Change Challenge Results OVERTURNED!

There's good news and bad news.

Let’s start with the bad news: we got the results of the 2024 Johnson Elementary Change Challenge slightly wrong. And by slightly wrong, of course, we mean entirely wrong. The good news is we raised more money than we thought we did, and way more kids are going to get to turn Principal Mickens Mr. Kronstain into a human ice cream sundae and have an ice cream party.

A brief aside: We were, of course, very surprised and concerned to hear about Ms. Mickens’ leave of absence. We wish her good health and a quick recovery, and are looking forward to seeing her smiling face and feeling her warm presence around the school soon. Also, please stop spreading the rumor that she is taking a leave simply to escape her gooey ice cream sundae fate. Get well soon, Principal Mickens!

Ok. About the Change Challenge—let us explain.

Do you remember the 2000 presidential election? On election night, right around 8:00 p.m. eastern, a bunch of the news networks announced that Al Gore had won the state of Florida, based almost entirely on asking folks walking out of polling places who they had voted for. The problem with that rigorous scientific method was that apparently they were asking way more Gore voters than George W. Bush voters who they had just voted for, rather skewing the results in one direction! By late evening, they had all moved Florida back into the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ column, and by about five in the morning it looked like Bush had actually won the state. Gore had conceded and then un-conceded, it was Florida so it was a bit of a mess anyway, and it only got more chaotic from there. There were chads! And not the dude-bro kinda chads, but these little punch-out paper dimples that drove everybody crazy for a few weeks. Come to think of it, there were a lot of the dude-bro chads, too, as generations of lawyers funneled down the coast into Florida to duke out the election results in the courts.

I may be getting off track. The point here is that we, the PTO, are kinda like the media in 2000, declaring that someone had won before we had all of the information. In this tortured analogy, Venmo is our hanging chad.

The vote counters and re-counters in Florida agonized over the chads. Was it dimpled, pierced, depressed, punched through, circled, crossed out, kinda cute? Who could say? Where was the objective standard by which to judge any of this? What was going on in all of those south Florida retirees’ minds at the time they filled in their ballots? No one knew. This was us trying to interpret one particular Venmo donation.

We assumed our very generous benefactor had simply misplaced a decimal point. This was a very substantial donation that came in, and it was missing any indication as to what grade it was meant to help win. Perhaps it was a mistake of some other sort, meant for some other school, or for some other purpose. Some of us may have even had an inkling that it was one of those scams where somebody gives you a pile of money and then writes to tell you it was all a big oopsie, and if you could please return all but 10% of the deposit, which you’re welcome to keep because you’re so kind, only to find out the deposit was somehow faked and now you’re out a pile of your own money.

But it wasn’t a mistake! It was just a very generous donation to the Johnson Elementary PTO meant to help the first grade overcome the second grade in the Change Challenge. We were eventually able to make contact with the most significant single donor in PTO history, and she assured us that all was right, and we assured her that we were, and are, incredibly grateful for her and her family’s generosity.

So this year’s Change Challenge will have two grade winners, because we are not about to tell the second graders that they lost after we told them that they won. There’s just so many of them! You wouldn’t want to make them mad, either.

Congratulations to the first graders! You get an ice cream party and to turn Mr. K into a human ice cream sundae, too! And all together, Johnson students raised $3,243.73 for the PTO with this year’s Change Challenge! Thank you again for your amazing generosity, everyone.

October Sunshine Committee Reminder

Laura Jordan is heading up this month’s October Sunshine project, with the hopes to shower the teachers and staff with so much pumpkin spice and cinnamon nice that they’ll be BEGGING for peppermint season. Please click the button below to sign up to bring in some autumnal teas, or some harvest-y baked goods, or some apple-y cider, or a nice fall-themed coffee creamer.

CHIMM Fundraiser Night Reminder

Last year, we raised a nice pile of cash by partnering with Chimm Thai restaurant for a Johnson spirit night, so we’re doing it again. Tuesday, October 22 will be Johnson night at Chimm in 5th Street Station. More details to come, but for now just consider making next Tuesday a Chimm night for dinner. You’ll be able to order for takeout or you can go to their place and dine in, and as long as you mention that you’re there in support of Johnson Elementary, we’ll get a percentage of your meal’s cost donated back to the PTO. Thanks so much to the fine folks at Chimm for doing this for us again this year.

Other Ongoing Business Links

Thanks as always! Talk to you soon.