Congratulations to the incoming 2023-2024 PTO Board and SDMC Parent Representative. Thank you to all of the nominees for your willingness to step up and volunteer your time and talents.
Contested positions:
SDMC Parent Rep
Frank Lin
Communications Director
Janine McClenny
Please note: The election for Patrinia’s unexpired SDMC seat will take place next week on April 20. The link will be shared on Bloomz.
The final slate of candidates for that role are as follows:
MIMS PTO Board Elections are coming in April for the 2023-2024 school year.
The nominating committee has been actively recruiting nominees and potential committee chairs since February. If you are interested in running for a role, we WELCOME your interest! You can review the bylaws and these posts from the past to learn more about the roles available. We’d love to see multiple nominees for each role and a full slate of potential committee chairs.
Two positions are appointed based on previous roles:
Immediate Past President: Libby Ingrassia
Treasurer: Hattie Meng
SDMC Parent Representatives
In addition, PTO selects our parent representatives via election run concurrently with the PTO Board election. The two SDMC Parent Representatives each serve two years, with one being eligible for election each year.
SDMC Parent Representative: Frank Lin, Matthew Yang, Ming Liu
Elections
We will be sharing candidate bios and their statements about what they hope to accomplish over the next week. At the April 6th PTO meeting (12 noon, via zoom), the candidates will introduce themselves. The nominating committee will accept any additional nominations from the floor – any PTO member may nominate themselves or another PTO member for any role at the meeting and for 24 hours thereafter (nominations will be accepted through 2 pm on 7 April).
Elections will be held the week of April 10th, online. Look for the ballot to be sent to all PTO members via Bloomz
The MIMS International Festival is coming up May 5, 2023.
The event will include International Festival, MIMS Got Talent, and Kids’ Marketplace. We’ll also invite incoming students and their families to get to know MIMS. We’ll have food plates and clubs at MIMS are invited to provide additional food or drinks as fundraisers (contact festivals@mimspto.org to reserve space).
PTO will be at school on Feb 1-3 to distribute wristbands, tickets, and t-shirts that were pre-sold and sell additional. You can also pick these items up at CNY Festival.
Read more for parking, volunteering, sponsorships, and ongoing details.
It’s Boosterthon time! That’s our second largest fundraiser of the year. This year, our goal is to raise about $50k total – enough to pay the event’s expenses and to put $35k toward raising enough for a new floor for our gym.
Our Winter Wonderland Fun runs are scheduled for December 2 and it’s TIME to register your kiddos for fundraising & prizes. If every student raises just $50, we will make our key goal of $35,000. That goal will get us about halfway to buying the new gym floor that our school needs.
Please take 5 minutes to register on http://myBooster.com, upload your kid’s photo, and share a link and/or video through your social media or email. If your kids were at MIMS the last time, it’s SUPER easy because it remembers who donated to them previously.
MIMS families, teachers, and PTO are so grateful to our fall donors. These companies and families donated to our fall auction. Combined with our sociables, the fall fundraising efforts raised almost $25k. These fundssupported our $18k donation to the Spark Park at MIMS – allowing us to complete the Spark II. The funds also go towards buying teachers new speakers, new microphones for the cafeteria, and subscriptions to the tools your teachers request for their classrooms. Thank you all for your work and contributions!
News Posted by libbybergman on Nov 07, 2022 in General News
Join us for the next Fu Friyay!! November 18 at the French Riviera on Chimney Rock. We will meet after drop off in the morning (~8:30 am). If you have never joined, this is a great way to meet other parents, ask questions, and socialize. See you there!
If you are considering MIMS for 2023, this is also a great way to get to know parents at the school, ask questions, and make connections!
Celebrate Hallowe’en with MIMS with a Trunk or Treat, followed by a MIMS Movie Night (showing Hocus Pocus). Everyone: bring your kids in costume to Trunk or Treat!
Trunk or Treat
Parents, sign up to host a “trunk.” You’ll decorate your trunk, provide candy or treats, and the kids will come walk through!
We’ll have one prize for a best decorated trunk. Please remember this is a family-friendly event. Keep your trunk PG and if it’s scary, please notify us so we can position your car appropriately.
News Posted by libbybergman on Oct 11, 2022 in General News
Thought you’d like a little early warning for shopping and planning so you can start your dress up celebrations early – and celebrate Red Ribbon Awareness week with these fun dress up days:
Monday, October 24 – Wear crazy hat and socks
Tuesday, October 25 – Wear Rock ‘n roll
Wednesday, October 26 – Miss Match (mismatch!) Day
Thursday, October 27 – Wear super hero gear
Friday, October 28 – Wear RED day
And then, of course, Book Character dress up and parade on October 31 (Monday).
