St. Theresa Parents Association Meeting

January 11, 2017

Attendees:SupriyaArora, Christina Pfaller, Maggie Nogre, Meghan Kubek, Mary Stupen, Trisha Abbey, Sarah D’Amico, Tina Serpico, Kelly Schieler, Mary Keenley

Meeting Called to order: 7:05 pm. Approval of meeting minutes from December 14, 2016. Mary S motioned to approve, Christina second. All in favor.

Principal Update: Construction punch list is almost finished. The school parking lot by door 1 is now open. The meeting/breakout rooms in O’Brien Hall can now be used for meetings. If you would like to reserve a room please reach out to Enza, either by calling the school or emailing her at

We have a rigid policy regarding cell phones. Many kids seemed to have received phones for Christmas. They know the phones are to stay in their backpacks and be turned off. If they are caught with them out, the phones will be confiscated and parents will have to come in to school to pick them up. If they need to make a call there are phones all over the school for them to use. The newsletter has been revised again. It is easier to read on mobile devices now. Still need help with the newsletter. It isn’t that hard to do, and can be done from the comfort of your home. Please reach out to Mary if you or someone you know is interested in helping out.

2017-2018 School Year information will be coming out soon. The calendar will be delayed. We will start school in August, just not the week that the public schools start. Will be meeting to work on the bussing. Reenrollment forms will go out on January 27th. If they are turned in by the Open House (January 29th) families will receive a $25 discount per registered child off of the enrollment fee. Statement from the BSJ regarding tuition is that it will go up a standard 2%-3%. Financial Aid requests open up on the 29th. It is something to look into if you need assistance.

Open House: need to get flyers out to stores, please put out your lawn signs if you have them. We will need a few volunteers to work the registrations tables. New family information will be in the Rose Room. 7th graders will be the Ambassadors until they reach the middle of 8th grade. Terri trained all of the kids. Please make sure you only use the blue painters tape on the walls when hanging anything.

Financial Update: We are trending right at budget, but need to increase our income to hopefully end the year on target. Looking to do a few more Dine & Shares. Mary S received a call from a group that sells coupon books. May be a good fundraiser to do. If so, would start in August. Dress Down passes will be sold for Valentine’s Day so the kids will have 3 months to use them. Schoola, Christina will talk to Meg to see when we should be getting another check. Dippin’ Dots were a success. We made $350 profit. It was brought up to possibly sell them at the Spring Movie Night.

Spiritwear: need to move it more. Will have a table set up at open house. We will have two separate groups for Spiritwear, so we can introduce Spirit items such as chairs, umbrellas, tumblers, etc branded with our STS logo.

Health & Wellness: We are going to move forward with "Open Gym Night". This would be a PA sponsored activity which encourages child/parent/family play.

-Looking at doing one or two different nights a month.

- Charge $5.00/family

- Access to balls, scooters and other gym equipment

-1 hour sessions divided as follows: preK/K; 1st-3rd; 4th-5th; 6th-8th

- 2 reps from H&W would attend the sessions

Every Kid Healthy Week (April 24-28)

Want to set up a smoothie bar and a yogurt bar for the student body

Dance-a-thon

- changing name to MOVE 2017

- new date will be Fall of 2017

- we think this will be a huge money maker for STS if we can get high student participation. We need way more time to plan: coordinate volunteers (thinking we need close to 40), arrange catering, activities, students collecting pledges, music, figure out flow, have tshirts made, etc. Needless to say this will be a big undertaking which could potentially be raising $8K-$10K to pay for the climbing wall, new gym equipment, etc.

- Would like to get 8th graders very involved in helping with the planning like picking out the music list and aiding in our "sneak peek" videos we would like to create to get the student body excited about the event.

Catholic Schools Week: Sunday January 29, 2017 11:30 Mass. Students that wear their uniforms will receive a Dress Down Pass for Monday. Open House immediately after Mass. Book Fair will be open. We will be having a book drive as well. Donate your gently used books as you purchase new ones. There will be a Service Group Fair in O’Brien Hall as well. This is for local church and school groups to set up displays and let people know about them and what they do. There will also be a Community Art Project done by the students in their classrooms. It will be on display in O’Brien Hall. Used uniforms Sale will also be going on during the open house. Monday: collection for the needy. There will be speakers in to talk with the students. They will talk about whom they are, what it is they do, and where the donations go. The students will bring donation items with them to the presentations. Tuesday: Celebrating Students & Parents. The teachers will show the students their appreciation for them. Fire Fighters will come in and speak to the Kindergarteners, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 6th grades. Wednesday: Dads and Donuts 6:30am-8am in O’Brien Hall. We will sell Krispy Kreme Donuts again. Sending home flyer via backpacks, will send a constant contact, and will be put into the newsletter. Thursday will be Vocation Day in the classrooms. Elizabeth Vogt will be arranging the speakers for the day. Middle School will be attending the play Bye, Bye, Birdie at St. Viator. Friday, Thank You to Faculty, Parents, etc. We will be ending the week with the pep rally. Spiritwear Day. There will be an email going out for volunteers to sign up for any events during the week.

Next Meeting: February 8, 2017 at 8am

Motion to adjourn meeting: Trish Abbey at 8:26pm seconded Tina Serpico