Thurston Middle School PTO: Making A Significant Impact

As I bid farewell to my time as the Thurston Middle School PTO Co-Chair, I am filled with pride reflecting on the extraordinary achievements of this past year. Despite the challenges following the pandemic, the united effort of our dedicated parents has been truly inspiring. I am honored to highlight our successes on behalf of the 2022-23 PTO Executive Board.
 

The support we received from the TMS community during the 2022-23 school year was staggering and signaled to us that families were longing for a ‘normal’ year for their students. More than half of TMS families contributed to our annual fund. This contribution, combined with our fundraising efforts, yielded more than $25,000 – the highest in five years! The Executive Board unanimously decided that these funds must directly support programming, events, and celebrations for our students, teachers, and the community. We certainly had our work cut out for us!
 

We successfully revived pre-pandemic activities and quickly established new TMS traditions, like the Friday Night Fun nights aimed at fostering community and building social skills. Attracting more than 75% of each class, these grade-specific events saw students shed their too-cool-for-school personas as they raced through giant inflatable obstacle courses, competed in basketball shoot-outs, and danced and played games led by a DJ. After three years of nearly zero organized social events, our children were ready to have fun together in a safe, positive environment.
 

We also prioritized inclusivity by working with the Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC). We coordinated care for children who needed extra support during every PTO event and ensured all families, including our Boston resident families, were included. In the end, we provided $1,600 in financial aid and IA support, ensuring participation from all families in PTO and school events.
 

The TMS parent community demonstrated their dedication to our students by volunteering in significant numbers. Our Beyond the Board team expanded to more than 40 members, and across all events, 130+ parents chaperoned. Fundraisers and unique asks were met with enthusiasm, leading to record sales in the district-wide Westwood Apparel Sale and full funding for the Science department’s pollinator garden within 48 hours of the request. Winning top prize for Most Random PTO Request: a dump truck to haul supplies for the pollinator garden. And yes, the community delivered again. In fact, multiple families offered to help!
 

Thanks to our successful fundraising and the generous support of our annual fund, we met every request from our teachers, including

• providing 50 pounds of Holi powder for the cross-country Fall Family Color Run
• supporting the two cast parties following the fall play and the spring musical
• supplying 1,200 plush Kudos Bulldogs to celebrate our students’ positive behavior
• providing 230 books for the 7th grade Writer’s Workshop
• bringing local athlete Matt Brown to TMS to share his inspiring story following a spinal cord injury
• purchasing the entire teachers’ wish list (totaling $1,000+) for our special education classrooms
• securing a first-person survivor speaker to conclude the 8th-grade Holocaust unit
• providing sports equipment for the PE department
• supplying ice pops for the 6th & 7th grade field days.

 
We sent our 8th graders off to high school in style with a week of celebration! We negotiated a near-private show with the Blue Man Group in Boston. At Aloha to High School, the Class of 2027 donned tropical attire, light-up sunglasses, and Hawaiian leis and danced the night away! The 20-member planning committee went overboard with tiki torches, surfboards, and more, to make the occasion memorable! On Field Day, students selected sweet treats from an ice cream truck and were gifted with a Westwood Class of 2027 tee-shirt bundled with a Sharpie marker so they could collect friends’ signatures throughout the gorgeous afternoon.
 

Finally, during our last PTO Executive Board meeting, the team unanimously decided to distribute a majority of our remaining funds to Thurston, allocating $5,800 across academic departments.
 

Thank you for an unforgettable year!
 

JoAnna French, Outgoing PTO Co-Chair
Pam Schnatterly, PTO Co-Chair (2021-2024)
Mariam Nasr, PTO Secretary (2022-23), Co-Chair (2023-34)
Amanda Drainville, Treasurer (2021-2023)