PTA Leadership Meeting
July 25, 2017, 6:00pm
Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts

In attendance: Nikki Wilson (President), Meg Power (Vice President), Leslie Hartman (Secretary), Elliott Jordan (Treasurer), Ann-Alyssa Hill (Communications), Heather Board (Hospitality), Cathy Durrette (Events and Fundraising), Joe Hunt (Gardens)

  1. Welcomeby President Nikki Wilson
  2. Reviewed meeting procedures
  3. PTA will continue to abide by Robert’s Rules of Order and parliamentary procedures during all meetings
  4. Officers and committee chairs should put all paperwork in their binders and update the Google drive/upload items in order to pass on to next person holding their positions.
  5. Nikki requested to be CC’d on all emails so she can stay in the loop.
  6. Leslie Hartman made a motion to approve the June meeting minutes as presented; Elliott Jordan seconded; motion passed.
  7. No treasurer’s report, due to records and information not yet transferred from previous treasurer to current treasurer.
  8. President’s report
  9. Year in overview: Nikki passed out calendar and goal planning guide for 2017-2018. Discussed family involvement goal: Since last year’s percentage of families meeting their hours by December was 96%, all agreed that maintaining this percentage was an appropriate goal.
  10. Discussed calendar items in the near future:
  11. The suggestion was made and adopted to switch Math Games to September’s meeting and Family Reading night to January’s meeting. This change would allow the math activity suggestions to have the greatest effect on student math skills for the coming year.
  12. Discussed pursuing Kids’ Day Out fundraisers for upcoming half days. Emphasized need to recruit more parent volunteers and possibly supplement with outside organizations.
  13. Removed Amazing Raise from calendar since this program has been discontinued.
  14. Kindergarten open house (8/4): Meg will be there at a PTA table.
  15. Heather reported a request by the Boy Scout leader to come to the August PTA meeting; Meg will ask the Girl Scout leader to come as well.
  16. Discussed choosing a date for the Chipotle fundraiser in the Fall; Ann-Alyssa will try to nail down 10/5, the Thursday preceding Fall Break.
  17. PHSSA Board “Come and See” open house for donor recruitment/fundraising will be held on 9/28 from 4:00-7:00pm.
  18. Discussed having the Baskin Robbins fundraiser in August.
  19. Standing rules for PTA are the same as for 2016-2017. These should be in all officers’ binders; please review them.
  20. Other Committees—all chair positions are filled except for PHASE and membership.
  21. PHASE program: after school activities/child care continue to be very important to parents and in high demand but are limited due to the space constraints of the building.
  22. Communications:
  23. Due to the high traffic on our website, Ann-Alyssa emphasized the importance of continuing to use the PTA website to publicize events and information. She is working on synchronizing the school calendar and the events calendar.
  24. Discussed the suggestion of profiling key people at PHSSA in short videos to feature on the website as a way to increase community connection and improve communication in the school.
  25. Each committee should have a shared folder on the Google drive.
  26. Membership: position vacant but Meg and Nikki will be the administrators for the beginning of the year, and perhaps someone who is interested in participating in the committee will rise to the task of chair.
  27. Events and Fundraising:
  28. Cathy discussed the pros and cons of the various T-shirt sale fundraising companies. She is pursuing the e-commerce option on the Weebly website, weighing costs and benefits.
  29. Cathy reported on the installation of our new playground equipment, sometime in September. Since the company has delayed our installation into our school year, she has requested that they donate and install a small piece of additional equipment (a “spinner”) as a consolation.
  30. Unfinished business:
  31. All supported the plan to give outgoing PTA officers a gift card and a plant to express our appreciation for their service and hard work last year.
  32. Playground installation—see d. ii. above. Also, Cathy will ask the playground installers about putting in the “buddy bench” that was purchased with PTA funds at the end of last year. Hands On Richmond is going to help with sprucing up the playground and grounds, but Nikki is still seeking out other groups to help (possibly Capital One)
  33. New business:
  34. The open house will be 7/27/17, 1:00-5:30pm for 1st-5th graders. All agreed that a PTA table would not make a big enough impact on membership to justify staffing it for 4 ½ hours that day. Instead, we will hang some flyers around the school, announcing our first meeting in August.
  35. First day of school, Wednesday, 8/2: PTA has been requested by the School Culture and Climate committee to recruit parents for the red carpet event to welcome and celebrate students as they arrive at school. Ann-Alyssa will send out an email to parents.
  36. The yearbook committee is being formed by the co-chairs, Sarah Bereika and Shae McGrath. They will have a table at our first PTA meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 7:18pm.

Next meeting (general membership meeting): August 9th, 2017 at 6pm in the PHSSA Auditorium.