ESCRIP Support Your Parent Organization - help us help our children! Revenue from eScrip and Schoolpop enables the DSPA to fund school events and programs for our students. By registering your credit/debit/ATM/merchant loyalty cards at no charge, a percentage of your purchases at participating merchants will be rebated to out School each month. We are not asking you to change your shopping habits; participating merchants that you normally patronize will automatically forward your contribution to the School through escrip and Schoolpop. Click here to sign up now. www.escrip.com www.schoolpop.com For assistance, contact Heather Doll (650) 558-9909 or heather.doll@mac.com

Board & Committees

Dear Parents,

Whether you’re a returning family or new to St Matthew’s Episcopal Day School, welcome to the Day School Parents’ Association (DSPA)!

The DSPA works to build a strong community bond among the parents, the School and the students of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Day School. We achieve this by organizing and sponsoring events, student enrichment assemblies, a hot lunch program, new and recycled school uniform programs, parent education through the Common Ground Speaker Series, teacher appreciation events and special receptions. The President of the DSPA also holds an ex officio seat on the Day School Board of Trustees to voice parents’ interests.

Volunteering At St Matthew's
As parents and members of our School community, you are automatically a member of the Parents’ Association. We depend on you, the parent body, to maintain and build on our community bond and spirit.

All Day School families commit to provide 40 to 60 hours of school service, depending on the grades in which your children are enrolled. You can fulfill a portion of your volunteer commitment through the many DSPA standing committees such as hospitality, library and photography and through committees that plan and produce specific events.

Our volunteer website for the 2009/2010 school year is now available.

Please take some time to review the year’s events and consider being a part of our many school traditions by volunteering to help. We welcome everyone’s participation in DSPA activities and invite you to attend any of our DSPA Board meetings.

New Hot Lunch Vendor!
We are delighted to introduce Children’s Choice, our new hot lunch vendor. Lisa Kearns, our hot lunch coordinator, has worked diligently with Children’s Choice to present a healthy, balanced and appealing menu for our children. Please note, hot lunch service begins Tuesday, September 8th.

We great appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work with our new vendor to ensure the success of this program.

EScrip – Funding The St Matthew’s Community
DSPA is funded in part through merchant contributions to eScrip. We urge all new families to register their credit cards at www.escrip.com and that families who have already registered revisit the eScrip website to ensure your enrollment is in good standing. The school’s eScrip ID number is 134555744. To purchase Scrip cash cards, please download the order form here.

Participation in this program allows us to raise funds from merchants to support community activities including enrichment assemblies, parent education programs, and faculty appreciation events in the winter and spring.

Common Ground Series
Once again, we are proud to a part of the Common Ground Speaker Series, a coalition of Bay Area schools that have joined together to enhance parent education. The goal of the coalition is to provide opportunities for parents and educators to learn from experts in a variety of fields and to support each other's efforts to enrich our local communities. We will have more information on the 2009-2010 schedule on our website in August.

DSPA Website – One Stop Communications
Please visit the Parents/DSPA section on the St Matthew’s website (stmatthewsday.org). Here you will find comprehensive information on all our upcoming events and programs.

Fall Events
Below are just a few highlights of DSPA sponsored Fall events:
• New Family Ice-Cream Social (Sunday, August 30th)
• First Morning Coffee (following drop-off on Wednesday, September 2nd)
• Lower and Middle School Back to School Night Suppers (Thursday, September 17th for Lower School & Thursday, September 10th for Middle School)
• Fall Festival (Friday, September 11th)

We look forward to working with you all to make this yet another happy and successful school year.

Sincerely,

Jordan Murray
President

Sara Hodge
Vice-President

Jordan Murray	Sara Hodge
DSPA President	DSPA Vice President

2009/2010 Day School Parent Association Board (DSPA)

President Jordan Murray Vice President Sara Hodge President Emeritus Nancy Spencer Secretary Linda Aguirre Treasurer Angela Rohde Room Parent & Volunteer Coordinators Paige Cattano & Kathleen Savarese Common Ground Series Suzanne Jancsek & Molly Dillon Communications & Website Ann Aristides Community Service Terri Boesch & Claire Jackson

Enrichment Assemblies Jacque Bigelow Fundraising (eScrip & Scrip Cards) Heather Doll Hospitality Anita Wu Hot Lunch Lisa Kearns New Family Outreach Tiffany Bassett & Rose Welch Photography Tina Churich Recycled Uniforms Rachael Bruins & Amelia Nash Head of School (Ex-Officio) Mark McKee Faculty Liaison (Ex-Officio) Rosemary Malouf & Joseph Williamson