Here at La Mariposa, the PTA strives to make your child’s school experience the best it can possibly be! We only hold two major fundraisers during the year: The Jog-a-Thon in October and the Dinner Dance in March. We hope to raise over $70,000 just from these two events! With the money raised with these two events we fund over 60 programs and services that directly benefit YOUR child!! Yes, that is right… 60 PROGRAMS!!!
- Back to School Programs such as New Teacher Money, Start-up Classroom Money, Student Planners & School Toolbox!
- Academic Programs such as Science Week, Red Ribbon Week & Ability Awareness Week!
- Art, PE and Technology Instruction!
- Fitness & Health Programs such as Jog-a-Thon (October) & Tiger Olympics (June)!
- Exciting Assemblies throughout the year to broaden your child’s minds!
- Environmental Programs such as Earth Day, Growing Green, Gardens & Emergency Prep!
- Programs to enhance your child’s extracurricular activities like Enrichment which include Art, Chess, Soccer and other great programs!
- Community involvement such as Movie Night & Giving Back to the Community!
- Learning about historical accomplishments & encouraging inspiration with Women in History!
- Promoting Spirit Wear for a sense of Team at La Mariposa!
- Celebration events like 5th Grade Promotion!
- Grade Level Money for each and every child to help support fieldtrips, supplies in the classroom and other educational needs!
- Weekly Incentives for the children & Awards for Service!
- Mother/Son and Father/Daughter Dance for the Family (November) and Dinner Dance (March) for the Adults!
- School Clubs & Involvement such as Reflections, Robotics, Speech Tournament, GATE, Peer Mediator, Peer Buddies, Rotary Track Team & Student Leadership!
- A venue to showcase your child’s talent at the annual Talent Show in February!
- Technology such as Smart boards, Laptops, mini iPads & Chromebooks!
- Programs to capture Priceless Memories with the end of school Yearbook!
We have a few programs that need YOUR help! It can be as simple as showing up and volunteering your time, working on the computer at home or taking a leadership role! Getting involved in your child’s education is PRICELESS! Think about what you would like to do or where you can help out!
We are going to hold a FUN informational meeting on all volunteer positions to help you learn more about it! You can then decide which committee to join or simply just learn about it and have a fun social night out!
Meeting Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Time: 7:00 PM
Meeting Location: The home of Natasha Scrivener at 5330 Plata Rosa Ct in Camarillo. natashascrivener@earthlink.net
If you don’t have a sitter, your children are welcome to attend and play while we hold the meeting! And bring a friend! If you cannot attend and would like to volunteer, please contact Kat Gregory, PTA President at katgregory@gmail.com.
Dinner Dance
The Annual Dinner Dance is a very exciting event held in March. This is a fun night out on the town for adults to be social, walk around and enjoy appetizers during the silent auction, participate in an entertaining live auction, dine on a delicious served meal and dance the night away with one of Camarillo’s hottest DJ’s! From the proceeds raised, La Mariposa pays for the Technology teacher and buys Chromebooks, Mini iPads, and Laptops that are used directly by YOUR children! In past Dinner Dance years, we have been able to purchase Smart Boards for EVERY classroom!
If you like to plan parties, wish to learn about fundraising, like working with the classrooms at school, love to make bows for gift baskets, want to work the check-in desk, help set-up the venue, or help with any other of the simple, fun tasks, we would LOVE to have you on this committee! We are also looking for someone to be a fabulous leader for this great event! This is a very rewarding position and you will have FUN! Planning meetings will start within the next few weeks.
Science Week
It has been the tradition at La Mariposa for the PTA to sponsor hands-on science events for students for the past six years. This event has always been a team effort master-mined collaboratively by several parents that LOVE science. As the years have passed the event evolved from an extracurricular evening led by parent volunteers to a week-long school-wide co-curricular event involving non-profits and science enthusiasts from our school community and beyond. While the core team members may have changed as older students moved on and younger students moved in, the group remains strong, with each member taking on a specific piece and everyone sharing the workload of this tremendous event.
As the Science Event Coordinator, you are the leader of this amazing team. The team meets and decides together the theme and scope of the event, brainstorms resources, and how much of the work they can do themselves and which parts will be contracted out to vendors. The coordinator initiates the meetings, manages the budget and timeline, delegates the tasks and makes sure all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. In the past two years, the budget has been around $2,500 and each grade level experienced at least two hands on science session in addition to lunch time activities and visitors over the span of a week. You don’t need a science background to coordinate this event–you’ll have lots of help with the science. You just need to have a passion for high impact learning and the ability to work with and organize a team. The activities change every year depending on the availability of the team and the budget. All activities and vendors must be approved by the school principal and PTA. This children of La Mariposa LOVE this event and look forward to it every year!
