|
|
|
Tuesday, 21 October 2008 16:00 |
AGENDA ITEM UPDATES
Treasury Report
FUN(d) Raising Committee
Cob Oven Committee,
JM Garden project
Communications Committee
AGENDA ITEMS NEW
Halloween at John Muir
Music Room Projects
BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENTS:Â
BOD established,
School lunch program using local farm produce in November
NEXT MEETING TUEDAY, DEC. 2, 2008 @ 3 P.M.
PLEASE GIVE YOUR AGENDA ITEMS TO PAULINE BLACKÂ NO LATER THAN MONDAY, DEC 1-Â PREFERRABLY BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK.
Agenda item discussion, recommendations and/or action taken at this meeting recorded on next page
AGENDA ITEM UPDATES FROM PREVIOUS MTG
TREASURERS REPORT - Lauren Fennell reported $9,783.03 exists in the John Muir account. $935 is committed to the JM Garden (remains of the $1500 Grant from the Coop). Scrip proceeds from last month were great at $535.
GAS CARDS FOR EARTH TEACH DRIVERS? To be further discussed at next PTO mtg. Initial discussion centered on providing $10 gas cards to help alleviate financial hardships created by the price of gasoline.
Primary project contact person:Â Lauren Fennell
There was a brief general discussion regarding the feasibility of using general funds to provide gas cards to parents who drive regularly to Earth Teach. No resolution was reached. There will be further discussion at the December 5th meeting.
FUN(D) RAISING - SOCK HOP - Event planning on hold until January 2009
Primary project contact person:Â Mary Rogan
General discussion about the event yielded some concerns surrounding the details of the fund raising portion. The fun and financial success of last year's Sock Hop was applauded. Some community members present expressed their continued discomfort in having students sell tickets and providing prize incentives to the highest ticket sellers. Questions were also raised as to what our fundraising goals are both financially and philosophically
It became clear the PTC needed to give more families and staff the chance to voice their suggestions and opinions on how to provide fund raising. The general consensus was that fund raising, like any JM volunteer activity, should be clearly presented as optional. The majority of community members present voted to hold event planning until early January 2009. A general announcement of the project status will be made at Parent's night.
COB OVEN PROJECT - Permit requests pending
Primary project contact person:Â Jen
Mtg minutes continued
JM GARDEN PROJECT - Volunteers needed to helps maintain the garden over the initial winter months - cut back black berries, compost and plant a winter crop.
Patti Ruiz reported most of the garden has been harvested. Celery, corn stalks, storage onions, misc. variety of potatoes and squash remain. The future of the JM garden is unclear. What is known is that the project will depend on parent efforts. The amount of learning time students are allotted outside the classroom by the District is already taken up by Earth Teach and Lithia Park activities. The small group of parents who initiated the garden under the supervision of Scott McGuire did a fantastic job! Having established access to TID water opened up the possibility of immense growth. Where we go, as a community from here will depend on what target projects we choose. One possibility would be to create a Garden Coop that would provide monies for the school in additional to food for projects, families and learning opportunities for our children. If there is enough interest, a winter crop can be planted.
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE - Grant Ruiz gave the following update.
Status:
- The phone trees have been made for each class and distributed. They are to be used when parents need to be notified quickly, e.g., during a school closure due to weather.
- The school directory is still under construction but should be ready within a couple of weeks. It will include a parent-to-parent guide with information about how to stay informed and how to become involved if desired.
- While building the school directory, a large number of discrepancies were found in parent e-mail addresses between the list built from student registration (as kept in the PowerSchool database) and the list maintained by the teachers.
- Sending mass e-mails to all parents at once appears not to be working. A PTC member observed that e-mails sent to parents in Marcia's class appears to be working.
- The teachers present were interested in having "class liaisons" again, as was the case last year. These are parents, one or two from each class, who would help communicate information as needed between a teacher and other parents from the class.
Plans:   E-mail problems need to be addressed. The existing e-mail lists need to be corrected and synchronized, and the problem of sending to all parents needs to be solved as well. For now, we recommend that when sending messages to the whole school, the same message should be sent to the parent e-mail list for each class
Mtg minutes continued
separately. That is, the same message would be sent out four times, once for each class.
- The communications committee would like to address the issue of posting information electronically, via e-mail and on a website. This would include posting announcements, scheduled events, calls for volunteers, and minutes of various PTC and committee meetings.
- The communications committee can help identify liaisons for each class to work with the teachers, as described above.
- The committee will investigate the general question of how to gather information effectively from parents, e.g., to discern interest in various fundraising activities.
NEW AGENDA ITEMS
HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL - This year Pat and Marcia are heading up a Halloween Carnival. Please contact them ASAP if you would like to help out.
Because there is less space this year to hold individual functions and the hallway is a bit squeezed to hold the usual parade of costumes we will be combining classroom activities and creating a Carnival that will be tons of fun!
MUSIC ROOM PROJECTS - Emmy has identified some perfect projects that can be done at home and will really benefit our Music room/program.
Primary project contact:Â Marybeth Beaudoin
BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENTS
A Board of Directors has been established as required to maintain Non-profit status. Minutes from the October 9, 2009 first meeting are posted in the lobby.
School lunch program will be using local food providers during the month of November.Â
Parents are invited to sample the quality food local vendors can provide to the schools for themselves on Tuesday, November 25th (same schedule day as Belleview elementary). School breakfasts will also be augmented with carrot and squash
Muffins.
Mtg minutes continued
muffins. School menus are available in the JM lobby. Please participate in the school lunch program as much as possible during this period. Showing your support by purchasing lunches will go a long way to convincing the District we want better nutrition for our children and we stand support our local community farmers.
More information also available on the District Web site.
Tracy Harding is manager for the "farm to school" lunch program for the District.
NEXT MEETING TUEDAY, DEC. 2, 2008 @ 3 P.M.
PLEASE GIVE YOUR AGENDA ITEMS TO PAULINE BLACKÂ NO LATER THAN MONDAY, DEC 1ST - PREFERRABLY BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK.
Minutes recorded by Patti Ruiz
|
|
|
