Any News From Mrs. Lipsey?
*Ms. Rudolph the is new Positive Dog (goes from staff to staff); received a “Paws”itive pin and traveling trophy; she will need to determine the next employee to receive the award.
*Art projects (5th grade) are displayed. They are big feet on board
*Girls on the Run had a great season again; Did pumpkin run and final run
*Robotics team qualified for state and won teamwork awards
*In December: one assembly scheduled for 12/22 (November had a lot of them)
*Read in the lobby last Friday for American Education week; furniture store in Appleton (Freedom residents) donated use of chairs and rug. Mrs. Lipsey read the books in English and Mrs. Schmeltzer read the stories in Spanish.
Treasurer Report
- Beginning balanch: $20,409.97
- Ending balance: $23,627.69
- Amount set aside: $14,575.22
- Amount spendable: $9,052.47
*Paper Recycling: $658 (current balance $7,900.49 banked)
*Spirit Wear: deposited $17,712; wrote check for $10,640.75 to vendor, items still being ordered
*Funset Blvd: Event brought in $660
*Spent $31.98 for sundaes for staff meeting
*Some $100 teacher reimbursements have come in
*Connie has a notation of $414.51 left to spend for 1st grade flexible seating; Erin noted they are looking at scoop chairs and exercise balls. Fleet Farm has scoop chairs reasonably priced; Erin had been purchasing on sale at Shopko
*$138.12 left to spend for playground equipment; it was asked if we can purchase sleds this year, i.e., roll-up ones at Fleet Farm (to be left in playground shed). Erin purchased a pump for each of the sheds of which 1 has broken already. Instead of replacing, it may be better to have the janitors pump up the balls. Connie has a bunch of chalk she bought at Shopko on clearance and will hold onto until Spring.
*Connie is still working on the 501(c)(3) with the auditor; We need to fill out the long form if we take in over $50,000 (based on total fund-raiser money gross income-not profit from 6/30/16-7/1/17 timeframe for determining amount). The application fee is higher for the long form ($275 if under $50k; $850 if over $50k) and we will need to complete tax preperation (which will require a higher fee for long form $150 if under $50k; $500 if over $50k). Connie stated last year we were just short of the $50,000. After discussion we decided to continue pursuing the long form- we don’t want to do the short now and have to do the long one later requiring more fees. Connie reported they are about half-way through the process of the long form. We suggested looking for CPA parent to help with taxes in the future.
Spirit Wear Fundraiser (to use for technology)
*Sale went well! 1,030 items sold (approx. 230 families order; 25 boxes of final product); profited over $7,000. There were about 10 orders missing items or ended up with extra items
*Sorted at VFW (free of charge); would like to send a Thank You
*It was well received; we will do earlier next year (perhaps to have items available at Open House for parents & students to look at)
*If vendor would do more of the work, our profit would decrease; PAC handled most of the order process
*If we have any extras, we could use as prizes as well as put on FB page for people who might want to purchase
Cookie Dough Fundraiser
*$2,896 online sales
*Approx. 150 orders plus another 5 picked up today; total order sales to come (not yet finalized)
*Order pick-up is 12/14/17 3:00-5:30 in the multipurpose room
Paper Recycling –Update from Previous/Next Dates
*$658 came in the fall drive (current balance $7,900 banked)
*Next dates December 18- January 8th
Funset Boulevard Night-report
*We sold 165 wristbands making a $660 profit; It was less busy this year. Last year there was another school there the same night. Kids seemed to have fun.
*On Thurs., 4/26/18 we will have another fun night at Badger Sports Park. The Utopia 2 hour pass will be $10 (usually $28) and the 3 hour pass will be $12 (usually $33); if more than 50 people attend we will get 50% of sales; if less than 50 people attend we will receive 30% of sales; There is no pre-sale for this, kids just show up.
Student Directory-report
*Formatting was a process, but it got done and was handed out in mid. October.
*About 420 kids were listed in it
*Contact Keith to see if it can be include in next year’s registration; we will need to add teacher info (won’t be available at time of entry)
Teacher Wish List
*Teachers are emailing or writing note with their wish list. A word doc will be created and put on Freedom PAC website; we will have Judys send out (a link) via email to parents
Artist in Residence
*We had a long discussion on Randy Peterson. He is a singer that several teachers have suggested. For his residency, he breaks kids into groups and meets with them 3 times, each session being about 45 minutes. Each group is typically 30 students. We asked Randy to send examples of previous schedules. He included ones with schools of about 200 students. He suggested we hold a residency for 7 days and split each grade into 3 groups. Discussion at meeting included class sizes (how to split up into groups), space issues (where to hold sessions) scheduling concerns (how to avoid impacting acedemic and related arts), time constraints (how long residency would have to take and how avoid impacting concert practice, testing, etc). It was determined that to have him do a residency we would need to split the school K-2 and 3-5 and do it over a two years. We didn’t feel this was the best option as the other issues may not be able to be addressed. We decided we couldn’t persue his residency at this time.
*We liked the idea of a music related residency and members suggested looking to see if there are other community options such as Opera for the Young or something at Lawrence University. It was suggested to reach out to other PTAs to see what they have done, however many schools have smaller numbers so their previous artists may not work for us.
*Connie reported that Ms. Rudolph had a couple of ideas for this year if we didn’t have one selected. We decided to have her persue one for this year. She can decide what works best based on availability.
School Dance: Feb. 2nd
*Cindy Taft is coordinating; Erin will follow up with her
Brain Bowl
*Erin asked Connie to email her the questions to show the teachers as some of them seemed confusing to students. She would also like to add volunteer spot on pledge forms.
*Event likely Feb. 6 & 7, 2018- will confirm with Mrs. Kurkiewicz.
Plastic Recycling: Now–April 13th
*348 lbs. collected so far: 35 in Sept.; 313 (some was plastic people had been saving during summer) in Oct.
Teacher Requests
*Amy Stirk the new Occupational Therapist submitted a request for resources/supplies. Mrs. Lipsey believed there was an account that would cover and will address with Mrs. Musset. If it is not covered she will bring the request back to us.
New Business
*Connie will have a note put in the December newsletter to pick up Lost & Found items and if not claimed by Fri. 12/22, items will be donated. We will see if we can set the Lost & Found items will be up in the Lobby week of 12/18.
Reminder: We do NOT meet in December
Our next meeting will be Monday January 15th 2018 at 6:00 pm.
Freedom Elementary Parent Activity Committee 