Volunteer Awards: Every year, the PTA recognizes a few individuals who have dedicated countless hours of their time in an effort to make OV an even more amazing place.  We’ve given these awards out in the past week.  Here are the 2021-22 recipients! 

The Golden Acorn Award: This award is presented to a volunteer or volunteers in recognition of their dedication and outstanding service to the youth in the Olympic View community. This person will likely have donated their time to multiple classrooms and have helped many OV staff and students. It is to recognize volunteer service "above and beyond" a particular job description.

The first Golden Acorn award for this year is given to Kim Davis.
Kim has spent countless hours over the past 6 years providing enriching experiences to OV students and families through the arts. She’s been key to securing art residencies, has led the Art Committee with Liz Law, volunteered as an art docent, put on Science Week this year, ran the online cake contest in the fall, and can pretty much be found whenever there is a call for volunteers.  On top of that, she is an incredible and kind person who really cares about the school, staff, and kids.  This is Kim’s last year at OV; we’ve been lucky to have her!

The second Golden Acorn award this year is going to two people, because, although they were nominated both separately and together, they will always be remembered as The Mask Ladies:  Liz Knaster and Tiffany McNees.
Together, they created a community centered outreach program to educate and provide free face masks for OV teachers, staff, and students. They have impacted every classroom at OV.  They researched masks, trained staff after school, were present every Tuesday morning at the mask table, ran a weekend event, created flyers, and spoke at our PTA meeting. This unique resource at OV would not have happened without Liz and Tiffany's dedication, experience, and countless volunteer hours throughout the school year. Separately, they have also been amazing volunteers.  Tiffany has baked treats for the OV staff on multiple occasions and has been a classroom volunteer.  Liz has helped pack Eagle Packs and worked with the OV Safety Committee, helping to make sure teachers emergency backpacks and OV’s earthquake supplies are updated and organized. OV is fortunate that they’ll both be around for a few more years!

The Lifetime Olympic View Elementary (LOVE) Award: This is an award recognizing individuals who have given countless hours of time to Olympic View, whether it be in classrooms, the office, the building, the neighborhood, etc. This would be someone who has gone beyond the normal scope of their job to enhance the entire community at Olympic View.

This year, the PTA proudly presents this award to two retiring teachers, Pam Heindl and Lisa Boveng.
As many of you know, Pam Heindl has spent her whole career at Olympic View.  She has nurtured many little hearts and minds, and supported all of her students and families as they made the transition to kindergarten.  She is an amazingly kind, caring, and dedicated teacher.  Ms. Heindl is loved by so many kids, parents, and teachers; you can see it as even the older kids make sure to say hi to her in the morning.  In addition to being an amazing teacher, Mrs. Heindl has also supported the OV community by running the holiday food and toy drive for many years.
Ms. Boveng started her career as a scientist and brought her love and enthusiasm for science to OV over 30 years ago.  Our students have had the opportunity to learn from an engaging and knowledgeable teacher.  Countless students have considered themselves scientists because of Ms. Boveng.  Not only is she a fantastic teacher who sparks curiosity every day, but she is highly respected by other teachers and staff.  She cares deeply for her students and the entire OV community.
We will miss both Mrs. Heindl and Ms. Boveng.  We thank them both for their many years of teaching at OV and hope they enjoy the adventures to come!

Thank you also to Mr. Claudio, who is also retiring this year.  He's a previous LOVE award winner, and we'll miss seeing him at OV every day!