Meet the MIMS Clubs, including Robotics Club, Garden Club, and more…
Communications
LivingTree is gone, but we’re working to get Bloomz up as soon as we can. In the meantime, look for announcements here on the MIMS PTO website, on the MIMS website, and in emails from Mr. Ying.
What can you do? Make sure your info with HISD and the school is accurate and up to date.
You’ll be able to BUY those sociables and bid on those auction items at our Fall Fundraising Festival on 30 September at King’s Bierhaus. We’ll gather from 7-11 pm to celebrate Oktoberfest and have some fun. The event is intended for adults, but the location is a restaurant, so kids can come if necessary.
If you have requests for topics or speakers for our next PTO meetings, let us know.
Drop-off, Pick-up, and You
So many of you have been doing a GREAT job at drop-off and pick-up. Thank you. And thanks for the volunteers who have supported the school and parents by helping with drop-off and pick-up procedures. For those who might need a little reminder, here are some key points.
School hours are 8:30 to 4 pm. The doors open at 8:15 in the morning.
Do not pull into or park in the teachers’ parking lot. It is reserved until after 5 pm.
If you drive through the line, make sure your kids have everything they need and can get in or out of the car seats on their own. If this ISN’T the case, park and walk up to the Dragon Door.
If you drive through the line, please don’t be distracted – pay attention, stay close to the car in front of you, stay to the right in first part of the line so those who want to park can drive to the left.
Do NOT drop off until you get to the drop off point in the map above. Don’t drop on Alabama or in the first or second part of the lot. It’s not safe.
If you need to park, use Yorktown, McCullough, or the spots in the middle of the main lot. Don’t park in the first section of the lot. Park close to the other cars so more folks can fit.
And most vitally: Be kind, please. One of our parents got screamed and yelled at for reminding someone they were dropping off in the wrong place. That’s not cool and it’s not how you’d want your kids to be treated or to treat others. We’re all running late, feeling stressed, and worried about getting where we need to be – don’t be the one hurting other people.
Grandparents Lunch
Grandparents lunch is this week – September 9 – read on for details!
We LOVE our volunteers. Already this year, you’ve made folks very happy by helping direct traffic before and after school, by helping with spirit wear, and supporting Tuesday folders.
Help with community fundraising or Spark Park fundraising or corporate fundraising
Sign up to help with Mid Autumn Festival
Diversity & Heritage committee needs a chair
Help with the boosterthon fun run
And many more opportunities
MIMS Directory
I still have my MIMS Directory from my first year at MIMS. We haven’t done one in recent years, but lots of folks have requested one. We’re working on it! If you want to be in the MIMS directory, please submit your info ASAP. We’d like to have this ready for October, but only if you submit your info! We won’t do the work if we don’t have a minimum of 200 families in the directory.
Spirit Wear
The spirit wear items you pre-ordered have been delivered. If you didn’t pick them up on 2 September, you can get them on 9 September, before or after school or at the Mid Autumn Festival. Contact Middle School VP Emily Shaffer if you have questions about spirit wear.
If you have uniform items (shirts, pants, shorts, skirts) that no longer fit but are in GOOD condition, you can bring those and drop them in the used uniform bin near the front office. These items will be available for trade! You can also trade qi pao (Chinese dress). Contact Caroline Long if you have questions about used uniforms or want to volunteer to help with the swap table at Mid Autumn Festival.
China Trip 2024
Join Ms. Xia in the meeting on 13 September at 6 pm on Zoom. See meeting details and register for the meeting here: https://bit.ly/3QXKx1W. Registration is mandatory, so don’t wait!
Ms. Xia will provide you more information regarding the trip details, itinerary, pricing, and scholarship opportunities! (your child can actually go to China with us for FREE!!!) Please register!
Just a quick update for you on our communications options.
Right now, both PTO and MIMS Admin use LivingTree to do “push” communications (meaning those that email or text you). Unfortunately, LivingTree is no longer going to sell the product we use, so we have to move off this platform. Our new platform is called Bloomz. PTO has signed the contract and are working actively with the MIMS Admin team to get it rolled out and get us and you all trained on it.
Some of you are still getting posts from LivingTree, but I know not all are. Both MIMS Admin and MIMS PTO are doing our best to share the information other places. Please try to be patient while we continue to work on this issue. Here are some spots you can try – if you know something others don’t, SHARE!
If it comes from MIMS PTO, we’ll post the info here on our site. Always.
