SES PTA Executive Board Meeting Minutes

Date: April 19, 2013

Time: 9:15

Location: SES Conference Room

Attendees : John Knapp (President), Liza Balough (Vice President- Ways and Means), Jennifer Grant (Treasurer), Alexis White (Assistant Principal), Tracy Downey ( Recording Secretary), Karen Kalinski (Parent/ Teacher Liaison), Lisa Devine (Vice President-Volunteer Coordinator), Irene Egan (Communications and Technology Secretary), T.J. Ucciardi (Teacher Representative)

1) 2) 3) 4)

Meeting called to order by John Knapp at 9:15. Picture of board members was taken for the Yearbook Meeting minutes from Board Meeting on 3/15/13 were approved unanimously. Presidents report a. Upcoming PTA election i. Ms. Kalinski was nominated as a candidate for President which she declined. Mr. Knapp is still planning to run for President at this time. ii. Concern was expressed about the lack of candidate for the Treasurer position as the PTA cannot function without a person in that role. iii. Ballots will be prepared for the election in case there are nominations from the floor. iv. Mr. Knapp stated that we are in need of a spokesperson for the election as it is a conflict of interest for anyone on the current board to do so. Ms. Devine contacted Michelle Kapp who has agreed to present nominees and host the election. v. The General Membership Meeting /Election will begin approximately 30 minutes before the Talent Show and should be short in duration. There will be a microphone available for the election. vi. The meeting will follow this order: Meeting called to order, introduction of current board members and nominees for next years board, slide show, voice vote, vote will be hosted by Ms. Kapp. 5) VP- Volunteer Coordinators report a. No new membership to report b. Upcoming Events i. Talent Show- The talent show will begin at 7:00 on Friday 4/26 immediately following the election. Basket raffles will be held intermittently between the acts. The flyer for the show has gone home and a plan for the show has been created. Mr. Knapp was hoping to have the boy scouts do a color guard at the beginning of the show but was unsure if that could happen. A suggestion was

made to ask the sheriffs department if they are able to do it. There will be a spirit wear table as well as a concessions table at the show. Mr. Knapp questioned how much merchandise to buy for concessions. It was decided to buy more rather than less as it can be sold at later events. Mr. Knapp will be purchasing soda, chips, water and an assortment of candy to sell during the show. There will be a rehearsal and walk through of the show next week in preparation of show night. ii. Spring basket Raffle- Tickets are being sold all week from 9-3 and also on the evening of parent/ teacher conferences and the night of the show. Volunteers are still needed to sell tickets. The tickets to be sold were bought at Party City and Ms. Martin has a plan to ensure that there will not be any ticket duplication or any other opportunity for counterfeit. Board members will wear red shirts to the Talent Show and pull tickets for the raffle. Target gave a $100.00 gift card which is being used to fill baskets that were light on donations. iii. Art Extravaganza- Both Mr. Collett and Ms. Miller each have $90.00 to spend from the direct donation drive. Mr. Collect plans to have a drum section at the event. There will be students from other schools volunteering to paint faces to fulfill service learning hours. Other possibilities include having the Snowie Bus and an inflatable bounce house at the event. Concerns around the bounce house include having someone supervise for safety and possible insurance requirements. The Art Extravaganza has not been a PTA event in the past so therefore does not have a board representative assigned to it. There was discussion about changing this for next year. Ms. Balough will take this on for this year. She offered that she will handle the PTA involvement of this event and Ms. Miller and Mr. Collett can handle the school involvement. There was mention of food concessions. Some suggestions were to see if the PTA could get pizza or BBQ donated for the event. Also mentioned was a cake walk or cupcake walk. Ms. Balough will check with Ms. Miller and see what she has in mind and if she is on board with having people pay for food if necessary. iv. Staff Appreciation Week- This will be May 6-10. There will be a luncheon on Wednesday. Smokey Bones will not donate the food but Ms. Kalinski will check with Family Pizzeria. Ms. Kalinski states that the theme will be along the line of a treasure and island theme. She is planning for the lunch to be pulled pork or chicken and fruit. Ms. Kalinski will be changing the apple tree to a treasure theme. She is currently looking into teacher gifts and looking for donations for them. It was suggested that she put together a few gift bags or baskets and raffle them (free of cost) instead of providing a gift for each teacher. Other things planned for the week include breakfast bags to be delivered to the classrooms and putting Hersey Treasures candy in each teacher mailbox. Ms. Kalinski is still looking for volunteers to help or for ideas for the week. She would like to be contacted via email with any input.

