Happy Sunday, Brentwood families! 

The Storybook Parade, at 8:30 a.m. on April 25, is Brentwood’s way of showing our love of books! Participants are students in pre-K, kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes. We encourage families to think about favorite book characters and how to create a costume from items at home. The 3rd-5th grade classes will watch the parade from inside the school, and families will be our audience outside the school. Pk-2nd grade student households: please see Konstella for more specific details and costume ideas.

Attention, Bulldogs! The Brentwood Talent Show is coming up Friday, May 2, from 5–9pm, in the Brentwood Auditorium! All G-rated acts are welcome, up to three minutes in length. Past events have featured singers, dancers, musicians, magicians, comedians, gymnasts, and many, many more. There is no audition for the show; all students are welcome. Click here to sign up; please provide a description of your act; participants’ names; a list of equipment needed; any recorded audio; and any lyrics. We can accept links to audio and lyrics through April 11 at BrentwoodTalentShowSubmissions@gmail.com. We’re also seeking parent volunteers to work the event—sign up here!

Thank you to the wonderful parents, amazing business owners, and incredible members of the community for supporting our annual event, Brentwood Rocks! Boy Scout troop 49, Girl Scout troop 845, and the Brentwood Archery team hosted an especially fun booth as well.  And we cannot forget our amazing volunteers—including the Lamar National Junior Honor Society students, whose support was fantastic. Lastly, thank you to our fabulous committees along with the indomitable Ms.Beck and all the super sponsors. We are so lucky to have your support and commitment to our beloved school. If you’d like to join the Brentwood Rocks committee for next year, please contact Kanako Lickteig at k.oomori312@gmail.com.

SB 2, the school voucher bill, was voted out of committee and will now go before the full House. While this is disheartening, the fight is still not over. We have the ability to advocate to all the members of the House, whether you are a constituent or not.

The Austin Council of PTAs (ACPTA) has compiled a list of members who are either anti-voucher or are on the fence; this is a great opportunity to encourage them to vote against this harmful bill. Not sure what to say? ACPTA has a helpful script. As always, be respectful but get your voices heard!

Script:
Hello, my name is ___________. I want to add to the voices urging Representative _______ to reject SB 2. I'm concerned about [pick one or two of the following]

-the amount of waste and abuse involved in a program that in other states has gone overwhelmingly to families already in private schools. 

- the degree of learning loss most students who have taken vouchers have experienced in other states. 

-the fact that schools who take this money can still discriminate against students, don't have to take the same state-required assessments, and have no oversight regarding their curriculum. 

- the lack of any guardrails at all to protect this program from exploding into a fiscal parasite, eating into other state budgetary responsibilities. 

I recognize that Representative _____________ is in a challenging position in regards to this bill and want them to know that I feel for them and appreciate them listening to the people of Texas.

Please focus our precious state funds and energy on getting HB 2 closer to the $7,500 per pupil we need simply to keep up with inflation since 2019. And ensure that charter school teachers don't get a bigger raise than our public school teachers and that money isn't tied up in a teacher incentive allotment that only a small percentage of teachers are even eligible for. 

Thank you for doing the hard work of making sure we have the best schools in the country. 

Here's the list of members to reach out to; please start making those friendly phone calls:

Trent Ashby trent.ashby@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0508

Jeff Barry jeff.barry@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0707

Keith Bell keith.bell@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0458

David Cook david.cook@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0374

Charles Cunningham charles.cunningham@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0520

Pat Curry pat.curry@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0135

Drew Darby drew.darby@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0331

Jay Dean jay.dean@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0750

Stan Gerdes stan.gerdes@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0682

Charlie L. Geren charlie.geren@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0610

Ryan Guillen ryan.guillen@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0416

Sam Harless sam.harless@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0496

Cody Harris cody.harris@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0730

Todd Hunter todd.hunter@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0672

Ken King ken.king@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0736

Stan Lambert stan.lambert@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0718

Brooks Landgraf brooks.landgraf@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0546

John Lujan john.lujan@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0714

John McQueeney john.mcqueeney@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0608

Angelia Orr angelia.orr@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0600

Dade Phelan dade.phelan@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0706

David Spiller david.spiller@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0526

Gary VanDeaver district1.vandeaver@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0692

Wes Virdell wes.virdell@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0536

Trey Wharton trey.wharton@house.texas.gov (512) 463-0412

Celebrate the vibrant creativity of local artists while supporting the Lamar Middle School Visual Arts Program on Friday, April 25. LamARTe is an adults-only event where you’ll be immersed in a curated collection of donated artwork, available for purchase through a silent auction. Proceeds will benefit Lamar’s arts program—you'll be fostering emerging talent and community engagement at the same time! Tickets include a dinner buffet along with beverages for $60 each.

Follow along on Konstella or subscribe to our Brentwood Elementary Google Calendar to stay in the know about upcoming school events, holidays, and PTA activities. Here are a few items of note below.

• Monday, April 7 Early Learner Day
• Thursday, April 10 Brentwood Bike Bus (7am, recurring)
  PTA Meeting (6:30pm)
• Friday, April 11 School Tour (8:30am)
• Friday, April 18 NO SCHOOL Good Friday
• Friday, April 25 Storybook Parade (8:30am)
• Friday, May 2 Talent Show (5–9pm)
• Monday, May 5–Thursday, May 8 Literati Book Fair
• Friday, May 9 School Tour (8:30am)
• Thursday, May 22 5th Grade Graduation
• Monday, May 26 NO SCHOOL Memorial Day
• Thursday, May 29 LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Brentwood PTA runs an annual, donate-one-time-per-year, no-hassle fundraiser we call the Bulldog Fund. The donations collected in this fund are used for essential (and at times all-too-expensive) programming like literacy and math software, library books, music, art, and more. Donate HERE!

Do you happen to have a program, event, or volunteer need that you would like published in the Bulldog Bark, on the PTA website, or sent out via social channels? Simply email communications@brentwoodpta.com for consideration.

PTA Website
PTA Facebook
X: @BrentwoodAISD
Instagram/Threads: @BrentwoodBulldogs_AISD
Brentwood Website