Category: PFLASA

Did you know that perfectionism can be an underlying reason for academic struggle?? The fear of handing in an imperfect assignment can lead to procrastination, failure to turn in work on time, and even a lack of motivation to try in the first place. Perfectionism also causes anxiety, stress, and burnout for teens who are high performing in academics. To learn more about how you can help, check out this webinar: “Helping Your Perfectionist Child” by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Brought to you by the PFLASA Raising Healthy Raptors Committee.

Our last meeting of the calendar year we recapped all things we did recently that went well (the Project Graduation Auction, the Giving Thanks Pie Event, New Grants awarded). We then had updates from events that are upcoming. First, the Fall Stressbuster which is this Friday in the small gym during lunch. PFLASA provides a petting zoo for students to voluntarily come by and hold a variety of animals. This brings a lot of joy and stress relief for students. I also know there are some people that do not feel we should sponsor this event as it stresses the animals. To those people, please come join the board for next year. Or if this is your favorite event of the year and you can’t imagine it going away, also come join the board. Second, yet another quick reminder that PFLASA is providing additional tutoring during finals week. See the post from last week with the table for hours.

Next, starting soon PFLASA will have Master Classes to sell. Master Classes are evening Zoom sessions on a number of topics mostly for parents but your “ticket” includes whomever is at your house on the Zoom. There are lots of college prep topics but they can be on any variety of topic so if you have a special skill to share please contact us. For those of you who don’t want to be on camera start looking at these as soon as they come out.

We ended the meeting with a preview of what the spring semester holds for PFLASA. After concluding, we another update from Principal Crescenzi. There were also some extra goodies including past-President Nicole Truelock’s amazing sausage balls. For anyone who has never been we have coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. And unlike our first meeting of the year plenty of seats. We will also have our second evening Zoom meeting in January, I hope to make it more interactive.

I attached an updated version of the slide I presented for the Spring Preview. We had more than a few questions about various upcoming events so below I provide definitions for all the starred events below.

COGAT testing and Find Your Fit Parent panels: If you remember applying to LASA, COGAT is the name of the test administered as part of the application. Last year with the advent of ranked choice admissions, PFLASA put together the Find Your Fit panels to help parents decide if LASA was the right fit for their child. If anyone has one child at LASA and has/had a highschooler at any other school, please contact me to give up part of a Saturday to come help us do this again.

Showcase: This is LASA’s open house during recruitment, but I starred it to highlight that this is one of the times we feed the teachers!

LASA Testing Accommodations Parent Panel: Should we give that an acronym? This is a joint effort by LASA and PFLASA to explain applying for testing accommodations from College Board. College Board administers the PSAT, SAT, and all AP tests. Please note this is a hard process even for applicants that have a 504/IEP in place.

New Parent Coffee: this is the event for parents of newly accepted LASA students to come and ask questions. We need lots of volunteers for this event. Also believe me when I say you know more than you think.

AP Testing: LASA will administer over 4,000 AP Tests. To pull that off we need a lot of help. We also provide breakfast and snacks to testers every day of testing. This is one of our biggest volunteer asks so please save some time to help us during that two weeks in May.

Coffeehouse: On the Friday evening of the last day of AP testing, LASA puts on a little music festival. It stars students and teachers. After a stressful couple of weeks it is heartwarming to see the talent and support these students have and give.

Senior Salute: This tradition started when LASA was still part of LBJ. It continues so that the kids have something to celebrate for themselves. They receive their magnet endorsement to validate all these years of hard work. According to Principal Crescenzi, some kids skip graduation and only attend this event.

Project Graduation: Hopefully by now you know this is the drug and alcohol free lock-in that is nationwide to provide graduates a safe place to celebrate. The senior parents fundraise really hard to pull this event off every year. And they need help for the event to have it run smoothly. Pay it forward and volunteer now so that you can relax (and sleep) after graduation when it’s your turn.

Questions after all of that? Write me at president@pflasa.org.

It’s time for one of the teachers’ favorite events! Every year before Thanksgiving, PFLASA collects pies and thank you notes to give to teachers and staff (including the afternoon bus drivers, the janitorial staff and admin). Everyone gets a pie! But to pull this off we need a lot of pies and volunteers. If you can, please donate pies or sign up to help.

Our first topic was the Project Graduation Auction which by now has ended. Perhaps you were among the lucky bidders? It was a great effort by the Class of 2025 and a preview of the work ahead for the other classes. We also covered our Giving Thanks Pie event and signups, which gets its own post here in the Raptor. Please read and donate, and if you can’t donate a pie, kindly write a note of appreciation. Those notes mean a lot to teachers.

Our Great Gatherings Fundraiser announced two events coming up soon. An All-Class Fiesta on December 12th and Class of 2025 Craft Beer Showcase on January 11th. Thanks to the hosts and the attendees for supporting our seniors. We also had an update from Grants, the Raising Healthy Raptors chair, and PTSA. I have plans for a post from Grants as an end-of-semester summary of all the things we’ve been able to do with your donated dollars!

After we adjourned, we had an update from Principal Crescenzi. These are always interesting, but this one talked about AP Research and their first semester project into the history of Johnston High School. For those of you who don’t know, our building opened as Johnston High School before becoming Eastside Memorial and now LASA. As part of this discussion, Ms. Crescenzi shared that for years, she’s been asked about the “Disco Ram” (the Ram was the Johnston mascot), but she had no idea what they were talking about. In an exciting development, the team found a picture of the “Disco Ram,” and perhaps someday this image can be incorporated into LASA. For those of you interested, the research is being posted (and updated) on the LASA site.

Our next and only December meeting is December 6th. As we wrap down the semester, I’m planning to have a light agenda and then open the meeting up for socializing and questions. Freshmen parents–come ask about finals! As always, everyone at LASA is a member of PFLASA and is welcome to attend.

Wishing you a restful Fall Break and Happy Thanksgiving

-Ellen Stewart-Klein, PFLASA President