Welcome to the hustle and bustle of December! December is an exciting time at Percy Priest Elementary. The Grinch has already been causing mischief around the school and the kids are eager to catch him. We are hoping to catch the Grinch and make his heart grow 3 sizes. Students and staff are invited to participate in the Winter Spirit week from December 18-20. See the details below and we hope this will help the Grinch grow his heart.

Please don’t forget that Wednesday, December 20th is a half day. School will be dismissed at 11:30 am.

Oh What Night it was at Night of the Arts.  It was such a treat to walk the halls and see all the student’s beautiful artwork.  You could see the hard work and creativity in every picture.  Night of the Arts also had an awesome Girls Dance Club Performance and art stations in the cafe to let our children’s artistic ability run wild.  Hats off to Dr. A and the Night of the Art Chairs, Jen Brown and Megan Gesell for a great night!

Coats and Shirts and Water Bottles, Oh My!  Our Lost and Found Corner is overflowing with so many items.  If you haven’t already, please stop by the cafe and see if your child has any missing items.  Please note that our Lost & Found items will be donated after December 20th.

Important Dates

• December 7-9 – Yearly Co. Sale
• December 14 – Papa John’s Spirit Night
• December 15 – Flower Power Sale ends
• December 18-20– PPE Holiday Spirit Week
• December 20– School dismissed at 11:30 for Winter Break
• December 21-January 8– Winter Break
• January 8– Students return to school

Blasting is now underway.  We will have two blasts a day (one during school hours between 11-12 and one after school hours between 3:30-4:30)  We are anticipating the blasting schedule to continue through the end of the calendar year (December).

With the attention of the construction trailer and additional parking needed for members of the construction team, we have limited staff parking in the side lot on Priest Road.  This lot is closed to family parking in the mornings.  If you need to park in the morning, please plan to use one of the front parking lots.

The MNPS facilities department will also be posting periodic updates at the link below

Percy Priest Elementary – Metro Nashville Public Schools Facilities (mnps.org)

Upcoming Events

Kids Heart Challenge

Thank you for your amazing support in this year’s Kids Heart Challenge! We are SO PROUD of the Percy Priest Tiger community!

We have had 353 students register online AND 220 students and families learn Hands-Only CPR! We are once again the TOP HANDS-ONLY CPR SCHOOL IN THE NATION CURRENTLY! AND, we raised $26,060 in life-saving donations to support the American’s Heart Associations’ mission!

Because of YOU and your support, the American Heart Association can do SO many great things to help others. To name a few, the American Heart Association can:

• ​Fund and participate in more research
• Reduce deaths from heart disease and stroke
• Provide healthier nutrition options to communities in need
• Provide hospitals with resources and education for improved quality care
• Train more people in CPR

You truly have made an amazing difference, Percy Priest and helped create a world of longer, healthier lives!

Also, because we met our registration goal for the Kids Heart Challenge, on Tuesday,  December 12th we will be turning Dr. Young and Mr. and Mrs. Tanner into a HUMAN ICE CREAM SUNDAE!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR GENEROSITY AND SUPPORT!

Help Sponsor An Event at PPE

Be a Sponsor of one of our many events throughout the year to help make them better than ever! Visit Here and select your desired level of participation for the events listed below.  We really couldn’t do it without the generous contributions and in-kind donations of our sponsors. Thank you to all our sponsors!

Spring Auction-March 2nd at the Loveless Barn

Save the date for the best night in the Spring to Boogie on the Dancefloor.  There will be music, food, dancing and fun items to bid on to help support our school.

Auction Volunteers Needed!

It’s time to get working on the biggest party of the year – the Percy Priest Spring Auction – and we need your help NOW! Join the Auction Committee to get our incredible catalog of silent auction items secured. It’s an easy job you can do from home, and we’ll provide you with contact information plus scripts for calling/emailing potential and repeat donors. The more people we have contributing their time to this important PTO fundraiser, the easier the task! Please email percypriestauction@gmail.com.

Seeking Auction Items!

Have a business or property to include in our silent auction this spring? Maybe a friend or family member would be interested in supporting Percy Priest through the donation of a vacation rental, a set of game tickets, business service or other items? Any and all suggestions and connections appreciated! Contact Julia Stoll Saitta and Deanna Eliashevsky at percypriestauction@gmail.com with your ideas. All profit made from the auction touches the hands of your child. We thank you for your support to our incredible school!

Small Fundraisers

Yearly Co.- December 7-9

Shop Yearly Co. jewelry in the store or online from December 7th-9th and mention PERCYPRIEST10 and 10% of your order will be donated to the school.  Yearly Co. is also running a promotion for $25 off $250, $75 off $500 or $200 off your purchase of $1000 or more.

