This day aims to raise awareness around mental health matters, communicate the importance of destigmatizing mental health, and rally communities in advocating for a world with mental health education and support for all. This year, the World Mental Health Federation calls attention to the barriers in accessing mental health systems and support in an unequal world.  Learn more and discover tools, resources and more by visiting the campaign toolkits developed by the World Mental Health Federation and the World Health Organization.

• Listen to National PTA's Notes latest from the Backpack podcast:  What is Social Emotional Learning, Anyway? What life skills does your child need to thrive? There’s a lot of learning happening in schools that goes beyond academics. Karen Van Ausdal talks about what Social and Emotional Learning looks like, why it’s important and how families can help. Listen now.

• October is LGBTQ+ History Month.  National PTA believes that schools should be a safe, supportive and respectful environment for all students.  PTAs believe that every child deserves to go to school excited to learn—without the fear of bullying, violence or discrimination.  To read more and find out how you can become an advocate for LGBTQ youth in our community, click here:  LGBTQ Community Inclusivity in PTA - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

• October is National Arts and Humanities Month.  Encourage your student to enter the National PTA Reflections program.  (See information below about how to participate in our SMS PTA Reflections program.)

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers,

Recently there have been a number of worrisome headlines about social media, such as illegal and dangerous ‘challenges’ that have resulted in the destruction of school property by students. 

We all want our teens to use common courtesy whether they're online or offline. 

On behalf of our PTA, we are sharing two resources that we hope will help you and the youth in your household to have a positive, open dialogue about these current events and issues.

Have The Smart Talk. 

This is a free online tool from National PTA that guides kids and caregivers through a conversation together about social media, technology, apps, etc., and helps families set (or revisit) household rules. 

Note: The Smart Talk originally was designed for kids getting their first device, so older teens may feel the tool is not for them, but the actual content is great for kids of any age. Give it a try if you are feeling unsure how to have this conversation, or feel unsure about what topics to address – or simply use it as inspiration for an offline talk with your teen.

Check out the TikTok Guide for Parents. 

This downloadable guide (PDF file) covers a lot of ground about how TikTok works, how to use the safety features and privacy settings, step-by-step instructions on how to report inappropriate content in the app, and more. 

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and we know kids can experience a lot of social pressures that feel amplified by our increasingly digital lives. It can be hard to know how to broach these topics with our kids, so we hope these two resources help make it a little easier.

Help your Schimelpfenig PTA reach 600 members by October 31st and earn the Snappy Increase award!  We currently have 520 members, we need 80 more members to reach our goal of 600, one more than last year! Click Here to Join!

Parents, Students, Grandparents and other Community Members can join to support Schimelpfenig PTA.  

Thank you in advance for your support!

1. Donate to the PTA online!

Your generous TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation will fund programs, social events, and classroom materials for students as well as SMS staff wish list items.  

We thank you in advance for your contributions!

Please visit here to donate online!

2. You just keep shopping – let these stores do the donating for you!

Visit our Fundraising Page here for more information.

Link your Kroger or Tom Thumb rewards cards to Schimelpfenig to help our school raise money. The stores will donate a percentage back to the school help show their support for the local communities.

• Kroger Community Rewards Program
• Tom Thumb Good Neighbor Program  
• Office Depot
• Box Tops
• Amazon Smile – Same products and prices as Amazon.  Their foundation matches a percentage of your purchases to donate to nonprofits like our school!  So easy and you are helping by shopping.

3. World Wear Project – Clean out your clutter of old toys, kitchen items, unused towels and bedding and of course CLOTHES!  Bring them up to the BIG BLUE Bin located in the west parking lot.  

The Take Care of Texas Video is a fun way to learn about protecting the environment and come up with creative ways to share this knowledge with others.  Prizes for middle school students who place 1st, 2nd, and 3rd will include a gift card for camera equipment.  

Contest runs from September through December 3rd.

For more information, click here!

The 2021–2022 Reflections theme is I Will Change the World By…

Students can submit their completed works of art in one or all of the available arts categories: Dance Choreography, Film Production, Literature, Music Composition, Photography, Visual Arts. For more information, please visit the Reflections page on our website here!

More details HERE.

The new Parent Education Engagement Program (PEEP) is committed to engaging families in the education of their children and building capacity in all PISD schools to implement family engagement strategies and activities designed to achieve the district and student academic achievement goals.  Workshop classes are offered Monday through Thursday in-person and virtually. Click here to access PEEP classes, information, and registration.

Don't forget to update your parent and student information on our SMS PTA website to stay connected with us! 

This will ensure that you receive our eNews newsletters, special eBlasts and other important PTA news during this school year.

Texas PTA offers a $1000 senior scholarship and up to $500 faculty scholarships every year to PTA members. The application period opens on September 15 and ends November 15.  For details on how to apply and a link to the application (starting September 15th) go to:  Faculty & Student Scholarships - Texas PTA - every child. one voice. (txpta.org). 

We are hearing of offline teen dares being suggested as future ‘TikTok challenges’ and want to be clear: dangerous challenges and illegal behavior are not allowed on our platform and will be removed. While we do not currently see evidence of these supposed 'challenges' on our platform, our safety teams have and will continue to work tirelessly to enforce our Community Guidelines and remove violative content, including content promoting 'devious licks'. We expect teens to use common courtesy whether they're online or offline.

TikTok is committed to reaching parents and guardians by supporting messages on the importance of ongoing conversations with teens about being good citizens online and offline, as we are doing through our collaboration with National PTA. We want to make you aware of the TikTok Guide for Parents we created with National PTA, as it contains critical information about the parental controls available to families on TikTok as well as digital safety information.