PTO General Meeting

November 7th,2017

Call to Order

PTO President Rebecca Young called the meeting to order at 6:00pm.

Welcome & Introductions

  1. Rebecca introduced herself and welcomed parents and staff members to the second PTO meeting of the 2017-2018 school year.
  2. PTO Board Members Kendra Graf (Vice President), Kristin Howell (Treasurer), and those in attendance also introduced themselves.Jessica Ziegler (Communication VP) arrived after introductions were made and Erin Ferris (Secretary) was unable to attend.

Action/Discussion Items

  1. President’s Report – Rebecca Young
  2. Empowering Writers – Melinda Marshall and Lindsay Dittman
  3. With regard to the 4th Grade STAAR Test, last yearmany of our students struggledin the areas of editing for mechanics, grammar, and spelling; spelling commonly used homophones;and understanding parts of speech. Our goal is to move students who are in the “approaching” category up to the “meets” and/or “masters” categories, but we as a school – and as a district – are lacking some of the resources needed to cover all of these writing components.
  4. Ms. Dittman used the Empowering Writers curriculum as a teacher previously and likes how it directly aligns with TEKS and is structured, detailed, and easy for teachers to implement. There is a proven link between good writing skills and higher levels of reading comprehension, and the Empowering Writers curriculum constantly focuses on this connection.
  5. Because the RP administration, teachers, and PTO Board believe that the Empowering Writers curriculum will help our teachers better support our students in the classroom, in October the Board voted to approve spending $918 to fund the curriculum for 4th grade. Thispurchase included the Expository and Opinion Writing guide, Narrative guide, and Writing and Editing guide.
  6. We are piloting with 4th grade (using PTO funds), but will eventually bring the curriculum to 3rd and 2nd grade as well (using school funds).
  7. Visit the Empowering Writers website:
  8. Watch the PTO meeting and Empower Writers presentation:
  9. City Wide PTO Updates – Rebecca Young
  10. City Wide PTO meetings are an opportunity for all of the CSISD PTO presidents and principals to meet and discuss topics that affect all of our schools.
  11. Two school board positions will be filled according to today’s election, so if you haven’t already voted, do so after this meeting!
  12. A public meeting to discuss becoming a District of Innovation will be held onWednesday, November 8th at 4pm in the Board Room.
  13. The next CSISD Board Meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 14th at 7pm in the Board Room.
  14. If you haven’t yet filled out the CSISD Rebranding Survey online, please do so as soon as possible:
  15. We have had a district-wide 3.5% increase (about 450 students). Approximately 50 kids were displaced by Hurricane Harvey.
  16. The Education Foundation Grant Patrol will be visiting schools on November 9th. Visit for more information.
  1. Principal’s Report – Robyn Jones
  2. Make sure to read the weeklyJonesy News emails for school-wide updates.
  3. Don’t forget about Space Enrichment Day and A Night Under the Stars on Friday, November 10th. Space-themed costumes will be allowed at school that day.
  4. Teacher’s Report – Melinda Marshall
  5. Kinder, 1st, and 2ndhave each taken a field trip – thank you, PTO! Teachers are excited to be receiving their classroom and curriculum materials purchased with Classroom Cash grant funds and everyone is looking forward to A Night Under the Stars.
  6. Treasurer’s Report –Kristin Howell
  7. Kristin shared the updated 2017-2018 budget as well as the September and October monthly reports.
  8. September income highlights include a great response to family sponsorships and the beginning of Boosterthon. Expense highlights include school shirts, teacher appreciation, and the beginning of teacher birthday gifts.
  9. October income highlights include the remainder of Boosterthon, Bingo Night (income we hadn’t expected), and a successful Spirit Night at CFA. Expense highlights include Classroom Cash and field trips.
  10. YTD, we raised slightly more than budgeted with Boosterthon, shirt sponsorships, and Bingo Night, which will help cover the expected shortfall of fall product fundraiser.(Read more about the fall product fundraiser and Spirit Sticks below.)
  11. If you haven’t yet signed up for Kroger Rewards, please do so by going to the Kroger website and linking your Kroger card to Rock Prairie.With only 90 households registered we raise $450/quarter; this could be even higher if we had more of our families registered.
  12. Transparency is extremely important to PTO; Kristin() is always available to answer questions or discuss budgetary concerns.
  13. Secretary’s Report – Rebecca Young
  14. Minutes are taken at every PTO meeting and will be posted on the RP PTO website within one week of each meeting. Questions about the minutes can be emailed to or .
  15. RP’s PTO Guidelines are available on our website. Everyone is welcome to – and committee chairs should – read the document, and questions can be emailed to .
  16. A motion to approve the minutes from theSeptember 2017meeting was made by Kendra, seconded by Kristin, and approved.
  17. Communication VP’s Report – Jessica Ziegler
  18. Committee Chairs should email Jessica()as soon as information about their events (dates, times, volunteer needs, etc.) is available so she can plan how to fit that information into upcoming weekly emails and the broader social media communications plan. To have an event included in a weekly Sunday night email, the information needs to be in Jessica’s hands by Saturday evening.
  19. To stay better informed, like us on Facebook ( If information about events comes to Jessica during the week, she posts it on Facebook prior to it going out in the weekly email.
  20. A reminder that parents/family members who would like to volunteer in the classroom, assist with school-wide events, and attend field trips need to visit the CSISD website ( and fill out the volunteer application as soon as possible. Volunteers must complete this application EVERY year.

