We love our Whittier teachers and staff! In addition to our on-going appreciation activities, we participate in a full week of appreciation hosted by the Whittier PTA. 

Whittier PTA hosts most of these appreciation events, but students are invited to participate for two activities during this week:

• Monday (5/6): Bring flowers to morning drop-off! A Room Rep or PTA volunteer will collect flowers to make arrangements for staff. (Psst–if you have a student teacher, be sure to bring extra flowers for their arrangement!)
• Friday (5/10): Dress like a staff member day! Don glasses, specialty shoes, a lanyard–whatever reminds your student of a Whittier staff member!

We’ll send reminders as Staff Appreciation draws closer. If you have any questions or would like to help, please contact the Hospitality team. Go Wildcats!

If you missed last month’s budget conversations with Principal Watters, we encourage all members of our community to watch this virtual version to better understand how Whittier’s budget works and the PTA’s role. As SPS’ budget woes continue, we’ll need to be more transparent and proactive in understanding the important role our PTA plays to close funding gaps within SPS’ funding model. If you have any questions about Whittier’s budget, please reach out to Principal Watters. If you’d like more information about how Whittier PTA funding and fundraising works, please contact us.

Looking for even more information? Here’s a little more about SPS’ budget and funding:

• SPS’ 2023-2024 Budget: This shows where discrete dollars are going and is broken out by school.
• SPS’ WSS (Weighted Staffing Standard) Model Formula: This explains the strategy behind the financial distributions and has this year’s updates to the model at the start of the document. If you’re new to SPS budgeting, you’ll see discussions of poverty levels and tiers. Here’s an explanation of school tiers across SPS (dated as 2022-2023; a 2023-2024 version doesn’t appear to be publicly available right now).
• SPS is currently conducting work with the community to define what a “Well-Resourced School” looks like. Here’s updates on what they’ve gathered to-date. This is SPS’ most current plan (presented in November) on their approach to creating more well-resourced schools.
• This is SPS’ most recent communication regarding its budget crisis.

Want to share your voice? You can always reach out directly to SPS using their “Let’s Talk!” feature (see the menu in the bottom right here). Our district is currently waiting for a school board director appointment, but you are always encouraged to share your voice during school board meetings (learn more about how to participate here) and by reaching out to the board as a whole using the form on this page.