Dowling Newsletter - April 10, 2026

5th Grade Graduation

5th Grade Families- Save the Date- 5th Grade Celebration, Tuesday, June 9, 2:30pm-3:30pm. Please join us for a casual, interactive station-style celebration.

Earth Day events at Dowling

Wednesday, April 22 Earth Day at Dowling

• Grades K-3: We are so thrilled to host author/illustrator, Katie Yamasaki. Katie Yamasaki will share her upcoming picture book, Ripples. If you would like to order one of these books for your child, you can do so directly from this link, or by using the QR code below.

• Grade 4: Students will be off at Eagle Bluff for their overnight Fieldtrip. 
• Grade 5: Earth Day Service Project for the School

Saturday, May 2, 2:00pm-5:00pm at Dowling

The PTO will host a Get Outdoors/ Earth Day Clean Up Event for students and families. More details to come! 

Community Earth Day Events at Matthews Park:

April 12 2pm-4pm Potluck and Clothing Swap- Matthews Rec Center. “Clothing for all ages are welcome, spring and summer preferred.”

April 19 2pm-4pm Earth Day Art in the Park- Matthews Park “Together we will create a sun print activity using foraged materials from the park around us. All ages welcome.”

State testing

Students in grades 3-5 will be taking the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA)/Alternative MCAs in the coming weeks. MCA measures the success of instruction based on the Minnesota Academic Standards. Please watch for communication from your student's teacher about when their classes will be taking the MCAs. 

Dowling Wishlist

Please check out the Dowling wishlist. We’d be very grateful for any donations!

Minneapolis Kids

Save the date! Registration for before and after school care for the 2026-2027 school year opens soon:

• Friday, April 17th, at 7am for CURRENT families
• Friday, April 24th,  at 7am for NEW families

Questions about billing? Reach out to the Minneapolis Kids Main Office at mpls.kids@mpls.k12.mn.us or at (612) 668 - 3890.

Questions about Dowling Minneapolis Kids programming? Reach out to Maya Christensen, Program Coordinator at maya.christensen@mpls.k12.mn.us. 

Community Opportunities

Minneapolis Park Board Youth Volleyball 

YWCA Camp Pepin: English, Español

Dowling PTO

April at a Glance

4/13 PTO meeting 6:30 pm in cafeteria or virtual (cc available)

Virtual meeting access: https://meet.google.com/tcn-ekno-cjg

Meeting agendas can be found at Current year minutes: 

2026-2027 PTO Board

PTO board elections are coming up in May, and nearly all seats will be open for election. This is a great opportunity to get more involved, meet other families, and help shape the year ahead at Dowling. If you’re even a little curious, we’d love to hear from you. You can express interest by emailing board@dowlingpto.org. We’ll be reviewing interest and sharing a proposed slate at Monday’s PTO meeting (April 13th).

Read-a-thon Update

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Dowling Read-a-thon! We're looking forward to the in-school celebration next Friday, April 17, and will share an update on results of the schoolwide reading minutes and fundraiser in the coming weeks.

The PTO board is grateful for the volunteers who coordinated the Read-a-thon and continue to work on tallying minutes and planning the upcoming celebration!

Call for Yearbook Photos!

A group of parent volunteers are hard at work creating the yearbook. If you have any candid photos to share, please upload them to potentially be included in the yearbook. upload yearbook photos here!

Upcoming Events in May! We need YOU!

We have multiple fun events planned in May and we will need volunteers to pull them off. 

-Get Outdoors event Saturday 5/2/26 1-5 PM on the school grounds. Stick around after the PTO meeting 4/13 (approx 7:45 pm, hybrid format) to help plan this event.

-Bike, walk, roll to school 5/6/26, more details to come!

-Dance 5/8/26, evening with exact time TBD at the school in the cafeteria. Volunteers will be needed for set up, during the event and clean up. email board@dowlingpto.org if you can help. 

-Carnival date and time TBD but this will be end of May or early June, stay tuned for details. 

Fridays “Stay to Play on the Ramps” from 4:05-5:00 p.m.

Join us for Friday Fun on the Ramps Playground after school to play and catch up with friends. Many thanks to parent volunteer Katie Murray for coordinating this event again!

Mutual Aid Update 

We have learned through this experience that there is an ongoing, general need within our school community for periodic support. To that end, we are clarifying that funds after this point will go toward meeting mutual aid needs whether or not the need was directly created by federal immigration action.

We are so grateful to everyone who has provided support and continues to support our amazing community. Thank you!

https://givebutter.com/community2026

MembershipToolkit

To get information from the PTO and connect with other families, you'll need to register or update your profile on Membership Toolkit. The district can't share your information, so this is the only way to be included in the school directory and receive important updates.

Register here: https://dowlingpto.membershiptoolkit.com