PTO Events and Meetings
Meeting Notes
PTO meeting notes September 7th 2011
Welcome and dinner with childcare provided in the band room.
Principal Report
Mr. Coon reported that the school year is off to a great start. The entire school is embracing the message "I Matter" which is a theme presented to staff at inservice and parents at first day. To see the video presented go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHdHUzRnms&feature=youtube_gdata_player. He announced that Amy Bourdeaux has been hired as the character education specialist. The focus of school wide service learning this year will be Hurricane Irene relief.
Budget-Lora reviewed the basic finances of the PTO noting that the primary focus is fundraising to cover the cost of field trips for each class. It was noted that all classes now are expected to go on a field trip or comparable experience. The administration has the necessary forms for teachers to submit field trip requests. Other grants are approved on a case by case basis.
Fundraising- Heather reports that the Greeat American fundraiser is out and going well with the assembly yesterday. Help will be needed on Sept. 24th to tally the orders. The other major fundraiser will be support a swan and will kick off at Open House on Sept. 22nd. Look for more info on that to come.
Community relations- Greta reports first day went well. Sara M will work on setting up details for Movie Night in October. PTO will be at Open House with smells, support a swan and volunteer sign ups.
Playground- anyone who would like to be involved with playground fundraising and planning please let the PTO know.
Challenger learning center- the PTO continues to support the CLC. We are announcing a take out dinner and Zumbathon in September look for more info to come.
Coordinator Report-
Thank you to all who helped with first day. Pens were distributed to all teachers and magnets with school contact info to all families. Please give the PTO your email if you want to continue on the email list even if you were on it last year. The school is looking for 2 parents to be a part on advisory design team with the school. Meetings are on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 3PM. Please contact the PTO if you are interested or for more info. The music department asked if they have a specific budget from the PTO, traditionally the PTO has not budgeted this and has approved music grants on a case by case basis. I will inform the music department. Cindy Rose requested PTO funds to cover medallions for each student and staff with the IMatter saying on them, a motion was made by Missy Forey to approve 250$ for this, it was seconded by Heather Digby and it approved unanimously. The school website being out of date was brought up by numerous parents as an issue. I surveyed PTO members via survey monkey to see if this was a topic PTO members wanted to advocate for. The results show that it is a topic worth advocating for. The survey was shared with the group and administration. The administration will share it with staff and the topic is on the school board meeting next Monday. Parking lot issues were brought up by a parent in attendance. Mr. Coon will try using cones and continue to gather info to see what might be done to minimize the problems. The walking school bus will start next week, see the info in the Wednesday Weekly. The next PTO meeting will be October 3rd. We will be trying to arrange for the Abbey to come and speak to us about the new federal school lunch programs.
