Helios Community Association

The Helios Community Association (HCA) is Helios’ volunteer organization that was created to enhance and support the educational experience at Helios, to develop a closer connection between school and home by encouraging parental involvement, and to improve the environment at Helios through volunteer and financial support.  

Our tireless HCA volunteers put on events throughout the year to bring staff, kids, parents, and families together and offer support. We kicked off the school year with our annual Family Camping Trip - an all school tradition of spending two nights together in the redwoods. We are looking forward to hosting a fall festival, outdoor movie nights, monthly hikes, celebrating our diversity at International Night, and spending the night with the penguins at the Cal Academy of Sciences.  

To support our continued growth, we also host a variety of seminars for the parent community to learn information as it pertains to our children (e.g. gifted), or to offer community support of one another through the use of speakers, staff presentations and discussion forums, as well as follow-up conversations to Common Ground presentations. We are members of the Common Ground Speaker Series, a parent education consortium dedicated to inspiring strong families and engaging school communities through distinguished speaker events, all provided free for the Helios community.

Foundational to the HCA is support for our amazing teachers and staff. This year we welcomed them to the new school year with gifts and are looking forward to showing our appreciation with snacks on professional development days, holiday and end-of-the-year gifts, celebrating teacher appreciation week, Valentine's Day cards, and continuing our tradition to donate to the staff member's favorite cause for their birthday.

Finally, HCA also volunteers time during the day for student specific events. We are excited to celebrate with a Halloween parade, winter festivities, Earth Day celebration and a great year end carnival and graduation. 

All of these activities are part of HCA's overall vision to provide the school community a culture of support, caring, inclusiveness, appreciation of differences, open dialogue, and fun.

Informational Events:

• Parent Education Evenings
• Parent Coffees 
• Parent Evening Group Discussion

Social Events:

• Summer Playdates and Parkdates 
• Welcome Back Social
• Helios Hikes
• Family Camping Trip 
• Outdoor Movie Nights 
• International Night
• Museum Sleepover
• Holiday Party 
• Spring Celebration - night out for parents, teachers and staff to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate the closing of another great school year. This is a catered wine and food event for maximum relaxation.

Staff/Teacher support:

• Conference Weeks - snacks for staff
• Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week
• Staff Development/In-Service Day Lunches 
• Room Parents 
• Holiday / End-of-year Gifts (all teachers/staff) - The HCA takes care of gifts so you don’t have to!
• Valentine Cards 
• Birthdays (all teachers/staff) 

Daytime During School Events:

• School Halloween Party - costume parade and fun activities for the kids during the school day
• Earth Day Activities
• Graduation / End-of-Year Party 

---

2022-2023 HCA Team

Chairs: Kristal Ferchau & Liz Mena 

Treasurer: Saumya Mohan