PTA Meeting Agenda

PTA: North Side Elementary

Date: April 5, 2016

9 PTA members and 3 officers were in attendance: Rachel Fraser, Susan Ososki, Janelle Heller, Colleen DeFrank, Lindsay Moawad, Micki Freedman, Amanda Rosencrance, K.A. Zabady, Kim Ramberger, Meredith Bomgardner, Sarah Di Santo, and Andrea Cavoli.

  1. President’s Welcome

·  Andrea Cavoli welcomed everyone to the meeting, introduced officers who were in attendance and asked that attendees sign in.

·  Open Board Positions and Candidates for 2016-2018. Jen Anson volunteered for Vice President of Membership & Volunteers. Meredith Bomgardner volunteered for Secretary. We are reevaluating both Vice President of Communications and Vice President of Activities before filling.

·  Open Chair Positions for 2016-2017. The following committee chair positions are open: Bingo, Spirit Nights, and Website/Facebook. Rachel Fraser and Micki Freedman may be willing to continue June Jubilee. Race for Education may be shifted to spring. Yearbook is looking for a co-chair, or possibly two as up to three people would be valuable.

·  Volunteer Badges for Upcoming Events. Mrs. Box sent out an email to the entire school stating that badges will be needed for field day and June jubilee. We are in need of many volunteers.

·  Cancelling Events and Programs. In the future, when we cannot find a committee chair we will pass on the event. The board members are not going to take on the responsibility of running the event. If someone does not step up then we will cancel for the year. We did not do the talent show or reflections this year due to lack of volunteers. We’ll try again next year.

·  Donations for Ginger McNally. John McNally requested donations be sent to North Side PTA in lieu of flowers. We are going to purchase books for the library for potential student use for decades to come. We will put a small sticker inside the front covers, something to symbolize hope. Megan and Joe are helping pick books for the library. We have $3,732 in donations.

·  Playground Project/Unicorn Idea. The lower playground needs to be re-painted. The cost is up to $2,000 for the stencils. Andrea was hoping to get volunteers together, middle school and high school students, looking for volunteer hours. The idea would be to have them go back to their elementary school and help beautify for the current students. Kohl’s Cares may send a team along with a $500 grant. Amanda Rosencrance is working to get 2 four-square and 2 hop-scotch stencils added to the black top. Andrea will check with Joe this week on the progress and we’ll go from there.

  1. Principal’s Comments / Teachers Remarks

·  PSSA’s. Susan Ososki stated that PSSA’s start next week. Prepping strategy is happening right now.

·  Career Day is currently being reviewed. We need a lot of volunteers and it is logistically challenging. An email will be sent by the end of the month. Ideas regarding strategy include a Career assembly so that logistics could be simplified, although we risk losing the kids attention.

·  Volunteer Badging. We are brainstorming ideas to have someone at North Side to do badges for Back to School night. We will hand out information regarding the badging process during kindergarten orientation as well as the ice cream social.

  1. Membership Report. Meredith Bomgardner reported that we currently have 137 members and we are always accepting new volunteers.
  2. 2015-2016 Budget. Kristen Hanford reported that we currently have $29,000 in our checking account with $9,000 in outstanding checks. Our PayPal account was set up and is currently taking donations for 5th grade party. The current total is $250. We have ordered 30 Chromebooks as well as benchmark assessment books utilizing the Race for Education funding. After all expenses paid our available cash balance is $3200. Meredith Bomgardner made a motion to approve the budget. Kim Ramberger seconded the motion.
  3. Past Events and/or Programs

·  Spirit Nights. Longhorn Steakhouse brought in over $100 and Isaacs brought in $76.

·  Yearbook. The yearbook is done and sent to print. We sold 277. Rachel Fraser mentioned Jen McCauslin helped a great deal and being in the building was a huge benefit. Moving forward we are looking for a co-chair, and possibly a committee for picture taking. The “do not photograph” form made matters difficult. They spent weeks confirming the parents understood their children could not be in the yearbook if they signed the do not photograph form. We need to find a way to make this form easier to understand for future years. We’d like to bring this up at the PAC meeting.

·  Spring Book Fair went very well this year. We have a total of approximately $16,000 in Scholastic dollars and we plan to disperse a certain amount to each North Side student next year towards the purchase of books at the book fair. We will be purchasing 3 document cameras and need to check list to see which other teachers requested so we know how many more we need to order. The next book fair is scheduled for October 2016.

·  Bingo. We had approximately 350 people attend bingo night and netted $525. We offered gently used books along with prizes and had high school volunteers help at various stations.

  1. Upcoming Events

·  Spirit Nights. Coming up we have spirit nights at Sonic, Sweet Frog, and Harrisburg Senators. The 4th and 5th grade chorus will sign national anthem at Harrisburg Senators Sunday May 15th.

·  Moms and Muffins will be happening Thursday and Friday this week. We are still in need of volunteers for Thursday and we may need to go to a no-serving system. We are anticipating 270 per day.

·  Super Readers. We have 2 slots open for Thursday while Friday is full.

·  Art to Go. We are canceling art to go for the sake of a larger June Jubilee event. We will allocate the $500 towards some sort of art installation (long lasting) in which we can coordinate during June Jubilee.

·  Teacher Appreciation Week will be held first week of May. The theme will be “If you give a teacher a …”. Monday (cookie), Tuesday (pizza), Wednesday (muffin), Thursday (snack), and Friday (fiesta). We will also have a gift card grab back with gift cards in increments of $10 each as well as thank you cards from students.

·  Field Day will be held May 20th with a rain date of May 23rd. Time to sign up will sent out very early because badges are needed for this event.

·  North Side Scholarship. A $500 scholarship will be awarded to a graduating senior who attended North Side. Michelle Heinbaugh is collecting applications and will award during Central Dauphin award ceremony.

·  5th grade party. We need to reevaluate the budget as we belie$ 2,000 is too high.

·  Consumer Rewards / Giant. Our total for this year is approximately $8,000.

·  Parent Advisory Committee (PAC). Andrea Cavoli reported on behalf of Holly Hodgson that their main focus is incorporating closed reading and writing activities with a connection across multiple subjects.

·  June Jubilee will be held June 8th. We are in the early planning stage and will need a lot of help. Please encourage people you know to volunteer.

President Andrea Cavoli thanked everyone for coming and announced the next meeting will be held May 31st at 7pm. The meeting was adjourned at 9:06 p.m.

Prepared by Sarah Di Santo, Secretary