Sacandaga PTA Meeting

 

November 16, 2004

 

Minutes of Meeting

 

Attendees

 

Cathie Sweeney                      MaryPat Burke

Christine Polsinelli                  Beth Fritzeen

Michelle Budka                       Maureen Ciotoli

Brenda Rice                           Pamela Yagielski

Cathy Conroy                          John Tobiassen

Kim Lavery                             Cassidy Wachtel

Marje Marmuscak                   Arlene Camp

Linda Plemenik                       Herman Calderon

Suzanne Tonsberg                  Jeanne Derwin Butler

 

Call to Order

 

* The meeting was called to order at 7:03pm

 

Approval of minutes

 

* The minutes were approved as posted.

 

PresidentŐs Report-Cathie Sweeney and Mary Pat Burke

 

* A welcome was extended to Arlene Camp from Grade 4 and to Marje Marmuscak from Grade 2 .

 

* A FounderŐs Day Committee needs to be formed. The Dinner is February 1st at Glen Sanders Mansion.

 

* Our by-laws expire in April 2005. A committee of 3-5 people needs to be formed to review the current by-laws and submit revisions by January 15th.

 

* Suzanne Tonsberg has volunteered to run the Family Fun Nights. She hopes to have events once a month at the school. Her husband Bob will head up the DadŐs ziti dinner in March.

 

* Shannon Alvord has started the Reflections program. Students can submit their applications before November 29th.

 

* Barb Wurz has been selected as Professional of the Year for health, PE, recreation and dance. The PTA extends their congratulations to her. The School was also the recipient of the Applebee grant which will pay for a new jogging trail and various PE and recess supplies.

 

* The T-shirt order will be in November 17, 2004 for all that have ordered a shirt.

 

TreasurerŐs Report-Christine Polsinelli

 

* A copy of the report was passed out for all in attendance to review.

 

* The General Fund (checking) has a current balance of $7614 and the Savings account has a current balance of $3367, which totals $10,980 in PTA funds.

 

* The Kay Sturdy scholarship fund is currently at $1020 and the C&H Fundraiser brought in a total of $8099.

 

PrincipalŐs Report-John Tobiassen

 

* Next Tuesday November 23rd there will be an emergency bus drill.

 

* November 24 th is Healthy Heart Day.

 

* The relocation drill went very well. Other schools came to view the exercise and there was some news coverage. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the procedures you can e-mail Mr. Tobiassen.

 

Standing Committee Reports

 

*Teachers (Kim Lavery) The Dinner with Santa Teacher reader sign-ups have been completed and were turned over to Beth Fritzeen. $82 has been collected for the Adopt-a-Soldier dress down day and a lot of items have been collected so far. The items will be mailed next week. KimŐs contact person for this program has pictures of soldiers that we may use for our bulletin board. Kim will be joining the 5th grade Luncheon Committee and she suggested pulling together a power point presentation with pictures of all the students from their Kindergarten year on, to start off the luncheon. This presentation could also be shown at the awards assembly in June. She also mentioned that it would be a neat idea to burn a CD of the power point presentation for each 5th grader to have as a memento. Pam Yagielski said that her husband John could help with power point.

 

 

 

*Council Representative ( Maureen Ciotoli) September 29th was the last council meeting. The theme for the Reflections program is "A Different Kind of Hero". The Council also discussed the importance of having parents as chaperones for different events and to make sure that there is never a situation where one adult is alone with one child. The Council also stated that they are happy that there is a representative from our school now and they want to help make sure that we are heard and that our needs are met.

 

*Homeroom Parents (Brenda Rice) The Emergency contact information is still being worked on. All of the classes have parent callers now. She suggested that maybe we do a trail run to test the system. We are still in need of someone to work on the CampbellŐs soup labels and more Homeroom parents to help with the Box Tops clipping

 

*Ways and Means (Lisa Dangerfield) No Report

 

*Programs (Linda Plemenik) Arithmatickles will be on January 12th. Steve Charney will be here on January 24th to kick off PARP In February we will have visiting author Karen Beil at our school. For anyone interested, we will be able to order her book ahead of time, so that the children can have them signed. The dates of Circus week have changed.....it will now be March 14th to the 18th.

 

*PARP (Laura Carroll) -Linda Plemenik gave this report for Laura. The theme for PARP this year is "Reading is Patriotic....Uncle Sam Wants YOU!". There will be different fun things tied into the program this year like trivia contests, bookmarks and other prizes. Kim Lavery suggested that this be done as a class effort so that nobody is left out. The prizes will be grade level specific. A suggestion was also made to keep track of the minutes per week instead of per day.

 

*Membership (Suzanne Tonsberg) There are now 156 PTA members. 5 or 6 more memberships were received from the contest. Another flyer will go out again to encourage more memberships. She hopes to get more members from grades 4 and 5. They have the lowest membership numbers, but these students get lots of benefits from the different programs that the PTA sponsors (i.e. Circus, 5th grade luncheon etc.) The top three classes for membership are as follows: Mrs. Lavery 84%, Mrs. Powers 79% and Mr. Lee 63%.

 

*Reflections (Shannon Alvord) No Report

 

*Dinner with Santa (Beth Fritzeen and Pam Yagielski) Permission to use the building has been approved. We are working on some craft ideas. The teachers readers for the celebrity reading room are all set. The food is all set too. We will be having an organizational meeting on Monday November 22nd to pull some more details together. Cathy Conroy mentioned that a Santa is still needed. She would like to decorate the tree with family photos and photos of students this year. The older Girl Scouts will help out in SantaŐs room this year as part of their community service. Santa will pass out tattoos and some sort of candy.

 

*Boxtops (Suzanne Tonsberg) A Boxtops report was passed out for all in attendance to review. The year to date total is $465.74. The traveling bear is visiting 1st grade classes this year and is helping to promote boxtops collection and geography education.

 

*Banking (Anne Cardany) No Report

 

*Cub Scouts (Jen King) No Report

 

Open Floor-New Business

 

* Mr. Calderone would like to start a chess club on Thursday afternoons. He said that he would like to start with about 10-20 students. He would teach the students how to play. He would like to send out a flyer to see how much interest there is in a program like this. The chess sets cost about $20-$25 each. A suggestion was made that there might be more parent support and better participation if it was held later in the evening.

 

*Linda Plemenik would like to work with the High School language department to provide beginner foreign language expose to the students at Sacandaga. It would be an after school program and the language would be taught through games, songs etc. She is hoping to get some High School students to help and possibly get it set-up for next fall. There could even be a tie-in with sign language.

 

*Cathy Conroy suggested that Mr. Tobiassen explain what FounderŐs Day is about. He said that it is an event that is set-up to celebrate the beginning of the PTA organization. Cathie Sweeney encouraged us all to make an effort to go to the dinner on February 1st.

 

Adjournment

 

*The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 pm

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Beth Fritzeen, PTA Secretary

 

 

Attachments: for file copy only

 

Agenda

 

TreasurerŐs Report

 

Boxtops Report