6) VP- Ways and Means report a. Wolfgang Candy Spring Fundraiser the PTA profited $2499.00 from the sale with only 11% of the students selling candy. b. Spirit Wear update Ms. Balough offered that she would like to sell some novelty items at the Art Extravaganza to include lanyards and water bottles. Ms. Balough also states that she has had inquiries about selling zip-up hooded sweatshirts. She suggests that the sweatshirts be added in the fall. 7) Principals report (Ms. White reporting for Ms. Foreman) a. Kudos for ASE b. The Basket Raffle and Talent Show i. A table will be set out for basket display and ticket sales. Teachers are being asked to use discretion as to not impacting instruction time with allowing children to purchase tickets. ii. There is a new microphone for the Talent Show and Mr. Ucciardi will check to see if the camera will work with the projector to project floor acts onto a screen for better viewing. iii. Tables will be set up for concessions and Spirit Wear at the Talent Show. It was decided that the tables would be best placed in the hallway with the baskets. iv. Ms. Devine stated that she provided the Talent Show chair with information received from Ms. Kapp about the sound system as Ms. Kapp has experience using it from the dance. v. There was a question on who would be the MC for the event. c. Relocation i. The construction is ahead of schedule at this time. They are hoping to be done at the end of May for movers to begin end of June. Hopefully opening June 24. ii. The school will still be under construction for smaller jobs throughout the summer therefore summer school will be held at Anthony Burns Elementary School. iii. Open house is on Target for 8/29. d. Testing i. Testing will be held during May 13- June 7. ii. Math testing now requires 2 days. iii. Several rooms are being used to create computer labs to include the art and music rooms as well as the library. Specialist will be spread very thin during this time as they try to accommodate classes without having their rooms available. e. 2013/2014 projections are around 686 students at this time. f. Grafton parents toured the school and were impressed with the space and collaboration between SES and SMS. Mr. Knapp offered to go to Grafton Elementary School parents meeting to help quell fears of the incoming parents of the displaced students. g. Secretaries Day is Wed. April 24 and Nurses Day is May 8.

8) Communication and Technology Secretarys report a. County Supervisors meeting i. Full raises and step increases were approved for teachers and bus drivers however tax cuts are still being pursued by the chairperson. In order for the raises to be given the budget will have to change categorical spending. b. Ms. Egan expressed the possibility of redistricting after Grafton Elementary School remodeling is finished due to there being a lot of unused space in SMS after the Elementary schools move out. 9) Recording Secretary a. Agenda for the General Membership Meeting/ Election was discussed. This will be a quick meeting with little on the agenda except for elections. b. Ms. Downey stated that she would be unable to attend the May 10th meeting and asked for volunteers to take meeting minutes. Mr. Knapp stated that he would do so. 10) Treasurers report a. Treasurers Report i. This was attached to the emailed agenda prior to this meeting. ii. Cash boxes were not balanced on the report but Ms. Grant reports that it has worked out and there is no discrepancy. iii. Candy sales are included under Spirit Wear but will be added as a separate by line later. iv. So far all items are below budget for this year. v. There have been 2 yearbook checks returned due to lack of funds. Letters were sent out to the check writers but came back as undeliverable. b. Apple Credit Union and BB&T issues i. Ms. Grant states that she still cannot close Apple Credit Union as there are 2 checks yet to be cashed. Both are teachers checks. Ms. White will check with them and new checks will be written if they have been misplaced. Once checks are cashed, the Apple account can be closed and the PTA will use BB&T solely. c. There was a motion to approve the budget and approve adding the spring fundraiser as a separate line item from spirit wear. Motion granted. 11) Old business a. ASE (After School Enrichment)- Mr. Knap is writing up some lessons learned from this years experience with ASE. He has asked for input from any of those involved. Some issues to be considered are possible signup on line, having firmer deadlines, hard caps on class size and reaching out to other schools for instructors. 12) New Business a. District Meeting/ Dinner- Mr. Knapp will attend. b. Volunteer Appreciation- the school usually handles this but is unable to this year due to space and relocation. c. Recess equipment-We will be ordering soccer balls, basketballs, chalk and large jump ropes.

d. We will need a new Yearbook Committee chair for next year. Ms. Egan states that this is a huge undertaking and that she will be available for questions although she will not be on the SES PTA Board next year. e. Uniform Surveyi. It has been requested by a PTA member that the PTA Board facilitate a survey to gauge interest in the possibility of having uniforms at SES. ii. A motion was made to facilitate the survey. One PTA Board member was for the survey facilitation and one board member was against it. The rest of the board remained neutral. iii. The arguments in support of the survey include parent advocacy and the idea that there is no harm in sending out a survey devoid of opinion. iv. The issues against this were that it opens the PTA to controversy and the expectation that the PTA will take on any number of causes. It is also believed to be outside of the PTA Boards role to conduct such a survey. It was stated that this is a matter for the PTA Policy Council. v. Vote to approve motion failed. The survey will not be facilitated by the PTA Board but individual parents can still look into survey distribution if they so wish. 13) Meeting adjourned at 11:35 am. Minutes taken by Tracy Downey