KensingtonElementary School
PTO Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date / 5/13/10 6:30 pm-8pmKES Library
Child care to be provided if necessary
Attendance: / Breta Palmer - President
Jennifer Fleisher – Vice President(A)
Margherita Savarese- Treasurer
Grace Beason- Secretary
Amy Phifer– Past President, Member -at-large
Noreen Hall – Member-at-larger
Barbara Switzer – Principal
(A) - absent / Maggi Kilcoyne – Teacher Liaison (A)
Lynn Bonitatibus - Volunteer Coordinator
Heather Douglas-Volunteer (A)
Michelle Hopps- Volunteer (A)
Julie Hall – Enrichment Committee Coordinator (A)
Amy Sanderson
Next Meeting Date: / 6/10/09 6:30 pm-8pm
Regular meetings will be held on the 2nd Thursday of the month 6:30- 7:30 PM at the KES school library.
Topic / Discussion Points / Action Items / Owner
Announcements
- No announcements this meeting.
Reports
President Report
STANDING ITEM /
- Breta learned from Lisa that the old dishes which were donated to a local shelter.
- Cash value program – Breta did get in touch with the salesperson – the company was bought out but he will be in touch when they are ready to resume sales.
- Lisa wanted to thank everyone on the board and the parents for teacher appreciation week.
Principal Report
STANDING ITEM / Barbara thanked the PTO for the great teacher appreciation week. The food was great, the dinner was very nice and it was great to have the time to relax. The teachers were so surprised and appreciative of the kitchen refresh. The absolutely loved it!
- Next week 4th grade will be taking NECAP Science exams.
- 2 teacher graduations:
- Chris Culver completed her Educational Leadership degree
- Suzy Gilbert completed her degree in Library Sciences.
Last day of school will be June 17th – The afternoon is lunch and then the teachers do a play. PTO will give out popcorn that day as an end of the year treat.
Amy Sanderson will coordinate the Kindergarten play date in August.
Noreen Hall will coordinate the 1st grade play date in August.
Nancy Roffman and some of the other teachers would like to do some planting to get the flower beds ready for the summer and maybe start a gardening club. Barbara asked Lynn to add that to the Volunteer list. Lynn will check the list to see if anyone is on the volunteer list for gardening and if not she will send out a request. Lynn has also been added onto the Kensington Facebook page as an Administrator and she can add in a request from there.
A full schedule of events is on the school calendar. See KES web page. / Barbara
Secretary Report
STANDING ITEM /
- Grace to follow up with Jennifer on April Meeting Minutes.
Treasurer Report
STANDING ITEM / For full monthly budget see PTO web page.
- Margheritadistributed and reviewed the current budget for April and May, including a number of expenses.
- The Audit is complete and everything went well. The auditor did bring up the outstanding checks that have not yet been cashed – this was also discussed in March Meeting. Margherita will send out letters asking anyone who has outstanding old checks to tear them up and ask Margherita for a new one. She will then give them no more than 60 days to cash checks.
Vice President Report
STANDING ITEM /
- No update this meeting
Teachers Report
STANDING ITEM /
- No update this meeting
Volunteer Update
STANDING ITEM /
- Spirit wear was passed out today.
- Field Day is being coordinated for June
- Lynn agreed to stay on as Volunteer Coordinator for next year.
Enrichment Committee
STANDING ITEM /
- No official update this meeting.
- KES follies is being scheduled. Cancelled due to lack of participation
- Spring afterschool enrichment was cancelled
- Enrichment is looking at some fundraising for next year events such as a family scavenger hunt. Apple Hill is will to let us do a golf tournament due to the scope of planning such and event this will be look at for the Fall.
- Tick prevention education – Julie was held on Monday April 12th.
- Amy is planning to start a robotic Lego Club for next fall. At this point they have collected about $400 from this year’s dues that can go toward next year. To purchase the equipment she will need $ from the PTO but this will be reimbursed when dues are collect for next year’s Lego Club. The PTO voted unanimously to approve this loan.
Open Items
E-Newsletter & PTO Newsletter
OPEN ITEM / (this item was not addressed during this meeting)
- Amy issending out the ENews electronically weekly. Parents who wish to have the ENews sent to them electronically should contact Amy.
- Mary Larson is updating the KES website but has not been sending out KES school notices electronically.
- PTO newsletter is published monthly – This month there will be an announcement in the Community News letting parents know that the PTO newsletters will move toward electronic in the future.
