Saint Brendan Parish School
PTO Meeting Minutes
Attendees:
Monica Carlin (Co-President), Carolyn Casey (Co-President), Arlene Sullivan (Principal), Desiree Engel (Secretary), Joan McIntosh (Treasurer), Meri Gehrman, Carol Peterson, Michelle Ryan, Lisa McCole, Liz Kieffer, Krystie Pilukas, Gianna Miller, Dayna Wirtala, Julie Flor, Beth Sizelove, Maria Periz-Torkildson
Opening:
The PTO meeting was called to order at
Principal’s Report: (Arlene Sullivan)
Arlene informed the assemble group that the development committee meets the same night and she must attend that meeting and so was not able to attend the entire PTO meeting. Arlene is in communication with the PTO co-chairs and is kept informed.
Saint Brendan Parish staff and school staff had a retreat together before school started. They were able to go over the value of a Catholic education and go over the nuts and bolts of running the school. Liz and Christie joined them at the retreat to ask the staff to get more involved in the auction.
Saint Brendan Parish is going into a new five year plan. It is very important that the school mission and the parish mission complement each other.
This is the 150th anniversary of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle. There will be a celebration in May at the
The Hot Lunch program is short and needs extra help in order to run this year.
Auction: (Liz Kieffer and Krystie Pilukas)
There are lots of donations that have already been received. The first bulletin insert will go in next week. The auction is going to be held in the
The Auction Committee is looking for someone to help with finance.
Scrip: (Michelle Ryan)
The drive to get people to register their Albertsons card did not go well. Safeway will no longer be selling scrip although St. Brendan still has $15,000 worth of Safeway script on hand. The scrip program is now able to pay back $5000 of the $10000 barrowed to buy Safeway scrip.
The scrip program is now using QuickBooks to keep track of everything. It will now be easier to run reports and track inventory.
There was discussion about making the purchase of a set amount of scrip a requirement for each family at the school. It was also put forward that after a certain mandatory amount of scrip that anything above and beyond the requirement could be used for tuition reimbursement. New software might make this possible if scrip purchases could be tracked by family.
E-scrip is available from many different stores but e-scrip charges 15% of the schools profit.
Scrip orders can be placed using the schools web site but payment can’t yet be made online.
Sally Foster: (Lisa McCole)
$485 dollars have been sold online.
The web site was not working yesterday for a time probably because all of the schools were trying to log on. Sally Foster will be sold at the Masses on the weekend of Sept. 17th and 18th. The sales will count toward the family requirement of the family selling.
Memory Book: (Meri Gehrman)
Linda has received new software.
Bite of Saint Brendan’s: (Dayna Wirtala)
October 28th is the date. The book fair is the following week so the theme is “Literature – come as your favorite character.” Trying to get books themed food in addition to Pizza and Caesar salad.
Box Tops: (Julie Flor)
There is an announcement going in the parish bulletin and the school bulletin. A letter was sent out to the new families only informing them of the box top program. It has been considered putting boxes in the classrooms to collect the box tops to increase student involvement.
Soup Labels are no longer being collected because it makes very little money.
Membership: (Beth Sizelove)
Everything is going smoothly. Buddies are assigned and working well.
New Business:
Uniform: Changes can be made to the uniform policy every three years. This is the year that changes can be made if so desired. A small group needs to be formed to do research. Talk to parents of both sexes and in different grades. All changes will have to be passed by the school commission. The Uniform research group was not formed at this meeting.
Auction Chair volunteer hours: A motion was put forward to do away with the “no mandatory volunteer hours for the following year” policy for the auction chairs. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
Hurricane Katrina:
Closing:
The meeting adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Desiree Engel