September 2021 Meeting Minutes

 

General PTO Meeting Minutes

September 9, 2021

In Attendance

Amanda McKeown - President

Sarah Newman - Vice President

Emily Hoopes - Treasurer

Laura Adams - Teacher Appreciation Chair

Kathryn Jenkins - Inclusion, helping with Elementary

Hillary Snow-Hurst - Middle School Chair

Tracie Tornavacca - Elementary School Lead Teacher

Paige Gustafson - Learning Skills Lead Teacher

Chris Norlem (7th grade student, previous treasurer)

Erin Larson (4th grade student, came from Elementary PTO)

Brekkan Arnold 

Lora Kastelar 

Kristine Hopkins

Meeting called to order 10:35 a.m.

Emily was managing online communication, missed recording the meeting.

Introductions

• Welcome to PTO 21/22.

• Amanda reviewed the volunteer requirements. All volunteers need to pass a background check that is initiated with the office and has an associated fee of $33.25 plus the cost of fingerprinting.  This only needs to be done once for all the time your student is at Spectrum and carries with you from campus to campus. The cost of the background check and fingerprinting count towards volunteer hours. Volunteers also need to sign the volunteer code of conduct.

• We are in desperate need of additional members for our board. The most pressing need is for a secretary. Also, we are recruiting co-chairs for all of our committees. Each committee does have an experienced committee chair. Having a new co-chair to the committee is an easy way to get involved with the PTO, helps make the workload lighter for everyone, and allows you to train so that it’s easy for the incoming co-chair to take over as committee chair next year.

• If chairing a committee is too large of a commitment, you can sign up to serve on a committee. Amanda provided committee signups. For those not attending in-person, interest in committees can be expressed via e-mail. Write to spectrumtimberwolvespto@gmail.com

Introductions

Board members introduced themselves and described positions and committee needs

Teacher Appreciation (Laura)

Teacher appreciation dinner will be September 22. (Emily may not be able to assist.) We are hoping to do Subway or something similar with signup for sides. We’re only doing one dinner per conference night.

We are planning to do monthly teacher thank you’s. Amanda asked for suggestions for Halloween gift. Tracie Tornavacca and Paige Gustafson said that the staff would really like food. We expressed the difficulty of meeting needs of different diets. Breakfast was suggested. We talked about baked goods and it was suggested that fruit, yogurts and string cheese would be good options for gluten-free diets.

Action Items:

Plan PTC dinner for 22nd. Create Sign up Genius for sides. Create a Halloween gift for staff to express appreciation. Decide on a time of year (maybe November?) to do a Snack Drive for donations for snacks for classrooms. 

Volunteers: Lora Kastelar expressed interest in helping to plan PTC dinners.

Elementary and Inclusion Committee (Kathryn and Sarah)

Kathryn and Sarah are helping to take care of the needs of the Elementary committee until we have committee chairs in place. 

Volunteers: Kayla has expressed interest in chairing the committee but was not at this meeting. Lora Kastelar expressed interest in being a co-chair on this committee.

• Halloween 

• Elementary school would like to do a parade and have a trick or treat event. We discussed inviting parents to stand on the sidewalk which would help provide a barrier so that students are less likely to elope. Students would exit the building, parade through the parking lot, and then enter the playground through the gate on the corner. PTO would use a signup to provide candy and parent volunteers to man trick or treat stations. Also, provide trick or treat bags with handles, perhaps something that could be decorated in class. We need to advertise early to allow volunteers time to complete the background check. We ended to check with Levi to make sure that parent volunteers are ok.

• Classes would also like donations of food. We will provide the same treats for every class. (Suggestion was rice krispie treats and fruit snacks, capri suns) This would be coordinated with a signup genius. PTO would help distribute snacks to make sure classes get equal amounts. We should plan for more than the class count for every classroom.

• We need to communicate with the elementary school to make sure that we stagger start times so parents can attend parades at both schools.

• We’ll use Google Drive to provide activities for teachers to use in classrooms later. The trick or treat event will take  the place of us supporting parties, but Google Drive will help provide other things that they can do. Treats will still be provided for class parties.

• Action items: Create a parade route, communicate with elementary school and pick a parade time, advertise early so parents get started on background checks, purchase treat bags, create signup for food and candy, decide a number of stations, check with Levi about volunteers (Amanda), coordinate parent volunteers, buy or get bags donated, advertise parade, plan to distribute treats

• Door Decorating

• Elementary classes would like to decorate doors and compete. Middle School said they aren’t interested at Halloween, maybe Christmas. In the end, we decided to open the contest to anyone who wants to decorate, including related services, secretaries, etc.

