NovemEast K-7 PTO Meeting Minutes Date: Monday, 11/11/13 Time: 7:00pm Location: East Cafeteria

Old Business: o Fabulous Fall FUNdraiser (FFF): The pickup was on Thursday, November 7th. Delivery schedule was on the front page of the schools November newsletter. In bold, on colored paper. Schedule was told when orders were placed, two notes sent home as well. Items were brought to teachers classrooms about 5:30pm when the cafeteria was needed by another group. As of Friday 4pm, items should have been sent home with students or will be picked up during conferences. Negatives? Scheduled (parent) helpers did not show. 2 called in with good reason, 4 were no show/no contact. of the items were NOT picked up and we were there from 2:30 until 6pm. The 2:45-3:30 rush is just that- pure rush and confusion on the waiting line! Too many younger students were sent to pick up their items and left to make their bus. That is not how it should work. Parents that were responsible and came as scheduled were left waiting up to a half hour because of the disorder and failure of students (parents who sent them!) to follow directions. One person cannot sign out items in a rush like that and please everyone! Positives? 3 students from Leaders of the 21st Century helped from 3:05 until 5:30pm. They are WONDERFUL assets! Lisa Lindemulder stayed from 12:30 until 6pm. Thank you Leaders, and thank you Lisa, for making Thursday night possible. o Trunk-or-Treat (October 24th): Awesome, unbelievable turn-out! Piggy-backing with the Reading Team for their Family Reading Night definitely made this a Reading Spooktacular Family Night to remember! Out of all the feedback (and there was A LOT!), only two negative things came back: 1- Line management at the start. 2- Running out of candy/goodies New Business: o Box Tops/Labels: Anita Mulder and Bethany Mulder (Box Tops Co-Chairs)take 5 minutes and update us all! Bulletin board specifically for Box Tops/Labels updates and progress!!! o X-Men: Expect full running by January 2014. Incentive for November? More men than women to show up at the PTO meeting and a group of X-Men to volunteer the week of Santas Secret Shop and Crafting with Elves. Exclusive Workshop/Presentation: Working with John Vega (HPS Community Connections Team/Student Advisor at VanRaalte Tech) and Life Services Parenting Center to bring information and at least one workshop aimed towards men ONLY. Great reviews from other buildings on this opportunity! I expect this to begin in January, 2014. Community: Gandalfos NY Deli (North Side of Holland) has donated (4) $10.00 cards to kick-start involvement in X-Men after reading of my intentions for this program. Thats one local business offering support and encouragement for parental- especially male- involvement in education. What about the ladies? I would love to see the same response from another local business to encourage our female participants! PTO is typically seen as a womens only group, but we still deserve the same incentives to continue or start our involvement. Projects: Specific and detailed projects are needed. Any ideas? o Staff Representatives: We did it! Within two weeks of asking, staff doubled the amount I was aiming to get on board with PTO. Parents and Teachers Organized as a non-profit group with a mission to maintain an understanding, working relationship between the school, staff, and families in order to better the school as a whole. Take up to 5 minwith Parent/Teacher Conferences tonight, we may not see staff at this meeting!