- For the future, Amy S will send out an email to parents which includes an attachment of the PTO Newsletter.
Fund Raising
OPEN ITEM /
- Shopping bagssold at recent events.- will look at selling again next year.
- Notepads - sold at recent events.- will look at selling again next year.
- PTO bowling event at Leos held April 18th. 12-2.
- Family Movie night UP– March 26th- Cancelled not rescheduled
- Breathe NH – the book is $25 they sell them to the PTO for $20 and the PTO makes $5 per book. Noreen to discuss next meeting.Also suggested was to organize events so they fall monthly and then alternating family events with kids only events so that every other months the PTO could host a kids only event that would server as a parents night out. - This item was not acted upon this year but may be considered for an event next year.
- Cash Value Card – Peter Datillo came to present this program to the PTO. - This is on hold until next year - See President's report above.
The program is based on a “loyalty” card where local retailers participate in a program where as people present the card when they make purchases at participating retailers the card puts a % back to the card owner (which can be used toward future purchases) and also a % to a designated charity. Each retailer had their own % designations.
Card to nonprofits are as such – $0.40 for generic and $0.90 for designed with KES PTO. The charity passes them out and then card holders give the card when they make purchases. The cost is really to the retailers because they give back a percentage of their profit to the card holder and then to their designated charity/ nonprofit. The card owner can also change their designated charity The cards are pre-registered with a specified charity. Card holders only need to “register” their card to check balances and/or to change the charity or to check retailers.
In addition retailers can purchase cards and then hand them out. Checks are sent to the charity quarterly.
To check out the current retailers NH and MA:
Cashvalue.com
- T-shirt fund raiser - Noreen suggested having a raiser in the Spring - such as having student out in the school yard – maybe in spring then put the picture on t-shirt to sell as a fund raiser.- This item was not acted upon this year but may be considered for an event next year.
- Guard A Kid – Grace presented the program and is requesting that the PTO consider this for a fundraiser – Grace has volunteered to coordinate. Grace will volunteer to research this further as well as other programs. Grace will speak with Chief Sheehan and/or Tony at the KES Police to check this out. PTO will consider recommending this as an event for next Fall.- No new update will look at this for next school year.
Community News
OPEN ITEM / (this item was not addressed during this meeting) / Noreen.
Popcorn Sales
OPEN ITEM /
- Popcorn will continue through the end of the year. On the last day of school, which is a Thursday instead of a Friday, PTO will give out popcorn free to all students.
New Items
Box tops
New Item / (this item was not addressed during this meeting)
For more information on KES box tops go to the website. Boxtops4Education.com /
- Wendy Smith & Cheryl Kjendal
Nominating Committee / Nominating Committee the following people have been nominated:
- Grace Beason- President
- Noreen Hall – Vice President
- Wendy Smith – Treasurer
- No nomination for Secretary yet
- Valerie McGraw- Member at larger
- Amy Phifer also agreed to consider stay on as Member at larger and/or as Secretary if no one else volunteers.
- Breta will help transition but is not likely to stay on as Member at large
- Lynn Bonitatibus agreed to stay on as Volunteer Coordinator for next year.
Amy P- suggests having people be permitted to be in a limited capacity if they want such as committee lead – such as Box Tops or Scholastic Book fair, Spaghetti Dinner, Ice Social, Holiday Decorating. It was suggested that one of the Members at large be in charge of coordinating that.
June 10th meeting will be a combined current/ new PTO. / Breta
Closed Items
PTO Insurance /
- See Treasurers report.
Teacher Appreciation WeekClosed / Teacher Appreciation Week was held the first week in May and was a great success!
Each day snacks were provided by various parents and on Thursday May 6th a dinner was provided for the teachers.
The Teacher gift was to spruce up the teachers' lounge including a new dishwasher, dishes, cutlery as well as organizing and clean of the shelves and baskets.
Next Meeting /
- Next meeting - See top of page
- Breta to draft agenda and send to Grace for printing.
2009/2010 PTO ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Payment for magnets and E-Newsletter
Kindergarten/ 1st grade play dates
Ice Cream Social
School Directory
Purchase of Liability Insurance
School Pride Day
Water Street book sale
Book Fair
Spaghetti Dinner
Popcorn sales
E-Newsletter
Bowling event
Tasks in Progress for future discussions
- Review and update of PTO Bylaws