St. Brendan’s PTO Board Meeting

September 18, 2003 Minutes

 

Attendees:       Julia Walters-Burns, Margie Schmutz, Betsy Maxwell, Mary Jane Fatigati, Carolyn Casey, Sue Flanigan, Cindy Seib, Connie Henderson, Lynn Wygant, Sally Sonnen, Lisa McCole, Julie Smith, Sue Iverson, Michelle Dunn, Brenda Roberts, Carrie Jacoby, Jim Jacoby, Peggy Harnden, Geetha Beauchamp, Helene Clancy, Teri Clark, Wayne Slater, Karen Bolibol, Julie Towey, Marie Perez Torkildson, Denise Fong (post School Commission Meeting)

 

Teacher Representatives: Mrs. Sullivan (pre School Commission meeting)

 

Guests:           Mary Kay Shrum, Laurie Vasquey

                       

 

The Board, Committee Chairs, School Function, Enrichment Coordinators, Teacher Representatives and Guests, met in the eighth grade classroom.   Julia and Margie called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm.  Mrs. Sullivan led all those present in a prayer. 

 

Committee and Function Chairs Listing: Margie and Julia routed the PTO Committee, Function, and Enrichment chairperson and coordinators listing.  This includes phone numbers and email addresses.

 

Past President Report (D Fong) - The PTO Vice President is the PTO liaison to the School Commission.  The Vice President attended the School Commission meeting this evening.  Generally the PTO and School Commission meetings are not scheduled for the same night.

Denise reported that Father Lawrence had announced two new potential schools on the Eastside; one in Bellevue and one in Woodinville.  Father Lawrence has also asked the School Commission to come up with a standard to follow when looking at families agreed upon contributions to the school and parish.  It was also reported that after school care would be on the five-year plan.

 

Treasurer Report (M Fatigati):

 

Maryjane has asked that the following guidelines be followed when submitting a deposit or request for reimbursement:

 

Deposits:

 

·           Need to be supported by an itemized listing

·           Submit checks, cash and deposit listing to Treasurer as soon as possible

·           For those group with there own checking accounts, reconcile all accounts within one week of receiving bank statements.  Make copy of bank statement and bank reconciliation and give to Treasurer

 

 

 

 

Reimbursements:

 

·           Need to be supported by a receipt

·           Must have check request form completely filed out

·           Have form approved by appropriate Program Coordinator that supplies were purchased for, i.e., Room Parents for parties, Coordinator for Bite of St. Brendan

·           For all check requests over $150.00, Co-President authorization is required

 

Mary Jane reported that there was very little activity in accounts over the summer.  She is expecting the next two months to be very busy.

 

Principles Report (A Sullivan): Staff took a one-day in-service on Discipline with Love and Logic and they will be implementing what they learned into the classrooms.  Mrs. Sullivan would like to look into offering Parenting with Love and Logic to the school parents.

Accreditation Update: Everything is moving along right on track.  Staff is getting ready for the site visit There will be a pre-visit on 1/13/04 and the then the site visit is scheduled for 2/11, 12, & 13.  Mrs. Sullivan would like the PTO to consider moving the February meeting to 2/12

 since the accreditation team will want to meet with the PTO board anyway.  The hospitality committee may need some with preparations for the three days that the team will be visiting.

 

 

REPORTS

 

Fund Raisers:

 

Auction (C Cassey & S Flanigan) - Everything is on schedule.  All volunteer positions are filled and the first auction meeting is scheduled for October 7th.  The venue has been secured as well as the auctioneer.  Carolyn is storing auction items at this time but has some other options available.

 

Box Tops (C Seib) - No activity report at this meeting.  A letter will be sent to all new families explaining the program in the next bulletin.  Cindy would like to assign the box top money (the school receive $.10 for every box top) to a particular fund and would like input on this.

 

Sally Foster  (C Henderson) later amended at the 10/2/03 meeting - A few families have chosen to buy out and there has been a lot of online orders already.  Connie expects to receive most family’s orders during the last week before the deadline.  Since there is no school on 10/3 orders should be turned in on 10/6 however the office will be open on the 3rd if people chooses to drop them off.  Any order turned in after the third will not qualify for prizes.  Plenty have people have volunteered to help with the disbursement of orders.

 

Holiday Craft Fair (L Wygant) - The committee is having a hard time locating an Espresso cart so they are thinking of just setting up a table for coffee. 

There will not be postcards adverting the Craft Fair this instead the money will be spent on an ad in the P.I. or Times.

Lynn would like to find a new co-chair for this committee to shadow her this year.

 

Scrip (S Sonnen & L McCole) - Things are going very well this year sales are up 49%.  They need more volunteers to sell script in both the mornings and afternoons since it will now be offered everyday. Thank you to Jan Carroll for donating a sandwich board to advertise that script is available in the AM and after school.

Script will be available soon through the school web page.

Sally and Lisa are going to look into handing out the Albertson's Community Partners cards at Mass.  It was suggested that the availability of the cards be put in the church bulletin.

Any amount of script sold over and above $10,000.00 will go toward playground equipment.

 

Committees:                  

 

Clinic (J Smith) - This activity is to meet the state Department of Health requirements for screening.  Screening is scheduled for 10/9/02.  Retesting and screening for absent students is scheduled for 10/16/02.  Everyone's vision will be screened.  Select grades will have their hearing screened.  The fifth and seventh graders will be screened for scoliosis.  Parents are notified if their student is outside the screening parameters.