Old/New Business

  1. Fundraising Update – Rebecca Young
  2. Boosterthon
  3. Thank you to everyone who supported and helped with Boosterthon! The glow run was a blast, and we met (slightly exceeded) our fundraising goal.
  4. As we prepare to decide what kind of major fundraiser to hold next year, the time has come to discuss a few details about Boosterthon. Collectively we believe in this program, and because of it we have been able to provide field trips (at NO COST to our students), teacher grants, free family programming, and school curriculum.
  5. The pledges we keep are based on a sliding scale; as we ran the program this year, we kept 53-54% of all money pledged. There are, however, ways to keep a higher percentage and we would of course like to consider these options. The challenge is that we can’t do so without more help from parents and families. Right now with the Live Program, Boosterthon does 90-95% of the work and we keep 53-54%. With the Event Program, Boosterthon would run the pep rally and the fun run but we would handle the character lessons, prizes, and daily communications and keep 60-62%. With the Fun Run U Program, we would receive access to the character lessons and online platforms but ALL of the work – from the pep rally to the fun run and everything in between – is done by us and we keep 77-79%.
  6. Erin attended the Spring Creek pep rally and believed after watching it that running the pep rally ourselves is a possibility…IF we can match the parent/volunteer support they have been able to gather. (Erin and Rebecca will weigh in on Spring Creek’s actual run after attending it on Friday.)
  7. PTO will send a survey to parents to ask about what kind of support we can gather. We will have specific job titles and chair positions offered so we can get a very real vision of interest and willingness to volunteer.
  8. Product Fundraiser
  1. The hope for this fundraiser was to supplement Boosterthon and perhaps make enough money to avoid having to host a spring fundraiser. It is unlikely we will meet that stretch goal, but the fundraiser will still provide needed support.
  2. The fundraiser will run through Friday, November 10th. Every student who registers will be entered to win a $250 VISA gift card from the product fundraising company. Get those orders for holiday gifts and food in ASAP! (Orders can be placed online or using the paper form sent home with every student.)
  3. Spirit Sticks
  4. Spirit Sticks are off to agreat start! We quickly reached our “break even” point (there was an initial investment to get the program running and to purchase keychains for all of our students), and can therefore now start buying spirit sticks for teachers to distribute in their classrooms and continue purchasing spirit sticks for our “You Rock”, “Camp Champ”, “Yet to Yes”, and “Rockin’ ‘Rangler” award winners.
  5. Special “space night” sticks will be available at A Night Under the Stars and holiday sticks will be available on December 1st.
  1. Teacher Grants – Kristin Howell
  2. $2,500 in fall grant funding was awarded to teachers at their October staff meeting. A list of the grant recipients and amounts awarded can be found at the end of the minutes.
  3. Playground Update – Rebecca Young
  4. Buddy Benches have been installed!
  5. Butterfly Garden – Robyn Jones
  6. Jessica continues to work hard in and for our butterfly garden, and in the near future it will become a registered Monarch butterfly tagging station! Another volunteer has been providing care to the front of the building – tending the garden beds, trimming the trees, etc. – and the school looks great!
  7. Book Fair – Kendra Graf
  8. $8,833 in sales translated to $4,000 for our librarian to spend with Scholastic for books and other library materials.
  9. Thank you to everyone who donated books for Ms. Jones to take to Clear Creek after Hurricane Harvey!
  10. Winter Party – Jamie Wren
  11. Winter parties will be held on Friday, December 22nd. Room parents should start talking to teachers about party plans and communicating party information with other parents.
  12. A Night Under the Stars – Rebecca Young
  13. A Night Under the Stars will take place on Friday evening from 6-8pm. We will offer FREE pizza, moon pies, drinks, craft stations,and a photo booth, and weather permitting, telescopes will be available on the west side of the building so guests can view the night sky. We love providing these free community-building events for our families!
  14. Spirit Nights – Melinda Zbranek
  15. Our next spirit night of the year will be held at Fuddruckers on Tuesday, November 14th. Receipts need to be dropped in the provided bucket in-store and this can be done all day! (Per Mrs. Jones, try the Nachos! )
  16. Sock Hop – Rebecca Young
  17. We’re about to begin planning our February 9thSock Hop. Let us know if you’d like to help!
  18. Staff Appreciation – Rebecca Young
  1. Teachers loved the October taco bar – thank you to everyone who provided food!Next up is Goodies of Gratitude. We will need 85 whole homemade or store-bought desserts (a dozen cookies or cupcakes, a loaf of sweet bread, a pie, a cake, etc.) to share with our teachers on November 21st, so please use the link on Facebook and in our weekly emails to sign up!
  1. Yearbooks – Rebecca Young
  2. Ordering will begin soon. A paper form will go home, but an online ordering option will also be available. To clarify, yearbook sales were not linked to shirt sales at the beginning of the year, so no one has purchased a yearbook already.

