6:31 – Angie Meeker – PTO President called the meeting to order. Daughter, Naila in 7th grade.
Introductions of people present and their child/grade.
6:33 – Updates
- CURRENT STATUS OF OFFICERS
- President and Comms roles in the PTO resigned.
- Down 2 officers. Have gotten good responses for people to fill in for missing roles.
- VP role is still open for the remainder of the year – mostly organizing volunteers for the Phoenix Fair
- OFFICERS FOR NEXT YEAR
- Also – Elections are open as of tonight for next year. If you’re interested, that opens tonight. You can submit your entries on the website. At the next meeting, we’ll present names for everyone who submitted their names. At the April meeting, we’ll vote.
6:36
TREASURERS REPORT (Melody Reed)
- See handout for a review of the January 2019 financial report
6:39
Mrs. R’s report
- Recognize and welcome Angie as our new PTO President and others who have stepped up
- Thankful for the PTO to feed teachers on both nights of Parent Teacher Conferences
- Final night of parent teacher conferences is tomorrow night. If you have a question about a grade or want to schedule a conference, please contact your student’s teacher
- Celebrations
- Shout out to our Green Team – made the front page of the DIspatch yesterday. Heading up efforts for our school to go Green. Includes efforts for composting,e tc.
- Start with Hello Club – Last week was relationship week. This group of kids created activities for kids to encourage relationship. Included post-its notes in the hallway using deeply en
- Middle School Math team was 1st place during last week’s Mashup.
- Recognizing 5th grade scholar chosen to be a part of district’s honor choir. 1 of 4 to be selected for a solo
- All events on school calendar and Google calendar
- Looking for ways to celebrate CGA’s 5th year. Wanted to find a way for every student to get a cupcake. February 24th is the day it was announced. Maybe we can do an all-school event. Going to do a field day during lunch time to do a small celebration of our 5th bday
- Question?
- Should students ice them? There are a variety of dietary needs to keep into consideration
6:45
UPCOMING EVENT
- Winterfest was cancelled due to changes in PTO. Next year, we’ll plan on Novemberfest.
- Skating Party, Silly String a Teacher (theme) – Mrs. Murphy will be the tribute
- March 9
- Dropped off fliers this week – there’s a box of those that were dropped off in the main office
- An existing parent volunteer in the office will drop those off to each class
- Phoenix Fair – May 9
- Mostly outdoors, end of year festival
- Planning meeting on 2/29 at the Panera in Grandview to nail down details on what we want to have happen there. (Mrs. R. can’t be there).
6:48
NEW BUSINESS
- Mrs. Murphy – Service Over Self team (call themselves Green Team) wanted to reduce the amount of trash we put in the landfill. Have begun recycling. Looking at compostable lunch trays and composting food leftover. Partnering with local company to “Compost Exchange” Composting is not too costly, but have an agreement to do it for just $100 for the rest of the school year. Our hope is that we create something for parents to take a bucket and compost at home, paying a small fee for that. (They will bring back soil if we want it)
- Request is for $100 for the cost of composting (including dairy and meat)
- Background: PTO budgets for roughly $4,000 for this year for this mini requests from teachers. On page 1 of the Finance report, it indicates that only roughly $1,200 was requested so far. At the end of last year, we got large requests. There were several requests that came through last minute.
- VOTE: APPROVED
- Mrs. Ferrell – PennyHarvest class – requesting a coin sorter and pizza party for winning PennyHarvest class. This was already approved by the Board, $160).
- Mrs. R is requesting breakfast for 25 for the Region VI Administrator meeting. Angie Meeker mentioned a potential donation. Melody mentioned that this would be a tax deductible donation.
- VOTE: No need to vote. This could be donated.
- Middle School submitted a request for 50 calculators for testing. This would be owned by the testing department and kept aside strictly for testing for the middle schoolers. We may be able to get this for less. The request and cost was equal to $1,000.
- Question: can they use a calculator for SAT or ACT. Students are permitted to bring in calculators. These are not the kind that store programs, and students would not be able to take them for the SAT and ACT. Concern to familiarize themselves with the calculators they’d be required to use for the other standardized testing.