• We discussed judging. Students hacked the system to cast multiple votes last time. We discussed having parents vote. Facebook was proposed, but our Facebook page may not get enough activity. Discussed using Padlet because then parents and students, but they’d have to sign in for their vote to count so it would limit each person to a single vote. Bonus that padlet uses Google account. Can still be advertised to parents on Facebook and by e-mail

• Wolf trophy or stuffed animals were suggested as a prizes. Trophy is preferred because the stuffed animal would be sought out by students, hard to clean. Ribbon that teachers could keep also suggested? (Not discussed, but Laura has offered to make things on Cricut.)

• We will not assign a theme for door decorating. Just “Halloween, no gore.”

• Action items: Find a trophy (Amanda), create padlet (Emily), advertise to teachers, open and close voting (Emily) photograph doors (Kathryn?), announce winner. 

Middle School Committee (Hillary)

• Halloween

• Middle school didn’t feel ready to plan for Halloween yet. However, they think that they would like to have a costume contest and a stomp. 

• Discussed coming up with 10 costume categories. Then decided to let teachers choose categories. Discussed giving a certificate. Prizes discussed included candy, full size candy bars, treat bags of candy, stickers, party favors. Still aiming for about 10 prizes. Amanda has vinyl stickers left from back to school night.

• For food, discussed providing chips, drinks and maybe (braces friendly) Halloween candy via signup genius.

• Possibly activities for quiet room, craft or activity room, etc. Library is usually the quiet room.

• Amanda will check with Levi to find out about parent volunteers in the school. (We have COVID concerns about this.) Possible parent volunteers could help chaperone stomp and staff other rooms. 

• Action items: Create signup for food. Decide if we are offering certificates or “prizes” for Halloween Costume Contest.  Create prizes. Create a google drive with activities. Paige expressed interest in an escape room. Check on Teachers Pay Teachers for possible Halloween Escape room options. Check with Levi about parent volunteers. (Amanda)

• Red Ribbon Week

• No overall theme. We will do theme days.

• Dress up days suggested:

• Crazy hair (add instructions of avoiding “scary” hair accessories)

• Crazy sock day

• PJ day

• Favorite character T-shirt day (i.e. superhero, anime, etc.)

• Halloween costumes

• Emily will create curriculum to accompany curriculum

• Discussed offering some sort of gift but decided that with Halloween parties at the end of the week, the students are already receiving a lot and this may not be a needed budget item.

• Coloring contest: participation prizes. Emily look for coloring pages and will reach out for certificate donations. Suggestions: Arctic Circle, Bahama Bucks, Del Taco

• Action items: Finalize dress up days (Hillary), Advertise, Curriculum in Google Drive (Emily), Get coloring pages into Google Drive (Emily), Prizes (Emily)

Strides for Spectrum

• Emily gave a brief recap of the Strides for Spectrum event and how to participate. PTO is supporting this event by advertising but not volunteering at the event. This year will be a carnival, 5K, and silent auction. Registration is online now. Contact Amy Baker to volunteer or for questions.

Math Cafe

• Emily gave a quick summary of the math tutoring program being started by Steve called Math Cafe. The goal is to help students who need an extra boost in math skills. Open to all grades, but especially targeting 7th grade.  Contact Steve Merrell for questions, to volunteer or to sign up.

Treasurer’s Report

Emily provided a treasurer’s report. We used money left over from the 2019-2020 year to buy playground balls, and to do end-of-year and beginning of year treats for the staff. (Fiiz was the staff’s favorite.)

Fiiz truck came in slightly over budget due to them assuming we were tax exempt. 

We work with an interim budget proposed last spring until we receive our budget allocation from the school. Emily will invoice the school for this. We usually plan this budget in the November meeting.

We try to leave $1000 in savings, which means we have $800 until our next budget allocation comes. Reviewed individual short-term budgets with committee chairs and answered questions. Budgets for elementary and middle school seem small, but this is because we receive a large amount of donations for the events planned by these committees. 

We discussed using the spirit week budget line to cover costs for door decorating contest.

Volunteer interests expressed by attendees not already on our board

Lora Kastelar: (4th & 6th grade students), elementary school committee, parent teacher conference dinners

Chris Norlem: Halloween parties, other needs as they arise

Brekkan Arnold: Middle School Committee

Meeting adjourned 10:15 a.m.
Next Meeting: October 7th due to Fall Break