 

Hot Lunch (S Iverson & L Wygant) - The new lunch program has had a great response.  Well over 100 families are participating.  The first lunch will be on 10/6.  Sue and Lynn would like to receive checks only.  They would like to stress it is important to have orders in by the due date.

 

Improvements (K. Petrauskas) - No report

 

Library (M Dunn)  - Michelle is working on the volunteer schedule.  There will be a book fair during conferences this year.  Work parties will be scheduled for book prep.  Dates of these parties will be in the Wednesday bulletin.

 

Membership (B Roberts) - All but four families have turned their PTO dues.  Reminders have been sent to them twice.  It was decided that the best course of action would be to give the names to Mrs. Sullivan to follow up.

The summer picnic welcoming new families went very well this year.

 

Outreach (L Ungvarsky) - No report.

 

Class Liturgies (H Clancy) - Helene will be helping Julie facilitate class liturgies this year.  She has asked that the PTO fund $50.00 per class for supplies to make banners for the liturgies.  Margie will talk to Arlene to see what can be arranged.

 

Playground (C Jacoby & T Lucas) - Everything is going well.  Volunteers have been great about signing up.  Only one day is open still in October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playground Upgrade (K O'Brien-Rourke) - The gravel on the playground will be moved around and redistributed this week.  Covering should be 12 inches deep.  The architect will look at the best way to do this.  New ground covering will probably be wood chips not rubber pieces due to cost.

The new "Big Toy's" estimated cost is between $15-20,000.00 To keep cost down volunteers may be asked to assemble however because of liability there would need to be a vendor provided foreman to oversee installation project.

The playground was inspected last week.  A full report will go to Arlene.

 

 

Room Parents (P Harnden) - Welcome tea went well.  Peggy would like to use up some of the stuff in the PTO closet before restocking.

Sixth grade is in need of some more room parents.  As of right now they only have two.

It was decided that the PTO would give the second grade class $25.00 to spend on their First Communion Party so that the room parents did not have to save the money out of their allotted party money each year.

It was decided that next year Curriculum Social Hour would be held at the beginning of the evening instead of the end in hopes that more parents would attend.

 

Volunteer Coordinator (G Beauchamp) - Mrs. Sullivan has asked to see family volunteer hours for the summer. 

If any coordinators are in need of more volunteers please let Julia, Margie or Geetha know so that they can help you out with recruitment.

 

Technology (M Sonnen):  (Report from Sally Sonnen) The new software is being installed and everything should be up and running next week.

 

School Functions:

 

Calendar (D & T Clark) - Calendars were distributed at Curriculum Night.  Additional calendars are available in the office for $5.00.  Thank you to Don & Teri!

 

Carpool (J Jacoby) - Jim would like to have one more volunteer to help run the carpool.  There are currently three volunteers.   As with every year the carpool starts out a little rough.  Please remember to not use your cell phones once the carpool starts moving.

 

Emergency Preparedness (M Livingston, W Slater) - The seventh and eighth graders have already participated in the mass causality drill.

The earthquake drill is scheduled for 10/8/03.  The teachers will not be graded this year, instead volunteers will be asked if they observed anything that could be done differently.

It was suggested that St. Brendan have a "sister school" in another state for emergency contact.

Intruder alert drill with the staff has been done.

Some concerns were raised regarding the gates being left unlocked during the day.  Not all teachers have had keys to the gates in the past but Wayne was told every teacher would have keys to these gates soon.

 

 

Family Nights (K Bolibol) - The Bite of St. Brendan's is coming up soon.  Karen will ask for volunteers at the room parents meeting next week.

 

Hospitality (D Loutsis) - No activity planned until January

 

Milk (J Towey) - 188 annual milk passes have been sold. 

Tuesday is the milk delivery day so the refrigerator will be very full on Tuesday and Wednesdays.  Darigold is available to provide ice cream at a good price for school functions.

 

Parish Publicity (M Perez-Torkildson) - Submit items or information to “Parish Publicity.”  Items need to be to Marie by noon on Mondays.  Mrs. Sullivan needs to approve anything going in the church bulletin.  This is a great way for committees to get exposure for their events.

 

School Photography (J Jacoby) - This will be Jim's last year.  If anyone is interested in replacing him for next year please contact Jim.

 

Uniform Exchange & Lost and Found (J Peterson) - No report

 

Memory Book(R Colleran, L Weldy) - Terri Clark will be meeting with Raelyn and Lynda to pass on all the

information for the memory book.

 

Enrichment:             

 

Art Docent (T Corbin) - The program is going well and has a lot of volunteers.

 

Jr. High Play (                ) - We have a director but still need a parent coordinator to help make sure the play runs smoothly.

 

Speech (D Clark) - The first speech tournament is scheduled for December 2003 at Blanchet a second one is scheduled for January 2004 at Seattle Prep.  Students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades may participate in Speech.  There are only six volunteers at this time more are needed.

 

Young Authors (Report from M Schmutz)  - Elizabeth had a cancellation and is now looking to reschedule a storyteller.

 

OLD BUSINESS

 

Playground Equipment Plan/Subcommittee- See above report under playground upgrade.

 

Volunteer Agreement Process and Tracking (Summer Hours)- See above report

 

NEW BUSINESS

 

Called and Gifted Workshop- Rod Harmon addressed the board and explained the reasons and benefits behind the Called and Gifted Workshop.  It will be held October 10 (7-9pm) and October 11 (9am -5pm).  All PTO Board members and Committee Chairs are asked to participate.

 

Margie and Julia adjourned the meeting at 9:15 pm.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

 

 

Betsy Maxwell

PTO Secretary