September 3, 2019 Meeting Minutes

General Meeting

September 3, 2019

In Attendance

Laura Adams: Co-president

Emily Hoopes: Co-president

Chris Norlem: Treasurer
Britnee Norlem: Assistant Treasurer

Steve Merrell: Assistant Principal

Evelyn Cox: Teacher Appreciation Chair
Darcie Mumme: Middle School Liason

Taralyn Longazo
Mary Cox
Karen Christensen

Warren Christensen
Teri Houskeeper
Amanda McKeown
Sheri Durham
Traci Walker
Kathryn Jenkins

Agenda

Meeting called to order- 9:05 a.m.
Welcome by Assistant Principal Steve Merrell. Introduction of board member nominees.

PTO Board & Committees
Election of officers

Emily Hoopes & Laura Adams: Co-presidents
Chris Norlem: Treasurer, Britnee Norlem Assistant Treasurer

9:07 a.m. Motion to confirm slate of nominees by Steve Merrell. Vote was unanimous.

9:08 Meeting turned to Emily & Laura.

Introduced current committee chairs

Evelyn Cox: Teacher Appreciation Committee Chair
Darcie Mumme: Middle School Liason

Open Board and Committee chair positions

Vice President: Preferably training to be president next year. Help to support committees
Secretary: Primarily responsible for minute taking. Also helping with communication, facebook, website.

Committees & committee chairs: 

Fundraising: help plan, organize our fundraising
Volunteer Coordinating: Help to recruit volunteers

Auditing: Near year end. Will review financial records.
Nomination: No later than mid-year. Recruit leadership for next year.

Reviewed Volunteer Requirements

Must pass school background check to serve on the executive board or to work with students.

• Background check paperwork w/secretaries. $33.25 fee. 
• Fingerprinting is $5 at NSL Police Station if you say it is for Spectrum.
• Background check doesn’t expire. Good for multiple years.

Updates & Reports

The PTO voted last year to change its name was changed last spring to Spectrum Timberwolves PTO. This separates us from the PTO’s at other campuses. But simpler and shorter.

Business organization

We operate under the IRS rules for a very small non-profit charity. We have an EIN#. As long as our average 3 year gross income remains under $5,000 per year, we can maintain this type of non-profit status without requiring a more formal filing. The school has its own fundraising department and budget for a lot of programs typically paid for by Parent Teacher groups. Our primary objective is to organize volunteers to help support these programs. We are raising funds to allow us an operating budget and don’t need to make a lot of money. We adopted bylaws & standing rules over the summer. These also represent our organizing documents. Available for review at request.
Summer events. Popsicle social and caughtya store collections were both successful. Planning to repeat caughtya store collection in January.

Treasurer’s Report Chris Norlem reviewed 2018-2019 year end and current year income/spending.

Membership Report 33 members before this meeting. (Several new memberships accepted.)

Laura reviewed PTO mission statement.

Emily shared the following summary of our upcoming projects.
Current calendar is available at spectrumtimberwolvespto.blogspot.com

Supporting teachers

Teacher appreciation and boosting teacher morale is a priority for administration and the PTO this year.

• Parent Teacher Conference Dinners. 4 conferences, 8 dinners
• Teacher appreciation week
• Supporting school’s hospitality committee. Emily & Laura will attend meeting & report back.
• Sign up genius for other volunteer needs

Supporting students

• Caughtya store collection: August, January
• Science Assembly: American Chemical Society @ University of Utah
• Field Day
• Discuss with teachers how to support other activities (Red Ribbon Week, Valentine’s)

Supporting families

• Back to school social
• Combined fundraiser/parent night
• Share information about school events and needs through website/Facebook

Fundraising

• Fall fundraiser: pizza cards (September) - details below
• Winter/spring fundraiser: parent night out. (February). We looked at professional Paint Nite last year. Exploring something more DIY to make the cost more approachable. Swapped order of fundraisers to keep things simpler.

Questions

Room parents It was suggested that room parents would be a good way to support teachers and organize our efforts. We reviewed what efforts were made to organize room parents last year. We want to focus on building credibility with the teachers and parents this year. We’ll start by working with the hospitality committee and trying to support a few events. Once we’ve built relationships & credibility, we will revisit this subject.

Planning for September

Fall fundraiser

Papa Murphy’s Coupon Cards

• Our cost. Card purchase price: $1. Initial order of 50 cars. Purchase additional cards as needed. Offer from Papa Murphy’s to buy back unsold cards.
• Card resale prices: $10/ea, $15/2, $5/staff
• Unanimous support of these price points.

Distribution: Online through our square store.

• We’ll add a page in the square store with the items as listed above.
• Add a link to advertise to our blog and Facebook page w/links, & by e-mail.
• Create a bitty link or a QR code. Maybe distribute flyers in the carpool line. Encourage sharing to family. Add a “donate” option for family who won’t benefit from Papa Murphy’s coupon.
• We can charge shipping through Square. This can cover our cost to mail out purchased cards. We can get together once a week to mail out orders.
• People can share link to encourage family involvement. Otherwise, they would buy cards up front at full price and just have family pay them back.

Also available for purchase during carpool.

• Tentative plan Fridays during carpool: 12:30 p.m. Need 2 people to handle money
• Make available for purchase during Parent Teacher Conferences
• Tentative dates: September 16-October 16 (Day before Fall Break.)
• Waiting on approval from fundraising department.

Teacher Appreciation Dinners, Sep 25-26

Evelyn Cox is committee chair. Several members talked to her about helping to organize dinners. 

• Committee will plan menu & create and distribute a signup genius. We need one or two meals. Preferably a bar format.
• New kitchen at the school should provide us additional space for food preparation, set up.
• Emily will reach out to Leger’s Deli about donation for one night.

ACS Assembly

• Need to coordinate with school staff to choose dates for these 2 science assemblies.
• Hoping to be able to get parent volunteers to sit with students in assembly so that teachers could have additional prep time.
• Plan is for 2 assemblies, lower grades & upper grades.

Leftover Otter Pops

We’d like to distribute leftover popsicles from social on Friday afternoon at dismissal. Give one popsicle for student. Unopened. Steve will send out an e-mail to warn parents.

Next meeting

Meetings will be held the first Thursday of every month at 9:00 a.m. For parents who want to be involved but can’t attend this meeting, we’ll use e-mail and text to communicate opportunities to be involved. Encourage participation in committees.

Next meeting: October 3, 9:00 a.m.

Adjourned 10:15 a.m.