- ACTION: Angie to confirm with Middle School teacher that students would be permitted to use this kind of calculator on other standardized testing. (This is also the same type of calculator listed on the school supply list).
- QUESTION: This calculator was on our supply list at the beginning of the school year – what happened to all of those?
- The district used to provide a supply of testing calculators.
- Angie: This feels like a reasonable request – it’s large, but feels reasonable. and benefits the entire middle school. Melody: We can also put in an addendum that we’ll look for the best price. Mrs. Murphy – Some kids have access to more resources than others. This makes sure that everyone has the same things on the same days. Mrs. R: in a community as diverse as ours, the have nots become very pronounced.
- VOTE: APPROVED
- Bench for CGA 5-year anniversary:
- This was already approved at the last meeting.
- $1,350, A Carpenter’s Son. 6 ft long w CGA logo engraved. Needs 6-8 weeks for delivery. Meets criteria of durable, easily cleaned, portable and branded.
- Exact model used for other schools. Easy to clean and maintain. Reputable company – everything wood is being done by A Carpenter’s Son.
- Hoping to have this delivered no later than Field Day
- QUESTION: If money for some of our families is such an issue, why are we spending so much on this bench?
- There’s a time and space to reinforce community.
- What about Novemberfest?
- We didn’t have the resources of time and man hours to complete that?
- Idea for playground equipment
- Needs to be approved by the District.
- There are some things in our scope that the PTO can impact. The playground and the “grounds” are not things we can put our money towards.
- We’re hopeful that this building is temporary. Some of our people like this building – but there are some facilities complications/issues
- 8th Grade Goodbye Gifts
- Each year the PTO provides a small token of appreciation to give 8th grade students on their way into high school. Usually something like a water bottle or a key chain.
- One daughter shared that a keychain is a terrible idea.
- Melody: can we just give them $5?
- IDEA: Can we look up a few different ideas and let the kids vote on it? Maybe do it as a Google Form?
- Each year the PTO provides a small token of appreciation to give 8th grade students on their way into high school. Usually something like a water bottle or a key chain.
7:17 – Spiritwear
- Typically available the first week of the school year. THe vendor we’ve been working with to deliver designs had failed to meet deadlines a few weeks in a row.
- Illustrator in our school (Erin) working with us to design something for this year. The one that’s branded is already taken care of. Design will be shared by March 1st – going to set up a site directly on our site this year – using a company called printful. Their prices are on par with what we were paying going through a 3rd party vendor. That should be available March 1st. Fulfillment – we can order a number of products to keep at the school – but most of the orders will be delivered straight to the school to prevent us to have to keep an inventory here.
- QUESTION: about pricing. There’s a local company that will cut prices for schools.
- Angie: I don’t want to miss timing for this fundraiser because it’s one of our biggest income streams
- Parent: My only request is that for lanyards include a safety breakaway
7:21 – The Big Give
- Columbus Foundation runs a fundraiser every year – providing matching for nonprofits. it’s June 10-11.
- Mrs. R – even though school is out, she’s in through June 17th and can continue to use school comms channels
- Melody: The other wonderful thing is Columbus Foundation covers all the credit card fees
- Angie: It would be nice to have some other school fundraiser at that time – maybe per grade or something along those lines. Maybe using our parking lot for June Gallery Hop – maybe ComFest parking. Those would be matched.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Dates for remaining meetings – all in the cafeteria at 6:30 PM
- Thursday, 3/26
- Thursday, 4/23
- Tuesday, 5/26
7:25 – REMINDER – all positions are open for next year.
- Melody is the only one left who has no time left on her term. She has to go. We definitely need a Treasurer for next year. All other positions are open. If we have someone from a younger grade who’s interested, I think that’s probably the better path forward.
- Melody: This is my 3rd year on the board and I was kinda forced into it in the beginning. There’s lots of training and support if you want to get involved.
- Angie: My daughter wants me to be involved moving forward so I can have some part in planning a party for Founders graduation. 🙂
QUESTIONS
- There was talk about aquaponics.
- Mrs R.: the tank arrived week before last – it’s all set up and ready to go in some classrooms upstairs.