PTO Meeting Minutes
April 12, 2021
NES PTO General Board Meeting MINUTES
7:30 pm Via Zoom (~10 people in attendance)
1. Principal and Teacher Updates
- Up to about 530 in-person students.
- PSSA Testing coming up.
- Continuing to run spirit days on Fridays.
- Kids are aware of the school year t-shirt coming soon.
- With the nicer weather, some teachers are taking kids outside to spread out and have lessons.
- Teachers reported that kids really enjoy all the contests, video and voting.
- Teachers are also very thankful for the Raz reading program.
2. Treasurer Report
(Specific dollar amounts have been omitted. As always, we discuss the financials in detail at our monthly General PTO Meeting.)
For the month of March, the PTO received net proceeds from logo wear sales. The administrative consolidation of the individual staff RAZ Kids accounts was completed in March. This resulted in the PTO receiving a refund and to more favorable pricing for 10+ RAZ Kids users.
- In addition to monthly recurring expenses for accounting and teacher water cooler, the PTO funded two teacher grants that were approved at the March 8 meeting. Also, Chick-Fil-A and Rita’s gift cards were purchased as prizes for the winners of the snowman contest.
- The PNC account was reconciled as of 3/31/21 by the Treasurer (J. Bukowski) and the bank statements and reconciliations for the months ended 2/28/21 and 3/31/21 were reviewed and approved by the Secretary (C. Gargalovic).
3. Teacher Grants
- Wentz requested replenishment of classroom prize box items.
- Kaleck requested bringing back "Veggieville" (pooled with other teachers).
- Johnson requested diverse book for her classroom library.
- Coolahan requested 3rd grade read-a-loud books and desk pets.
- Frawley requested funds for "Budding Birders" program and desk pets.
- Those in attendance voted and approved all grant requests.
- We are using left-over classroom dues from 2019 school year to help fund the cost of this t-shirt.
- Tie-Dye day at the school is April 23rd. We will not receive the shirts until the end of May. Kids can wear them on school spirit day on June 4th. :)
- Voting is open until Wednesday night.
- We had about an 80% response rate from the school families for student t-shirt sizes.
- We have the total number of students/grade so we will order default sizes for students who did not provide a size.
- Distribution will be difficult. We will organize by class and figure out how to distribute.
- We have purchased all t-shirts and the Achieve program at the high school will charge us at cost for the ink to print the design on the shirts.
5. Sixth Grade
- 6th grade teachers have organized a 6th grade t-shirt contest. Once the design and pricing has been nailed down, the specifics will be sent along to the PTO treasurer for payment.
- 6th grade tile project is also in the works.
- 6th grade HRCs are going to be taking care of certificates.
- Sending any pertinent email to the PTO email will get to all of us.
6. Wendy's Spirit Night
- We had a very successful night!
- The manager of Wendy's was wonderful to partner with; therefore, we will be doing it again in the future.
7. Rita's Spirit Night
- We will be holding out next spirit night on Wednesday, May 12th.
- In the past this event had "celebrity scoopers" - the principal and a teacher to scoop.
- We will reach out to Mr. Francis about that possibility.
- There has been a severe drop in Box Tops $ due to the implantation of the app.
- The app is supposed to be updating to include the ability to indicate a teacher or class when submitting receipts on both android and iOS phones. If this happens, we can have classroom competitions again, which may help boost participation again.
- Amazon Smile has increased significantly, so the two may balance each other out.
9. Peeps Contest
- Katona family did an amazing job on the peeps video.
- Voting is open until the end of the week, we plan to extend that until Wednesday of next week and send the link to all the teachers. Perhaps classes can do that after PSSAs.
- We have a peeps water bottle to give to the winner.
10. 4th Grade Virtual Field Trip
- To Pennsbury Manor. They will come into our classroom via live streaming. Other than that, we are not sure what it will look like.
- The PTO will cover the costs for the virtual trip.
- 4th grade teachers are very appreciative for the PTO's generosity.
11. Logo Wear
- In the past Logo Wear drops were on Wednesday because students were virtual.
- Now that students are in the school 5 days, should that same day apply?
- We will contact the school office staff and find out if any particular day is better for them to distribute.
12. Home Room Coordinators
- Some coordinators are wondering if anything will be possible to be held outside?
- The Health and Safety Plan for the district restricts use of school property for gathering. Mr. Francis will let us know if that changes prior to the end of the year.
13. New PTO Board Positions
- We need to start reaching out to people regarding interest in positions that will be vacated next year - Secretary, and both President positions.
- One of this year's VPs should move up to President so that we have a current board member working with a new board member in those positions.
- We will put out communications via the List and hopefully people will contact us with interest to serve on the board.