Cunningham Park ES PTA

Each year, donations from Cunningham Park families help fund the numerous programs the PTA supports and sponsors. Our primary source of fundraising is the Cardinal Campaign. It is because of your support of our PTA that we are able to provide community nights, assemblies, after-school activities, school technology and books. We are also able to help reduce the cost of field trips and subsidize field trip bus expenses. Unlike other fundraisers during which children need to sell something, 100% of all funds from the Cardinal Campaign support CPES.

In addition to funding our core events and programs, this year we want to help our teachers Take Learning Outside with a new outdoor classroom! Our teachers have a multitude of resources available to them inside the four walls of the school, but imagine what they could do with a true outdoor classroom that includes seating, workspaces for students, a weather station, and more! The opportunities of what they can teach outside are endless. Many regular classroom lessons can be taken outside to the fresh air, but think of the 2nd grade monarch butterfly unit and the chance to see a butterfly float by during the lesson. In kindergarten, students learn about the lifecycle of the pumpkin. Instead of taking a walk outside once or twice to the community garden to see the pumpkins, imagine being outside every week for a month or two and seeing how much the pumpkins grow each week. In 6th grade, the weather unit can be studied using a weather monitoring station. Not only can science lessons be taught outside, the spectrum of FCPS curriculum from reading to writing to math at every grade level can be taught outside, too! With an outdoor classroom, all of this, and more are possible. To create this educational space, we aim to raise $15,000 during this year’s Cardinal Campaign.