Most grade levels have their own Facebook pages or WhatsApp groups – just ask around!
I know there’s an active WeChat group and we ask any parents who are part of that to share the information we share here or on LT or Fb to that as well.
We promise that as soon as possible, we’ll get Bloomz rolled out to you! Email info@mimspto.org if you have ongoing questions or comments.
News Posted by libbybergman on Aug 19, 2022 in General News
Did you know that you can subscribe to the MIMS PTO calendar? We put new events on the calendar every day, and it can be tough to keep up with everything. But if you subscribe to the MIMS PTO calendar, you can have them show up on the calendar you look at every day!
At the bottom of the page, click the Subscribe button.
Choose a type of calendar, such as you personal Google calendar, an Outlook calendar, or a variety of others.
You can subscribe all events (the default), but you can also choose a category or tag at the top of the calendar before you subscribe – that will subscribe you to those categories or tags only.
We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events – and we hope you’ll subscribe to the calendar to keep up with all we’re doing!
Now is the perfect time to start thinking about what sociable or sociables you want to host! This a fun and great way to help raise funds for our school!
What is a Sociable?
A sociable is a party or event that you throw – by yourself or with a group, for adults or kids or both – just pick a theme any theme! You pay the costs and we sell the tickets at our Fall Fundraising Festival. The funds raised through ticket sales go to the PTO to help pay for things like the new gym floor that our school needs, water bottle fillers, Quizlet, other teacher supplies and subscriptions, and more.
Sociables are also one of the BEST ways to get to know other MIMS families – they’re so much fun! Here are some examples of sociables from years past:
Halloween Story Time – we had Mr. Ying come read a Halloween book in Chinese; we read one in English; we did Halloween crafts; we ate pumpkin food. We co-hosted this event with a teacher and held it right after school.
Songs & Soju – an awesome team of moms held a moms & teachers event where we ate and drank and sang karaoke
Dragons Love Tacos – we read the book, at dragon-themed food, made crafts, played dragons
Gymnastics – hosted at a gymnastics gym where the kids played and had snacks
Cookie decorating – lots of versions of this for kids, for adults, Christmas-themed
Crawfish boil
MIMS Mini- Mudder
Super Groovy 70’s Disco Party ( Adult Only)
Mother Daughter Tea
Mediterranean Dinner
Mixing It Up with Mini Chefs at Dream Dinners
Bollywood Social
4th Grade Boys Video Game Party
Mixology for MOMS
Pre-K Holiday Books & Jammies
Gingerbread House Decorating
Just Dance Disco Party
End Of The Year Pool Party
Yoga
Tennis
and so many more!
Submit your sociables no later than September 17 – tickets will go on sale at the Fall Fundraising Festival and be on sale until all tickets are sold. The earlier you send in your item, the more time you have to advertise or promote your event and/or item!! If you have any questions, email communityfundraising@mimspto.org.
Some of us are a little sad or worried about our kids starting school or going back to school.
Some of us are SO happy and excited that the kids are starting or back in school.
The Boohoo-Woohoo is our chance to celebrate (or commiserate) with you on the first day.
Join us at Dish Society (5740 San Felipe St #100, Houston, TX 77057) on 22 August from 8:15 am – 9:30 am.
Note: Dish Society is giving 20% back to MIMS for your spending from 8 am – 1 pm! Be sure to tell them you’re with MIMS PTO so we get our spirit fundraising.
Join us for the 
Pre-order CNY t-shirts are available through 27 January.
It’s Boosterthon time! That’s our second largest fundraiser of the year. This year, our goal is to raise about $50k total – enough to pay the event’s expenses and to put $35k toward raising enough for a new floor for our gym. 
Our Winter Wonderland Fun runs are scheduled for December 2 and it’s TIME to register your kiddos for fundraising & prizes. 
Right now we have not quite 10% of our students registered – 
Celebrate Hallowe’en with MIMS with a Trunk or Treat, followed by a MIMS Movie Night (showing Hocus Pocus). Everyone: bring your kids in costume to Trunk or Treat!
Hi all – Especially until we have our new platform, I’ll try to put everything I can up here on the PTO website. Please share with your MIMS friends!
Hi families –
Did you know that you can subscribe to the MIMS PTO calendar? We put new events on the calendar every day, and it can be tough to keep up with everything. But if you 
Now is the perfect time to start thinking about what sociable or sociables you want to host! This a fun and great way to help raise funds for our school!
Sociables are also one of the BEST ways to get to know other MIMS families – they’re so much fun! Here are some examples of sociables from years past:
What’s a Boohoo – Woohoo, you ask?