What We Do
Our Mission
To enhance the education of every student at the PS 111 Adolph S. Ochs elementary school, upgrade the school environment for the benefit of our students, support and strengthen the PS 111 community, and improve communication and build trust between the school administration and our community.
Our plans for the 2024–25 school year are among the largest in our history. Thank you to our volunteers & donors for supporting our work!
Library Renovation 📚
After a ten-year absence, our school's library has been recommissioned!
We'd like to create a warm, inviting space that will encourage a lifelong love of reading and libraries for our students. This will require many more books — as, while it was decommissioned, many of the room's books were taken for other purposes — as well as rugs (there are none), small shelving and other furniture, uniform lighting to reduce eye strain, and, as stretch goals, accent painting and plants.
Thank you to everyone who shopped at our September 2024 Book Fair, the proceeds of which are dedicated entirely to the library renovation project! Thank you also to the West Side Community Fund, which is supporting this project through a literacy grant!
Status: Funding approved on October 16, 2024! Design work started in September 2024.
📽️ Family Movie Nights 🍿
We introduced free Family Movie Nights in early 2024, and the turnout has been incredible!
As of the end of September 2024, we've held three indoor, and one outdoor, PS 111 Family Movie Night. These are wonderful events for our PS 111 students and parents/caregivers to spend time with each other in a low-cost, low-stress environment.
Thank you to our incredible volunteers for running these events. They're a significant amount of work. And thank you as well to the West Side Community Fund for providing funding for outdoor movies, outreach, and low-cost concessions.
Status: Active. Two outdoor Movie Nights were held so far this school year, on 9/27 and 10/25.
Investing in our Classrooms
Our classrooms are awesome! But, in cases where furniture — such as rugs — have aged beyond their useful lives, or where in-class libraries would benefit from additional books, we are there to help.
In 2023–24, we replaced thousands of dollars of rugs that were fraying and had lost their padding, and purchased more than one hundred books to supplement in-class libraries.
As of late October 2024, we've made the following investments:
- Replaced the ten-year-old music room rug.
- At the request of younger grade teachers, we purchased two Hoover deep clean vacuums, which will be used by the Pre-K through 2nd Grades.
- Purchased 14 28" 5lb traffic cones, to supplement the existing cones and replace the ones in poor condition (RIP, split yellow peeled-banana cone). Cones are useful for phys-ed, after-school sports programming, arrival/dismissal, and school and PTA events.
Status: Active. Investigating additional needs.
Class Trips
To increase student access to cultural institutions and the other amenities of our wonderful city, the PTA is providing at least $1,600 in the 2024-25 school year to support PS 111 class trips at any grade level.
Status: Funding approved on October 16, 2024!
More Afterschool Programs
PS 111 offers a number of afterschool programs, including KING, Chess, Table Tennis, Girls Leadership, and YOSL.
Parents have requested more afterschool programming, including STEM and a Spanish language program. The PTA is working with the school administration and two providers to bring these afterschool programs to our school, hopefully in time for the Spring 2025 semester.
Status: PTA board members are working with two providers to bring additional afterschool programming to PS 111.
Read-a-Thon & Book Fairs
Building a love of literacy is important to us. Our Read-a-Thon and Book Fairs raise money for the PS 111 library and in-class libraries, and result in hundreds of new books being enjoyed at home by our children.
Status: The first Book Fair, to support the recommissioned school library, was held on September 26 & 27. A second Book Fair is scheduled for early February 2025, and the Read-a-Thon is scheduled for March 2025.
School Newspaper 🗞️
PS 111 is named after a newspaper publisher, and yet we don't have a school newspaper!
A school newspaper, run by PS 111 volunteers and our students, will help address the communication issues at the school, while teaching our students about the importance of small local newspapers and the search for truth.
Status: Literacy grant from the West Side Community Fund received in October 2024, part of which will be used to support our new newspaper! Next step: what should its name be?
