George Washington Middle School PTA

Upcoming Dates

• August 21: First Day of School
• September 12: PTA Meeting
• September 14: Back to School Night

A Message from our PTA President

IT’S HERE! The first day of the 2023-2024 school year is TOMORROW! It was great to have open houses and 6th grade orientation (see attached slide presentation) last week. The GWMS teachers and staff were thrilled to welcome and meet so many families! And, don’t worry if you were not able to attend; the GWMS staff are ready to assist and guide all students through their first days back to school. We’re providing a few reminders that can help everyone navigate the first week of school.

Greta Gordon
GWMS PTA President 2023-2024

Last-Minute Reminders from GWMS

Log into PowerSchool! You can view your student’s schedule on the main page.  Under STUDENT INFORMATION, you can view lunch PIN, find your student’s Google sign-in and password information, as well as find bus information. Make sure to fill out your BACK TO SCHOOL FORMS near the bottom of the left hand side of the page. In the Back to School Forms, make sure to check the box to share your information with the PTA if you want to be included in the family directory (on the ACPS signature page).

Get to know CANVAS. You can link to Canvas from your PowerSchool account.  Canvas is where your student will view teacher pages and assignments. As a parent, you can also view your student’s assignments.  Additionally, you’ll be able to view school announcements and after-school activities/clubs later in the quarter. GWMS teachers and staff will continue to update Canvas with your student’s class pages, so if you see any older information for your student, please be patient this first week of school.

Enroll in ParentSquare.  GWMS uses ParentSquare for communications. To enroll, visit www.acps.k12.va.us/parentsquare and sign up using the email or cell phone number you provided to GWMS.

Arrival:
The school day will begin at 8:30 a.m. Doors will open at 8:00 a.m.  Students will report to their morning locations which are as follows:

• Cafeteria: All 6th-grade students and 7th and 8th-grade students who eat breakfast at school
• Main Gym: All 7th and 8th-grade students who are NOT eating breakfast at school.

Students report to their advisory class when they are released from their morning locations at 8:20 am.

Volunteer: The PTA Needs You!
Thank you to Nichole Corey, Martha Davis, Andrew Freeman, Sarah Hoffman, Anna Kiss, Crystall Merlino, Antoinne Nailon, Amie N’Dure, Joy Pochatila, and Amy Smith for their help ensuring our Welcome Back Teacher and Staff Breakfast was such a success! Teachers and staff were so grateful to feel the PTA love as they returned to GW on Monday morning. Would you like to support our students, teachers, staff and families? Join the PTA!

George Washington Middle School Parent Teacher Association (GWMS PTA) Information for New GWMS Families

What does the GWMS PTA do? The GWMS PTA focuses our resources to support students, teachers and staff, and families in the following ways:

• Student Support: Emergency Family Fund, Positive Behavior and Support (PBIS) Fund, Awards for Competitions (Reflections, Spelling Bee, National History Day, etc), Grade Socials / End of Year Parties / 8th Grade Promotion
• Teacher / Staff Appreciation: Teacher Mini-Grants, Welcome Back Breakfast and Monthly Staff Coffee and Breakfasts, Teacher Appreciation Week
• Parent Support and Appreciation: Monthly Special Topic Speakers, PTA rep coordination with ACPS Parent Liaisons, Honor Roll of Donors, Honor Roll of Volunteers

• Membership Chair: This is a new position! We want to grow our membership to include more families to ensure that we are representative of our GWMS community.
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair: Serve as a representative of the GWMS PTA to the Alexandria PTA Council’s DEI Committee and share information with the GW community. The DEI Chair will lead the PTA commitment to foster an inclusive and equitable environment of family engagement in our school community.
• Reflections Chair: The Reflections program serves over 300,000 students in Pre-K through Grade 12 across the country each year. A true community event, the chairs are all volunteers or parents and the judges are local artists! It’s fun, friendly, flexible and, most importantly, ACCESSIBLE. The competition includes dance choreography, film production, literature, music composition, photography and visual arts – so there are categories for every artist and performer. We need a chair from GW to guide our talented Prexies through the process.
• Business Partners / Sponsorships: Do you have great connections with local businesses?  Sign up to help us partner with our business partners to help them find ways to make a big impact at GWMS.
• Spiritwear Chair: We have a vendor identified and ready to start selling some GWMS merch!  We need a volunteer who can help implement the plan!
• Grade Level Social Chairs (6th, 7th, and 8th grades):  Volunteers from each grade plan an end-of-year event for each class.  The 8th grade chair also helps chair graduation and the 8th grade trip.

• Band: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100052650356443
• Friends of GWMS Orchestra: https://www.facebook.com/GWFOTO
• Chorus: https://www.facebook.com/gwmschorus

PTA Meeting, September 12

COME TO THE FIRST PTA MEETING ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12th at 7pm. Our first PTA meeting will be virtual and hosted via Zoom and live-streamed on our Facebook page.  We are kicking off the first meeting with an update from our principal, Mrs. Jeanette Vinson. Spanish translation is available for all meetings.

Your Membership and Support Matters

PTA Membership provides the opportunity for you to share your ideas, volunteer at events, and help make our school a great place to learn for our students. If you have not already, please join the PTA!

Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to help!