At PTSA, we are working to improve the quality of school life for students in collaboration with the school staff. Some of our activities include helping conduct the various school events and organizing bazaar / charity acts. We hope that more parents and or guardians will join us to contribute to the school and the students!
PTSA held a charity uniform bazaar to support students and school on Parents Day; June 1st. A total of 75,500 yen was collected at the bazaar. The proceeds of the bazaar are donated to school, and used to improve student's life.
Thank you for your cooperation!
On Saturday June 25th, the staff and the volunteers of PTSA helped the school during open day, where we answered various questions from visitors through our perspective. Many of the visitor seemed to have enjoyed their stay, inspecting the classes and overall environment of each grade. Meanwhile, several students from each grade guided the visitors around, answering questions too from the student's perspective. In addition, alumni students were also invited to school to also help out with questionnaires, which they answered from their previous experiences at Columbia and their current life.
Some of the families who visited open day commented "We were initially nervous about the visit because it was our first time seeing the unique environment of a international school. However, after seeing how school and the students are like, the good mood among the parents and guardians, and the growth of the alumni, we are much more positive with considering about letting our child into this school."
The open day this term was limited to certain amount of people per family due to the COVID-19 situation, however we hope that one day the school will be able to welcome the whole family who are eager to come and see our school.
The school hosted Japan＋Canada Day＝“Japanada Day” event on July 1st, 2022.
To celebrate, we arranged a Kendama event for both preschool and elementary students, as well as secondary students to enjoy. We also served the Canadian cuisine "Poutine" as per tradition for lunch.
Furthermore, we also provided sports drink and snacks to all students in order to prevent dehydration from extreme heat.
For the Kendama event, students enjoyed the performance from the professional Kendama performer "Kendama sensei Takahashi Showma" and then competed in team based Kendama battle. During the event, Kendama sensei performed various Kendama and other Japanese tricks along music, the students applauded and cheered in amazement. After the performance, students practiced and performed 3 Kendama tricks, where each tricks were worth a point.
After the event ended, Kendama sensei commented "I am very happy to see that everyone enjoyed the Kendama event! To be honest, I was very nervous to perform, especially for the older students who usually is much harder to grasp their attention, but in reality everyone showed great interest which I truly appreciate. During the Kendama competition, everyone was practicing their tricks with effort. When I went around to see their progress, many students asked for tips to become better at the tricks, and was very eager to show me what they have accomplished. Furthermore, they all handled the Kendama I handed out very well, which in total made me grateful that I decided to attend this event for Columbia International School. Finally, I think the students of Columbia were all kind, wonderful people. Please tell how grateful I am to the parents and guardians as well, I truly enjoyed the event!"
In addition to the event, we also supplied annual emergency foods to all of the students. While it is very important to always be prepared for a disaster, we were also thankful that we never had to use these emergency supplies in the past year.
The school had an open day on September 24th. Despite the bad weather due to approaching typhoon, we had a lot of visitors who went around observing the class of their interest.
During the day, some of the PTSA members who are also the parents of students from elementary and secondary school got involved in the event, answering the questions from the visitors.
The entire school enjoyed the Halloween event on October 29th, Saturday.
This year, we had parents and guests visit the school, which has not happened since the start of covid in 2019.
In the morning, each class worked on the Jack O' lantern, an essential prop for Halloween. Each year, students put in a lot of effort to come up with and carve out some peculiar yet original design for their pumpkins, as a contest to choose which Jack O' lantern is the best will be held. The winning class of this contest gets to enjoy a special prize. The winners of this contest will be listed later in this blog.
Once the pumpkin carving was done, the kindergartners and the elementary students went around the school to “trick or treat” by finding the "Wanted" teachers and PTSA board members, who would give up on their snacks in fear of getting tricked by the students.
While the kindergartners and the elementary students went around the school trick or treating, the secondary students worked on the wall decoration contest held by the student council. Combined with the Halloween decorations, the huge posters which were hang around all over the secondary building's walls helped with showing their Halloween spirit! The winner of wall decoration contest is Grade7. Congratulations!
At the Halloween event, PTSA was responsible for preparing Halloween snack packs and the prize for the costume and pumpkin contest. The pumpkins that were used for the carving were also purchased and prepared by the PTSA.
After the “Parents Day” week before Halloween, the PTSA board members gathered at school to prepare for Halloween. We packaged nearly 300 snack packs with the PTSA sticker on it, and organized the prizes for each contest,
which both takes a lot of time with less PTSA board members.
Thankfully, when we asked for few non-PTSA members to help with the preparation, they agreed on helping us. Everyone was working efficiently that we were able to finish all the work in an hour, which was is way faster than we had planned. Thanks a lot!
Going back to the Jack O' lantern contest, it has been decided that the class of Grade 2, 5, 8, and 12 (Mr. Hagerty) had one of the most spectacular Jack O' lantern of the year. Congratulations!
Finally, for the costume contest of the elementary and secondary students, the best costumes were chosen out of the representative of each class, and out of the teachers of all classes and office staffs. In addition to their incredible costumes, everyone enjoyed the splendid staging act.
Also, in the afternoon after the Halloween event, junior high and high school students held events such as confectionery buffet and quizzes that they planned and prepared under the leadership of the student council.