School Website 🌐
Let's be direct: The school's website is awful. From having the incorrect arrival & dismissal times, to saying that New York Public Library branches are closed, and to lacking information — such as a school calendar — that parents need, it fails to fulfill its purpose: To efficiently present useful information to prospective & current families.
Let's fix this. Quotes from DOE-registered vendors ranged from $3,500-5,500, ongoing forever, for slow, bandwidth-inefficient sites. Just as important, the information on a replacement will quickly go out of date if it's not maintained by someone who who understands the importance of accurate communication to our families, both current and prospective.
We can do better: By piggybacking on the PTA's infrastructure, we can create a modern, accessible, useful site, at no cost to the school. And shared design between the school's and PTA's sites will emphasize our closeness and common goals.
Status: Pending further discussion with school principal.
PTA Website & Email List 🌐
The PTA's website and email list (established Summer 2024) are important communication tools for our families. By keeping the site updated, we show prospective families that we have a vibrant community, while providing useful information to our current families.
The PTA's server infrastructure, and the maintenance of the site, are donated to the PTA by one of our PS 111 families, freeing up funds for our many other programs.
Status: Active! Redesigned, accessible site deployed in Fall 2023. PTA email list started in Summer 2024.
Computer Lab: Creative Coding 🖥️
The school is replacing the outdated computers in the computer lab!
The PTA will work with the school administration to provide — at no cost to the school — a creative coding program for our older children. While nothing is guaranteed until it happens, we're very excited about this possibility.
Status: Design. Limited funding approved October 2024.
Teacher & Staff Appreciation
We appreciate our teachers & staff members!
🥯 October 5th is World Teachers' Day. To celebrate our teachers, and to thank them for their support of our September Book Fair, we provided a free bagel breakfast on Wednesday, October 9th, which was open to all teachers and staff.
Status: Free bagel breakfast held on 10/9/24. More events planned, especially around Teacher Appreciation Day (May 2025).
Composting & Container Garden
Wherever people eat, there will be waste. Rather than sending our food waste to a landfill, we'd like to compost what we can.
Not only will this educate our students, we could use the compost to support (1) the young trees on 10th Ave, 52nd St and 53rd St, and, potentially (2) a container garden at the school, which would be run by students and parent-volunteers.
This is complementary to food scrap collection at the school (which, as of Fall 2024, appears to be aspirational), as (1) the PTA could never compost all of the school's food waste, whether in quantity or content (e.g. we can't compost meat, bones, or "compostable" plastic); and (2) the City's collections are placed into methane digesters, which — though far better than ending up in a landfill — are environmentally less beneficial than composting and reusing the nutrient-rich output.
Status: Pending approval from school principal. Dry (brown) matter collection of leaves taking place in November.
Streetscape Beautification 🌳
10th Ave tree pits: before and after clearing & mulching in October 2024.
Thank you to City Council District 3 Councilor Erik Bottcher for providing funding for trees around our school!
Now it's our time to step up. Tree pit guards increase the chance of these young trees surviving by ~30%, and reduce animal waste and trash from accumulating in the pits — lowering the incidence of rats and mice.
With tree guards, the PTA can plant flowers in the pits, brightening the sidewalk and creating a more inviting environment for our children!
Status: Initial funding for mulch, tools, and plantings passed in October 2024. Tree guards pending further discussion and funding approval. 10th Ave tree pits cleared & mulched in October 2024. Mulchings for 52nd & 53rd St tree pits planned for Winter 2024-25, with plantings potentially in Spring 2025.
Outdoor Lending Library 📘
An outdoor lending library helps get more books into the hands of our students and adds to the vibrancy of the street adjacent to the school. Ongoing time and cost to the PTA is minimal.
This project involves minimal expenses, as we already have the library box: Toward the end of the 2023-24 school year, the PTA purchased a discounted outdoor lending library with Scholastic Rewards incentives that were about to expire. However, because of end-of-year commitments — especially the PS 111 Carnival — we were not able to install it at the time.
Status: Library box put together in October 2024. More thought is needed about where to put it, as well as permission from principal.