PES PTA Meeting Minutes

January 8, 2013

Board Members present: Chris Archie, treasurer; Jen Melaragno, secretary; Kandi Smith, principal; Joy Allison

Others present: Nicole Fuller, Melissa Workman.

Meeting started at 6:30pm

Jen started the meeting by welcoming and making the quick introductions. Chris made a motion to approve the November minutes, it was seconded and carried. A Sweetheart Supper committee meeting will be arranged by Angie Essex and held sometime next week to help with details of the supper. The Supper will be held on Friday February 8th.

Kandi provided the Principal report as follows:

  • School safety is a top priority, especially in light of the events before the break. She and a committee will be meeting with a third party to handle school safety and go over policies and procedures to ensure the safety of all students and staff at Ponderosa and will look at any and all changes that need to be made. Jen Melaragno brought up the safety concern of students exiting the school on the southeast side of the school in the afternoons. Students have been observed running across the street, out from between cars during times of heavy traffic after school. Kandi will monitor the situation and assess if changes need to be made for safety.
  • Open Enrollment is finished and the school will report to families on Thursday about their status of acceptance to the school.
  • The school spelling bee will be held on January 17th at 10am
  • SACC will meet next week with the district accountability team to go over Ponderosa’s school-wide recommendation plan.
  • Teachers had a very successful and productive professional development day on Monday.
  • The leadership team will work with the staff and begin prioritizing items to spend PTA allotted funds for curriculum support.
  • It was discussed that PTA will have parents provide potluck dinner for staff on February 12 for parent/teacher conferences.
  • The Health and Wellness committee continues to discuss the topic of healthy snacks for students.
  • TCAP testing will begin the end of February.
  • The 5th grade Denver Art Museum field trip was successful and fun for everyone able to attend.

No report from the President, VP, or the secretary.

Chris gave the treasurer’s report and new information as follows:

  • November Expenditure report: bank fee reversal, income from PTA membership dues, incidentals purchase (binder, checks, and self-inking check stamp)
  • December Expenditure report: Income-Links of Love $3335, payment made to Melanie Litt for $1667.50 and payment made to National Kidney Foundation for $1667.50
  • The second grade team will use their allotted PTA grade level budget to pay for their Scholastic News subscription.
  • Chris and Sheri Fender created a requisition form for teachers to use to submit requests for funds from the PTA. Chris also created a flow chart allowing teachers to see which avenue to pursue when requesting funds and how the process works.
  • A request was made from the third grade team to use their field trip budget for their trip to the museum on the 14th and was approved. The amount requested was over the allotted $300, so we will ask if they would like to use their classroom budgets to cover the remainder.
  • Fourth grade has requested the purchase of atlases in the amount of $358. The amount was approved and will come from their classroom budgets.
  • Kindergarten has requested the purchase of a RAZZ Kids subscription in the amount of $179.90. This amount was approved and will come out of their classroom budgets.
  • The cafeteria requested the purchase of a Coleman rolling cooler for use on field trips in the amount of approximately $40 total. This request was approved and will be purchased by Chris and given to the staff.
  • Circe Boman has requested monies for t-shirts for students in Battle of the Books. Since the amount requested exceeds the classroom budget allotted by a significant amount and we did not have a quorum, a decision was tabled until we could gather further information.
  • The 5th grade Denver Art Museum amounts were $363.00 for transportation costs and $63 to cover scholarships.

It was decided that Kandi will talk with AmieeStegner to determine what scholarship monies were needed to cover the field trip to Miller Farms. Jen Melaragno stated that it might be worth teachers’ time into an investigation into the availability of grant monies to help support field trip costs as she knows teachers in PSD have accessed grants available for this kind of support.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:15pm

Next PTA Meeting: Tuesday February 5, 2013 at 6:30pm