MS PTO – March 25, 2013, 6:35pm
In attendance: Tracy Kirkman, Ann DiPetta, Torie Lines, Mary Procter, Sharon Bilotta, Nancy Bonn, Tracy Kirkman, Meggan vanNess, Amy Dawson, Jan Cole, Rosemarie Hanson
President position available! Treasurer position available for next year!
Treasurer (Mary)
- Staff Slam raised $3,819.97 all going to the out door grand stand bathroom. (Sports boosters also raised $1500-1600. May Day 5k money will also go towards the bathroom.)
- Gave money to 7th grade for a field trip pavilion and floating classroom.
- Gave money to 5th grade for Canadian soiree
- Have about $7000 left
- Maybe invest in a tent we can rent out? Putting up a tent for rental could create community. We spend $300 to rent it from FPCU.
- We could give money to class trips or buy more smart boards or smart board accessories
DC Trip (Mary)
- Everything coming along great, rooms all situated
- Will be May 15-17
- Gave out lots of scholarships this year, around 15
- 8th Grade Moving Up Party – needs parent coordinator
- Community Read is coming up – the book will be Seed Folks
Box Tops for Kids (Meggan)
- Submitted labels for $174.10
- It is worth the effort if there are a lot of labels to submit
- Can sometimes get a coupon from Tops that doubles or triples the value
- Please cut out the box tops picture around the dotted line, not the UPC label!
May Day 5K (Amy)
- Online registration will help turn the volunteer job over in the future. We have 146 registrants! 70 are Tburg residents.
- Will be timing the event. This will make the event repeatable meaning when the organizers transition on that they will be able to find people to take over the job.
- Have 300 shirts to give away to first 300 registrants
- Some awesome mugs for purchase and giveaways (sturdy and clear with squirt top)
- Chicken BBQ, creamery ice cream, live music
- Still want business donations
- Need volunteers still – sign up online
Grassroots
- PTO will work with youth commission and split the proceeds.
- We will be allowed to use the high school gravel lot this year
- Need big signs saying the money goes to the school
- Mary will talk to Maguires and ask them not to undercut the shur save and school lots.
- Robotics Team will host a Girl Bots day in conjunction with the Youth Bureau on Wed, Apr 17 and 24.
New idea for a Montessori Module in Middle School (Tracy)
- A committee has been formed to look into having a Montessori classroom within the middle school for next year
- It is believed that it would draw home school kids, kids currently attending Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori, and out of district kids and therefore could be self funding
- The increased attendance would increase our school head count and actually generate money from NYS
- Increasing our middle school attractiveness can draw families to our district
- Maybe it could create a job for one of the teachers whose job might be cut this year
- Schools all around the US have piloted these programs and they are very popular
- It would be part of TCS so any district child would be able to attend free and any teacher that took the position would retain their tenure and state employment status.
Game Night
- Everything is set and ready to go.
- Try for Apr 19 first choice and May 3 as second choice
K-12 Databases
NYS is proposing selling school collected data to businesses. Data would include public school student names, addresses, birth dates, social security numbers, attendance records, hobbies, career goals, learning disabilities, attitudes towards school and homework completion, and test scores. Read about this
Barbara Lifton is promoting a bill which could say no to this proposal without parent consent. In other words, to make it so NYS would need parental consent in order to sell the data.
It would be a good idea to contact Commissioner King at HYPERLINK “mailto:jking@mail.nysed.gov” jking@mail.nysed.gov, Barbara Lifton at 518/277-8030, and/or Governor Cuomo at 518/474-8390 and let them know your opinion on this sensitive matter.
Next Meeting: 5/20 at 6:30pm in MS library.