Minutes.feb09

Reading Elementary PTO Minutes February 10th, 2009 6:37 pm Meeting Begins Attendance: John Fike, Ray Pentkowski, Rayna Bishop, Chris Titus, Crystal Millard, Lisa Kaija, Virginia Springer & Amy Harkins Minutes from last meeting were reviewed and accepted. A few words from John Fike tonight: He wanted to thank the PTO for all of our efforts and commitment. He does see what we are dong and feels he has taken us for granted. He will try better in the future to let us know this. He did a little reminiscing on the old days of Reading Elementary school and how far we have come in the PTO, all of the great fund raising and hard work that we do, the school board is very thankful. John touched on the budget and the changes that we will see; Budget is being amended with Ray Pentkowski. Changes mentioned, i.e., Guidance being cut back to ½ day and more tech programs to fill in the time slot. A reduction of teacher assistance, i.e. Judy will be mornings only. No cuts in music or art. We are doing extremely well in the tech department- with the latest tools and a lot of support, equal growth with development, an awesome combination. The school is slowly reducing paper- invoicing and checks will be electronic. Did you all know that we have 4 smart boards in our school? This is a wonderful modern tool for our school. The school budget is 2nd at the town meeting. Treasure report: Crystal reports no new change; currant account balance is $3,105.55. We do get a Skiing make up day, after February vacation this will be scheduled. Chair report/ Open discussion: Rayna opened discussion about the Lollipop races for Friday, February 13th. Skiing will go as planned with the instruction and then let the fun begin!!! Instructors, parents, chaperones, families are invited for the festivities. Crystal asked about the gift for Koreen, parents wanted to get a gift for Koreen and her hard work and commitment to the Ski program, which went so smooth and was so much fun. Crystal has a money pool growing for a gift and asks anyone who would like to contribute to see her. The PTO also decided to get a gift certificate to the Reading Greenhouse and Amy and Scott Harkins are also donating a plant to PTO for Koreen as well. A “new” Liability insurance requirement is in full swing to use the Reading town hall- cost is around $500-$800 per event. The Rec. will host the talent show this year and the proceeds will go to the PTO. Previous years the PTO has given money to a cause. Last year we did not. Should we give any money this year? The consensus is that we need to make money, get ahead and stay ahead. Darcy Cole worked for the Mt. Creamery last year and they donated all ice cream for the talent show. We were wondering if Darcy still had this in with them, since Darcy no longer works for them. We will find out, Chris mentioned that we could just buy big tubes of ice cream at Wal-mart and it’s inexpensive.

We will do the raffle of baskets at the talent show: Crystal Millard will head up this task. Each class will have the following theme: K, 1, 2 Chocolate - 3&4 is Maple madness, 5&6 is Gardeners. The 5th and 6th did the tickets and admission last year is that the case this year? We will find out from Patty. We tossed around the idea of a 4th basket: movie night/ date night or knitting basket? But no decisions were made on this. We think SAPA TV would be great to have again. Lisa thought she could get Ben to do it. We also tossed around the idea of getting another 5th or 6th grader trained in this for the future. Tentative date for set up for Talent night is Sat. March 21st at 8:00 am. Clean up is usually after talent night. Admission prices will stay the same. Scott Baumann will help Chris with the sound at the talent show. Town meeting food: - We will be offering babysitting by Crystal and Kaylie- donations to sitter from parent, are appreciated. Crystal, Rayna and Lisa will call families with the ingredients to bring for dishes being made. The rate for meal will stay the same. The officers were elected tonight and accepted were: Amy Harkins for secretary, Crystal Millard for Treasure: and Rayna for Chair- which she would like to pass on to someone else who is willing. So if there is an interest please contact Rayna. We discussed the individual duties expected and have adopted a nice simple outline of jobs. We also would like to get another person on board to help with the public relations aspect of the job. We thought of Celeste and or Chris Olsen. Amy will talk with them. Meeting is adjourned at 8:05 pm. Respectfully Submitted, Amy Harkins Reading PTO secretary