Mrs. Knight Is Retiring at the End of This School Year

PTO Minutes

May 9, 2017

Forum

Present: David Dornfeld, Laura Eftimovski, Shelly Osbourne, Tasha Tyner, Julianne VandeWater, Lindsey VanZant, Priya Vijayaraghavan, Carrie Utterback

President’s Report:

·  Mrs. Knight is retiring at the end of this school year.

Logo Clothing:

·  Nothing to report.

Social Committee:

·  The spring social was a success! Those students who completed their passport had lunch in the courtyard.

·  The Parkside skating party will be Tuesday, May 16 from 6-8pm at Columbus Skateland. The cost is $3/person at the door.

Bonus Programs:

·  The deadline for the Campbell’s program is in June. We will check with Megan about redeeming points.

·  We will do a full roll out of the Kroger rewards program in August 2017.

·  No feedback yet on Amazon Smiles.

Book Fair:

·  We earned $426 in Scholastic Rewards during the spring book fair. We sold about the same number of books as two years ago.

·  We are still looking for someone to run the book fair next year.

·  The fall book fair will be November 10, 2017. The spring book fair will be April 20,, 2018.

Newsletter:

·  Nothing to report.

Staff Appreciation:

·  Staff appreciation will be this week. Lindsey gave out coffee and doughnuts on Monday. We are raffling off gift cards every morning this week. There will be a pitch-in lunch on Friday in the extra art and music classroom. Preschool and early childhood are not here on Friday, so efforts are being make to be sure these teachers are also recognized.

Parker Bear:

·  Nothing to report.

Grade Levels:

·  Nadine will get balloons for 6th grade graduation.

·  The $3/student allocation has not yet been utilized by any grade except for pre-K.

Landscaping:

·  There will be one more change out of flowers in the next couple weeks. Then Tasha will work to keep the courtyard going over the summer. The goal is to have everything looking great by August 1.

·  There are new umbrellas for the courtyard that crank open and closed.

·  There will be a fall and spring cleanup.

·  More strict rules are being enforced to help protect the landscaping.

·  We would like to encourage teachers to utilize this space more often.

Walkathon

·  Kim will be back to help with the walk-a-thon.

·  Renee has the work broken down into categories to divide the work.

·  The fall walk-a-thon will be Oct 6, 2017.

Directory

·  The directory will be published on September 1, 2017.

·  There was a suggestion to do a welcome back newsletter for the open house or for the first gold folder.

·  Doing an early callout may help reduce paper copies of the newsletter.

·  The newsletter will let people know about the Kroger rewards/box tops.

Volunteer Coordinator

·  We are bringing back the office of volunteer coordinator.

Scholarship for gradating seniors:

·  Other schools currently offer scholarships to graduating seniors.

·  Carrie proposed that Parkside/PTO have a scholarship in Laura Cox’s name.

·  We discussed various ways of structuring the scholarship.

Gold Folder Stuffing

·  Will be Monday, July 31.

Open House

·  Will be Tuesday, August 1. New parent orientation will be at 5:30 p.m. Open house will be at 6:00 p.m. We would like to have PTO representatives on site.

Start of School

·  The first day of school is August 2, 2017.

·  From August 2-4, PTO parents will be on site to help kids and parents find their classrooms.

·  The idea was proposed to have a PTO welcoming day at the beginning of school or during the first PTO meeting.

Other News

·  A teacher survey was sent out to members at the last PTO meeting.

·  August 31 is the health fair and picture day.

·  Vice president, secretary, Kindergarten rep, Second grade rep, book fair, parker bear, social, and walk-a-thon co-chairs positions are currently open.

·  We discussed ideas to get more involvement for parents/grandparents/others.

NEXT MEETING: August 8, 2017