East K-7 PTO

Meeting Minutes

Id like to add on the behalf of some staff the following needs: Grant requests came in over twice as high as last year, but funds were not able to cover. East had the most requests and the highest building total. o Id like a committee to form and work on something called App-ing All the Way! spanning the school days in the month of December. Technology is an everyday thing in school. Classrooms are in need of full-version, paid apps. Free ones are great! However, its no surprise that the paid full versions contain so much moreand there is no funding for this. Apps need to be installed on the 30 iPads that are on each cart- a $0.99 cent reading app perfect for a classroom quickly becomes $29.70 in order to cover all students who perform at different levels. o Id like input on funding the 5th Grades Colonial Days. Ive enclosed the original grant request so that you may each read the details. The time and effort that went into this request show only a portion of how important this day is. Past students still talk about what they have done, and what they learned. Students below 5th grade who either saw this event in the halls or have heard from previous 5th graders look forward to that day with excitement. I know- I asked in researching the grant request!!! Kids faces dont lie, and all I found was genuine excitement! The request is $170, and surely together we can find a way to meet if not exceed this! o PTO Incentives: Any activity chairs and/or staff with volunteer records for PTO events or those you wish to reward, please turn in a copy of names and dates/hours spent volunteering by November 30th. Email is fine! Just a reminder than anytime a volunteer is used for PTO, we MUST keep a record of their name and the date/project. If you can log the exact time they spent volunteering, thats even better! December 6th is the LAST day that incentives for Santa Bucks will be awarded! These are equal to $1.00 per hour. Popcorn Friday Coupons and Spring Carnival Tickets will remain active. 1 reward per volunteer hour, participants choice. Spring Carnival Tickets are awarded at the event, Popcorn Friday are available bi-weekly. Upcoming Events: o December: Santas Secret Shop and Crafting with Elves. Santas Secret Shop is contracted through FUNServices of Grand Rapids. We will have some cost to operate this, but it includes the use of a cash register, pre-printed and fully colored flyers and parent notes, pre-printed envelopes, decorated Mylar self-sealing bags in multiple sizes, plastic bags to carry wrapped gifts, signs, and posters. Prices will range $0.50-$8.00 with 80% of those being under $5.00. Santas Secret Shop will need parents in shifts of 2-4 hours, over 4 days to run 4 tables and one cash register. Asking for 30 adult volunteers to avoid over-commitments of the typical crew, however past experience has me expecting 10 adult volunteers over 4 days and being short-handed. Prove me wrong and each classroom that sends at least *2* adult volunteers will see each student receive limited edition silicone stretch jingle bell bracelets on Friday, December 6th! Crafting with Elves came about to offset the issue of students who financially may not be able to participate in Santas Secret Shop. We will be asking parents to send $1-3 per child to offset crafting supply costs as we do not have stock left from previous years nor the budget to make it 100% free. o I have come to the conclusion that we will be wording this to parents along the lines of Santas Secret Shop is coming! (attach flyer from FUNServices) We are

East K-7 PTO

Meeting Minutes

also offering an additional experience of Crafting with Elves for $1.50 per student (or whatever we decide the crafting supplies come to in the $1-3 range). Please check here and enclose $1.50 if you want your child to participate in Crafting with Elves. I am NOT looking to make a profit off anyone participating in Crafting with Elves and am adamant that NO child will leave that day empty handed because of their financial situation. Crafting with Elves will need parents in shifts of 2-4 hours, over 4 days to run 3 tables. Asking for 25 adult volunteers, expecting 9 adult volunteers over 4 days. Like above, Prove me wrong and each classroom that has at least *2* adult volunteers that complete a 2 hours shift per day, will see each student receive limited edition silicone stretch jingle bell bracelets on Friday, December 6th! o I have been asked to include Grandparents in the volunteer process. Thoughts? Perhaps a church group or center with residents able to help out if there are not enough from East families? Expectations and Perks Volunteers on both areas will be asked and expected to wear holiday colored/themed shirts/sweaters/vests of their own and each will be wearing a NEW reindeer antler headband (Santas Secret Shop volunteers) or a NEW red or green elf hat (Crafting With Elves volunteers). Hot cocoa and cookies will be available for volunteers, and students will give immeasurable amounts of praise and smiles! Looking forward to 2014: o Dates and events are NOT finalized, committees begin in January 2014 for: Family Fitness Day, DodgeBowl 4, Spring Fundraiser (Goodies Subs? Popcorn?), Spring Carnival, Field Day. Movie Nights. The remaining time is now open for parent/guardian/staff/adult comments, questions, and concerns!!! Please do so in a respectful manner! o Next Meeting: Monday, December 9, 2013. 7pm. East Cafeteria

East K-7 PTO

Meeting Minutes