President’s Report – 11/14 PTA Meeting

Thanks to all who attended our Nov PTA meeting.

Student Council members reported on the canned food drive and Operation Gratitude. A Box Top skit is scheduled for the next Flag Assembly.

Membership chair Tiffany Frey reported that we have record number of PTA members – 413! Also, 60% of teachers have joined as well. Claudia has been very helpful in supporting the membership drive.

Brian Kull attended in place of Mr. Conlon and reported that Brandy Lowry, our librarian, moved to Portland. The district is working on filling her position. Parent-teacher conferences are coming up after Thanksgiving. Canned Food Drive is running now through Friday.

Treasurer Laura Jumani presented the Treasurer’s and Budget to Actual Reports. She also had copies of the 2015/2016 tax filings and it was mailed this week. We discussed that this year’s Spirit Wear sales higher than average. Mr. Kull suggested that we incentive students to participate in Spirit wear Fridays. We talked about having a stuffed dolphin that could travel to the class with the highest percentage of kids in spirit wear each Friday.

After-school chair Phyllis Fang has successfully negotiated a contract with REC1 with lower processing fees and waived fees for donations. The new contract is estimated to save us about $3000 and this has been a multi-year project of cost-cutting. Implementation of REC1 is in process now and we will use it for after-school session 2 registration if all goes according to plan.

Garden Teacher Kelly Osborne reported on the new Outdoor Classroom lessons for October and November. TOW received a donation of $1120 from the Laguna Beach Garden Club. We also discussed the Whole Kids Bee Grant that is in process and the Harmful 7 / Chef Ann Foundation grant that she brought to the district’s attention.

Family Art Night chair Christina Shook reported on how engaged families were with the watercolors project, despite a microphone malfunction. The artist donated her time but we will purchase a thank you gift. Christina suggested that future Family Art Nights could be used to promote other PTA events since many families are at the school.

Fall Fundraiser Chair Sherri Morgan reported that we are close to $6000 on sales. Products will arrive early Dec. and Sheri needs help to get the items sorted. Please save paper and packaging.

Yearbook co-chair Crystal Jerabek reported on the new Google folders for yearbook pics. We are hoping to make photo sharing easy this year! Event chairs will be encourgaed to work on their own yearbook spreads. Anyone else who is interested in creating a yearbook page should reach out.
Bonanza:  https://goo.gl/photos/sBvZ6dZDPMbrfwGs9
Reflections:  https://goo.gl/photos/kQfyNK34bnB6GsHf9
Halloween:  https://goo.gl/photos/KjTCWszeeLR9G28U6
Family Art Night: https://goo.gl/photos/Z6dC7eiiTKHNhFBJ9

President Sarah Durand discussed two possible areas that the school is looking for the PTA to fund. A WeatherBug station with a cost of approximately $8,000 and a resurfacing project for the playground. Mr. Kull said weather is in the 3rd and 5th grade curriculum and the teachers would use the program We agreed we needed more info on playground resurfacing to have an informed discussion. We plan to gather more details before we vote on what to support.

Boys and Girls Club representative Damien Enriquez talked about the First LEGO League program and encouraged TOW student particpation.

We hope you will all join us for our next meeting on Monday, January 9 at 8am in the MPR. That meeting date is subject to change (it’s our first day back to school after holidays, so we may need to move it!).

Thanks,

Sarah Durand
TOW PTA President