Rising Star Elementary

02/11/2026

We have some date changes for Rising Star PTA events!

02/11/2026

🚨Email legislators ASAP🚨

Use openstates.org to find your STATE LEVEL Senator (Upper chamber) and House Representative (Lower chamber).

Email your legislators as indicated below. More info on both bills can be found at bit.ly/SMACFeb1026Alert.

HB 2468 — Email your House Representative. Let them know your are a constituent. Urge them to vote no on HB 2468. Tell them to invest in fully funding special education, not diverting needed funds to private schools.

SB 387 — Email your Senator. Let them know your are a constituent. Urge them to vote no on SB 387. Tell them to protect the free and reduced lunch program and at-risk funding for vulnerable students.

02/11/2026

TOMORROW through Saturday, Feb 12-14, mention Rising Star when you treat yourself at and they'll donate 15% back to the school! 🧋

02/10/2026

👓😎🌟🫶

02/09/2026

Spring Picture Day is coming up on Friday February 20! Order online at inter-state.com/order using Order Code 0381FNF.

¡El día de las fotos de primavera se acerca! Será el viernes 20 de febrero. Haz tu pedido en línea en inter-state.com/order usando el código de pedido 0381FNF.

02/08/2026

A special shoutout to our amazing Mathletics teams! The participated in Regionals last week and our 5th and 6th grade teams placed 2nd! We are so proud of our entire Mathletics crew for representing 🙌🫶🌟

02/07/2026

Hi again, Star Community! As usual, we have the latest and greatest for what's happening and coming up at Rising Star in our weekly Update. Please be sure to check out the upcoming dates section as we have many events and schedule changes over the next few weeks. We also have included a link to pre-register for our Winter parties next week, similar to what we did in the Fall. We are excited to see many of you next week at conferences as well! Have a wonderful weekend, Stars! https://app.smore.com/n/v9j0g6

Jess Risinger

Star Community Update

02/06/2026

Mark your calendars!
Next week, Feb 12-14, mention Rising Star when you treat yourself at and they'll donate 15% back to the school! 🧋

02/05/2026

SAVE THE DATE for an upcoming SKATE!
Friday, February 27th at Skate City Shawnee - 9800 W. 62nd Terr, Merriam KS

02/05/2026

Monday's committee hearings were disappointing.

The House K-12 Education Budget Committee recommended an increase of just $10 million in special education funding, far short of what is needed. The two SMSD area representatives on the committee, Rep. Jarrod Ousley and Rep. Mari-Lynn Poskin, pushed for additional funding, but their attempts were voted down. The budget process continues in other committees starting on Thursday. We must keep the pressure on lawmakers to fully fund special education!

The House Education Committee ended up passing the voucher expansion bill (HB 2468). SMSD area rep Linda Featherston proposed an amendment that would prevent expansion if special education wasn't fully funded, but the committee chair ruled the amendment not germane and a vote was not taken. Bill HB 2468 that will expand the current voucher program in Kansas and opt Kansas into the new federal level voucher program (more public dollars being diverted to private schools) will now go to the floor of the House for a vote sometime before Feb 19.

See the document at bit.ly/SMAC2-4-26Alert for easy links to use your voice to tell lawmakers to focus on fully funding special education and not sending more public dollars to private schools.

01/30/2026

Happy Friday! Thank you to everyone that came out last night for our STEAM Night - we truly couldn't make nights like these possible without our incredible PTA and staff that volunteer their time and efforts to make events like that so successful - THANK YOU! As we head into February next week, please be sure to check the update for the conference sign-up links as conferences are filling up quickly! Lastly, please make note of upcoming dates as there are a few 'no school' days this month. https://app.smore.com/n/tn1ge8

Stay Warm, Stars!

Jess Risinger

Star Community Update

01/30/2026

it’s another week in review at this special school of ours 😊

An extra HUGE shout out to our incredible teacher Ava Hauser for having bringing this STEAM night to life alongside our all star PTA! 🔭🙌

Our sweet kinder stars celebrated 100 days in school! ⭐️👏

You belong here🫶