parents run an election day bake sale to raise funds for the fifth grade overnight trip to Point Bonita:
What's Next?
We're currently in the midst of our winter fundraiser, Fill the Jar, and would love your help supporting TECA! There are many, many programs we could help fund at the school, improvements we could make to the yard, and ways of supporting the broader TECA community that need support to be able to happen.
Don't forget to mark your calendar for our next PTA meeting, February 11, 2025! (Or just subscribe to ours! 🥳)