In attendance: Connie Wheeler, Erin Lenhardt, Kimberly Groenjes, Loralee Arcand, Cindy Taft, Mrs. Lipsey
Any news from Mrs. Lipsey? Kids will doing a Great Kindness Challenge. They will receive information in Guidance to promote good acts.
There will be an assembly on Wednesday. It is about “empowering our word choice”
We are doing the School Store again. We have been fortunate that parents are donating gift cards, but the items available cost significantly more than if bought at a store. The company is supposed to add more items. We may discontinue the gift card portion next year.
Upcoming dates: Parent/teacher conference Feb. 22, Mother/Son Dance Mar. 17.
Treasurer’s Report: We had a profit of $14,916 from the cookie dough fundraiser. This includes money spent on the pizza parties. After discussing upcoming expenses and bills, our spendable amount is about $8000.
We still have $500 outstanding for 4th grade RTI materials from last year.
We decided to purchase Ipads for the 1st grade teachers, as they showed a great interest in them. We purchased Ipads for the 4th and 5th grade teachers last year. The 3rd grade teachers received some from the district. The 2nd grade teachers have been using chrome books.
We decided to spend up to $1000 for flexible seating in Kindergarten. We will ask that the teachers buy one of each item they would like to try. The concern was that we didn’t want to purchase a bunch of items that would go unused. Mrs. Lipsey will see if there are any companies willing to give us demos to try. We will re-evaluate purchasing more once we get feedback.
We decided to put $500 towards sponsoring the assembly that will be presented on Wed.
Paper Recycling: Next dates will be Mar. 20-Apr. 3 We received about $500 so far, another check came today but we do not have the total. This drive was more successful because we had a skid of paper products that was brought in. December is typically a good drive due to Christmas.
We have $5200 in the account (not including this one). We will need to discuss how to spend the funds. We have always used the funds for environmental items.
Brain Bowl: Connie set up this fundraiser. The items didn’t go out as planned so we needed to push out the due date to this Friday. An email was sent out requesting volunteers, but no one has signed up yet. We have the shirts and pencils from last year ready for prizes. Connie will be there for start-up, Erin will be running it during the day. Participation is down. Connie will ask Judy to send out a reminder for participating and volunteering.
School Dance: Cindy reported the email flyer has been sent out, prizes and glow necklaces bought, DJ booked. She has set up a sign up for volunteer that will be sent to parents. We have contacted the National Honor Society to see if any members would be willing to volunteer. Connie will put the links for the Brain Bowl and School Dance volunteer sign up on Facebook. We are still in need of several volunteers. Lori will get fruit snacks and gold fish for snacks and water to serve.
February Parent/Teacher conference meal: Erin will set up and send out a sign up for this.
Family Fun Night: Erin suggested doing a movie night. Cindy suggested doing a night at the YMCA, Erin will look into this. Cindy will see if Field of Scenes would be willing to do an early opening. We may change the date depending on what is decided.
Plastic Recycling: We received 269 lbs. in Nov, 398 lbs. in Dec. for 667 total so far. This is more than last year. It is a great start! We discussed how the program works on the honor system of weighing the bags and then dropping them off at participating stores.
Staff Book Fair: We had a discussion regarding if we should continue. Last year we donated books that were not wanted by the teachers to a different school. Sue has been coordinating event. We will get her feedback from last year.
Artist in Residence: Erin passed out information on a couple of suggestions given by staff. One was a singer and the other a Native American music/dance artist. They both are able to provide day or week long sessions. We discussed how difficult it may be for day sessions with such a large school. The singer seemed to be a better fit for the week long session and provide a concert the final night. We will look to this as a possibility for next year. We explore a possibility of a day session later this year for the Native American artist.
Teacher Requests: There are none
New Business: Connie reported that the school has yearly audits and this year, parent groups were reviewed. She was told that we will need to apply for a 501-3C status. We will look into completing this.
Next meeting Monday February 20, 2017 at 6:00 pm in the art room
Freedom Elementary Parent Activity Committee 