Other

  1. Don’t forget to register your Kroger card for Kroger Rewards! (Visit click on “Community”, and then select “Community Rewards”.)
  2. PTO T-Shirts For Sale - $15, see any member of the PTO Board
  3. Upcoming PTO meetings:
  4. Tuesday, January 9th, 6pm in the cafeteria
  5. Tuesday, March 6th, 6pm in the cafeteria
  6. Tuesday, May 1st, 6pm in the cafeteria
  7. School-wide party dates:
  8. Friday, December 22nd
  9. Wednesday, February 14th
  10. President Rebecca Young:
  11. The meeting in its entirety can be seen here:

Adjourn

PTO President Rebecca Young adjourned the meeting at 7:01pm.

Submitted by Erin Ferris on November 9th, 2017.

Classroom Cash Teacher Grants

Fall 2017

  • Shimek: whisper phones funded at $84.75
  • Shimek: scoop rockers funded $54.59 (3 for Shimek, 3 for Neville)
  • O’Quinn: privacy fences funded at $80.73
  • Rhodes: STEAM activities at $181.72
  • Bedard: classroom library funded at $250
  • Romero: makerspace activitiesfunded at $245.61
  • Bryant: cards club funded at $109.96
  • 4th Grade Math (Decell, Barker, Williams): math suppliesfunded at $557.49
  • Powell: headphones funded $43.80
  • 3rd & 4th Grade ELA (Steiner, Johnson, Shimek): 3rd and 4th grade literacy circle books funded at $672.52
  • Gideon: literacy stationsfunded at $221.00

Total: $2,502.17