Tiger Olympics
Tiger Olympics is a highly anticipated event every year! It is one event that every child looks forward to! It has historically been one full week, where each grade level comes out to the field during their assigned time each day. They learn and participate in team sports such as soccer and softball as well as individual track and field events like the high jump, the shot put, the dash, the long distance and the long jump. The week usually concludes with a fun Obstacle Course that everyone participates in, including the teachers! The kids are all given participation medals and are so very proud of their new sporting skills! The event can be altered and run only a few days and the team and individual events can be changed. This year, we are also incorporating Jump Rope for Heart into Tiger Olympics!
We are looking for a high energy leader and committee team to run this year’s Tiger Olympics! It is scheduled for June 1 – 5, 2015. The hours are heavy the week before and the week of the event. Committee members can work from home on Excel spreadsheets, create Sign-up Genius posts, monitor volunteers, assist on the field, etc. There are many fun and easy jobs to be filled for Tiger Olympics! The children learn to compete, they learn a new sport, they become interested in joining sports, they learn about sportsmanship and they have FUN! A great quote that was said from a 5th grader, “I wish I didn’t have to leave La Mariposa because I am going to miss Tiger Olympics!” And another quote, “It was so fun that it made me want to make my own in the future!” We hope you can join this committee and the fun times ahead!
Facebook
Do you love social media? Do you love working from home on the computer? Well, the Facebook chair is for YOU! This chair posts updates to our official school Facebook page! It is public, so anyone can read the posts, but you must at least register to be a Facebook member to post to our school site. If you love social networks and are connected to the campus, this job is for you!
You will work with the communications team including our webmaster, and email newsletter editor to cut down on workload and ensure consistent and accurate messaging. Most posts can be scheduled ahead of time, however be prepared for an occasional 24 hour turn around in order to share La Mariposa’s best moments in real time! All posts must be approved by the school principal and all student photos must be checked for media release.
Open House
What a FUN night this is!! Everyone participates! The children, family and the La Mariposa Staff! It is held towards the end of May in the evening, usually from 4:45 to 8:00 PM. The PTA Executive Board is involved with the planning, but we need a few more people to help us out! The night begins with a picnic on the grass, usually followed by a grade level performance by all the kids! Then, parents and their children go to their classrooms to show off all their great work during the year!
We need volunteers to help coordinate the vendor food we sell (in the past we have worked with Jersey Mike’s and Surf N’Yogurt), get order flyers out and coordinate the night! It is a fun event where everyone pitches in to help!
Book Fair
Everyone loves a book fair!! We hold two book fairs per year. The first one is within the first 2 weeks of December and is the Scholastic Book Fair. After Spring Break, the second one is held. One year it is the Scholastic Book Fair (2015) and the opposite year it is Buck-a-Book (2014). If you love books and love to encourage reading for the students of La Mariposa, this job is for YOU! We would love to get a group of volunteers to help set-up, organize and sell books! READING IS FUN!!!
Camarillo Academic Olympics (CAO)
The Camarillo Academic Olympics (CAO) is bi-annual city event where students grades 4-8 from both public and private Camarillo schools compete in categories such as Mathematics, Science, English Grammar, US History, Current Events, Speech, Art, and Creative Writing.
The site coordinator is in charge of the communicating information from the city organization to our students, seeking and scheduling volunteer proctors, arranging facilities, managing timelines, coordinating drivers for our semi-final events, selecting coaches for speech and Superquiz, and picking up tests and awards. It you love competition and are good at task delegation and logistics, this job is for you! It is amazing to see our Star Tigers shine at the awards ceremony in the spring! Planning begins in November & December with most of the work happening in January and February. We currently have a site coordinator and are seeking a trainee for 2015-16.
Membership
We are looking for someone who loves to type and keep our school organized on the computer! Each year, in the beginning of the school year, the families of La Mariposa join the PTA! We need help logging and tracking this information to create a roster of those that joined the PTA and help distribute membership cards! This can be done at home when you have the time!
Yearbook
Do you love to take pictures?!? Do you want to capture PRICELESS memories?!? Being a part of the Yearbook Committee is a super fun job!
The Yearbook is a collection of all the children, classes, and school events from August through March. Being a part of this team means you get to be on campus and be involved in all of our La Mariposa Events! We have many ongoing events, either specific to grades, or the entire school. It is a great opportunity to see and be a part of everything that La Mariposa offers our children! We would love for you to join this award winning team and to be at as many events as you can! We love posed group pictures (with at least 3 or more people) as well as candid pictures! Our goal for the yearbook is to be as reflective of ALL kids and ALL events! We work on the yearbook throughout the year, so this is an ongoing position. We strive to format and complete pages of events as we go so there’s no “crunch time” at the end of the year!
Committee member roles might include the following: Being mindful of the school calendar of events and Yearbook Timeline, helping with Cover Contest held Oct-Nov (Distribution/Collection of forms), taking photos and sorting through for those “best” ones, submitting to the committee chair (possibly uploading to software), helping with layout of photos in the yearbook (Classes, Holidays, Events), labeling and distribution of yearbooks (Early June). Bring your camera, your smile, and your creativity!!
–Natasha Srivener, Volunteer Extraordinaire
La Mariposa Pawprint 