Flower Power-Deadline is December 15th

It’s time to order your holiday flower bulbs! We are partnering with Flower Power to sell beautiful amaryllis and paperwhites.  These flower bulbs are all top quality, an excellent value and guaranteed to grow. Visit our personalized website HERE to order by December 15th. 50% of all orders placed will go back to the PTO.

Papa John’s Dough for Dough: December 14

PPE friends and family take the night off from cooking and feed the family while supporting the school. Use our unique code when ordering from Papa John’s and the PTO will receive 20% of all orders placed using that code: PPES.  The funds raised from this event will be used to support the PTO budget which provides our school with additional staff, software and supplies to our school. Thank you so much for your support

Green Team Tips

The holidays are upon us, which brings celebrations, gifts, and time with loved ones. It can also lead to an increase in the amount of waste we generate and energy that we use. Consider a few of these ideas for reducing your environmental impact this year.

• If hosting an event, plan your menu and get an accurate count of attendance to minimize food waste. Send guests home with leftovers or consider donating or composting them if you or others can’t consume them.
• Consider giving the gift of an experience, such as a membership or gift certificate to a museum, concert, restaurant, or the movies.
• Use recyclable or reusable gift wraps/bags.
• Purchase gifts that are long-lasting or that can be reused and later recycled.

Check out next week’s newsletter for more sustainable holiday tips!

General Announcements

Order your Yearbook TODAY!

Unicycle Donations

It feels like Winter! When you dig out those winter coats, be sure to send any that no longer fit your student into school. We’ll fill our in-school closet to share with another student here, or send to our friends @unicycle.nashville to be shared with a @mnps_hero student, or to fill another school’s closet. We’ll take “outgrown, not worn out” coats of any size. Let’s share the warmth with our MNPS family!The donation basket is located on the PPE Front porch.

Artsonia:

Come Have Lunch!

Parents, grandparents and special friends are welcome to eat lunch with students! To help us with space and accommodating guests, we ask that visitors sign-up to come eat lunch using the bookings link below. Please be sure to select the correct grade level and teacher. When signing-up, we also ask that you only sign-up for one day at this time. Thank you for your help and we hope to see you for lunch soon. Sign up to come eat lunch with your student!

How to Volunteer

We need your help to make next year the best year yet at Percy Priest! Dedicated and engaged parents are a key ingredient to making our school the great school that it is. There are big and small volunteer opportunities throughout the year. Please check out our volunteer form and let us know what things interest you. We’ll be in touch with more information.

If you have questions of any kind, please contact us at presidentsppe@gmail.com. Thank you!

Small Fundraisers Spotlight

1stDay School Supplies

If you ordered your child’s school supply boxes through our PTO fundraiser, it was not only super helpful to have all the supplies in the classroom at the start of school, BUT you also helped raise money for the PTO.  This year, this fundraiser tripled the amount given back to the school compared to the previous year.  Our goal is to organize fundraisers that provide a service, need or product that you will use while also giving back to the school.

For a list of all of our ongoing small fundraisers, please visit our Small Fundraisers webpage.

Small Fundraisers Spotlight

For a list of all of our ongoing small fundraisers, please visit our Small Fundraisers webpage.

Publix Partners will donate $250 to the Percy Priest Elementary PTO for every $37,500 spent cumulatively by our school’s participants. To support Percy Priest, join Club Publix. If you’re already a member, log in to your account and select My Publix Partner to search for the school of your choice. Remember to pay with the Publix app or enter your phone number at checkout each time you make an eligible purchase. Parents do have to re-register annually.

How to Stay Connected

Email Lists

New families – Be sure to sign up for our school newsletter, which includes grade-level information each week. Register today.

Add PPE happenings to your calendar automatically!

You can subscribe to our PTO calendar and have all of our events show up on your calendar, so you never lose track of important dates! Following the links below will prompt you to subscribe to the calendar via your preferred calendar app. Any time the PTO updates an event through the website, it will update on the calendar of all subscribers (how often your calendar pulls updated info will be based on your individual personal settings – every 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 week, etc).

For Calendar Apps (apple calendar etc), go to: www.percypriest.org/?post_type=tribe_events&ical=1&eventDisplay=list

For Google Calendar, go to: https://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=webcal%3A%2F%2Fwww.percypriest.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Dtribe_events%26tribe-bar-date%3D2022-08-31%26ical%3D1%26eventDisplay%3Dlist