Preparations for events hosted by student council also include funding from PTSA.
Such school events can only be held with the help of the PTSA members (all the parents and guardians, teachers, and the students).
Thank you for your continued understanding and cooperation.
Finally, we are always welcome for more PTSA board members.
If you are interested, feel free to visit our monthly board meeting, where we plan for and bring out these exciting events every year for the students!
December 11th (Sunday), Christmas Fiesta 2022 held on under clear skies.
For the first time in about two years, guests from outside came to the school for the grand Fiesta, and the school was filled with joyful energy.
At the PTSA booth, we earned 56,500 yen from the bazaar sale of uniforms you donated and 30,188 yen from the sale of PTSA charity cafe, totalling 86,688 yen.
The proceeds will be donated to schools and be used to enrich student's life. at school. Thank you all for your cooperation!
On this year's Fiesta, we held a food bank activity, where we were able to collect a lot of food and donated . Thanks to everyone!
The donated food was given to "Wada Kodomo Shokudo" (https://tgenkijuku.com/), a children's cafeteria run by NPO Tokorozawa Genki Juku in the name of Columbia International School PTSA on the same day.
They told us that with our food donation, they will be able to hold another day of food donation day on top of their scheduled food donation day this year. They are planning to hold one on December 24th, right on Christmas Eve. We are very proud of what we as a school were able to contribute to the community activities! Once again, thank you so much for your cooperation!
PTSA also helped Organize visitor lines outside before the school gates opened, usher in the Big gym, kept the fire pit safe in the main gate area, and organized the bouncy house line in the school yard.
The school's teacher, staff, student council ,and we "PTSA" worked together to ensure that the fiesta was a fun and safe event.
After Parents Day on February 8th, 2023, PTSA board members installed an inquiry booth to interact with other PTSA members.
At the booth, we collected and answered to questions and opinions about the operation in school, inconveniences or concerns regarding school life, stories about what parents should do to prepare for the future of the students, and more. The opinions we collected will be shared with the school staff later, which will be used to further improve school life.
As mentioned in the past reports, the membership fees of PTSA we collect from the members every year are used to host various events and lectures at the school's request (from activities expenses), purchase prizes, celebration flowers, and memorial gifts for students from preschool to secondary school (from prizes and gift expenses), as well as emergency food supplies (from disaster prevention expenses).
In addition, there are several pieces of equipment and supplies PTSA has provided to the school. This includes the water fountains found around the facilities, the reformation of the library room, the bouldering wall at one corner and the spirit bear logo on the floor in the big gym, as well as the automation of faucets.
Furthermore, all of the revenue generated from holding the PTSA fiesta bazaar is donated to the school every year, which has been used to purchase the floor microphones in the gym, the bleacher (portable raised bench to watch games), various sports equipment, large instruments, kilns used for pottery, as well as the fees to support the activities of the student council. These funds, known as "fiesta profit," are used to fulfill the purchase requests from teachers and students.
In these ways, cooperation between the school and the PTSA organization is essential at CIS.
このように、学校とPTSA組織の協力態勢は不可欠なものとなっています。
Bleacher／
移動式観覧座席
The PTSA board is always open to suggestions for events and other activities. If you have any activities you wish to happen, any lectures you think will benefit the students, as well as any suggestions or opinions you would like to discuss with the school as one of the PTSA members, don't hesitate to contact us through the contact form in the PTSA website.
Also, we are always looking for more members to join the board. If you are interested in joining us feel free to contact us!
Finally, PTSA is committed to striving for our goal; to enrich the learning experience and the school life of students at Columbia. To do so, the understanding and support provided by the PTSA members are important, and we would like to thank you. We hope to see your continued understanding and support in the future!
On March 15th (Wednesday) and 16th (Thursday), PTSA board members and parent volunteers of various grades, from kindergarten to high school, (graduating students awaiting for their ceremony helped us too!)worked together with elementary school teachers to organize the elementary students’ library.
The library, which was donated by the PTSA, located in the main building, is designed for middle and high school students and is not used by elementary school students. Instead, the elementary students have their own library in their building separately. However, the previous bookshelf, which consisted of lined up shelves in the corridors of each floor of the building made it difficult to manage the books, and the shelves were always messy. It was not an environment where elementary school students could actively pick up books that they wanted to read.
In response to the passion and request from elementary school teachers to create a more user-friendly library booth for elementary school students, and the agreement between them and us that enriching the library would make student life more fulfilling, the project began.
We are working hard towards the opening of the new library before the new school year, but the project has only just begun, and is in need of more helping hands. Therefore, we may ask our members to help us as spot volunteers over the spring break. Volunteering will also be a great opportunity to interact with parents and teachers of different grades while working together. We look forward to your active participation as volunteers!
After the graduation ceremony, we prepared a uniform donation box at the main entrance. Thank you to everyone who donated.
The uniforms and pe clothes we collect from the donation will be sold during the bazaar PTSA holds once in a while, and all of the revenue from it will be donated to the school.
To all the students who have been promoted, we wish you all the best in your future academic life, and we will support you. To all the graduates, we sincerely hope that your future path will lead you to the realization of your dreams and aspirations.
Event 2024-2025 
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Kiln／電気釜
