PTA General Meeting Minutes

Thursday, March 11, 2010

6:30 - 8:30 pm

BCS - Fernwood Cafeteria

Call to Order:

6:35 pm, by Julie Jetton

Review and Approve January 12, 2009 General Meeting Minutes:

Sam (Secretary) asked if anyone had any edits for Draft Minutes that have been on the school web site. No edits were offered. Sam moved to approve and accept minutes as they stand. Membership votes in favor - minutes approved.

Julie presented 5 nominees to form the Nominating Committee:

Susan Crabtree-Eads

Christine Putnam

Sam Shiffman

Barbara Smith-Warner

John Tapogna

Craig moved to approve , Anita McKey seconded. Aforementioned members elected to Nominating Committee by voice vote.

Principal's Report:

On Friday March 19th from 1:30-3:00 there will be a dance/activity period for 6th-8th grade students. The dance itself will be in the west gym, b-ball is in the east gym and in the cafeteria there will be an opportunity for board games and socializing. Next Tuesday I will get FTE numbers from PPS central office. 1 week from tonight I will hold a forum for parents to comment. Some time after Spring Break I should be able to complete the staffing picture for next year and make an announcement.

We raised over $2000 for Haiti Earthquake Relief.

Susan Crabtree-Eads asked if Teri will open up transfers to boost our upper grade classes. Teri said PPS has been limiting transfers in anticipation of the High School Redesign, and to make matters worse a lot of upper grade students intend to transfer out of BCS to traditional middle schools such as Beaumont and DaVinci.

Craig Williams asked if combining grades can liberate some FTE for electives/enrichment. Teri said that it's something she would consider, after the class sizes have been ascertained.

Reports of the Board of Directors

Vice Presidents—Kathie Eastman-Tell gave a Grants Committee update. $10000 was granted in November. January we planned to grant $5000 more, but all the requests totaled $18000. We determined that we could afford an additional $5000 to meet the majority of these requests, but we need to ask for membership to approve this via a vote. Kathie read aloud many of the requests.

Membership—Darren Singer

We have 170 members. We would like to add 50 members of the rolls to meet the amount we had last year.

Legislation – Bonnie Gee Yosick

The state legislature had a short Special Session in February, but they did not tackle Kicker Tax Reform. There are a couple of online surveys floating around. Please place a priority on completing the survey from PPS regarding the High School Redesign.

Foundation – Christine Putnam

The Auction was a great success. Kathie and Barbara should be recognized for their efforts. We netted about $75000, which is $3000 more than we did last year. After all is said and done (1/3 of our Foundation revenues have to go to Portland Schools Foundation), we project about $64000 total raised this year, inclusive of funds raised back in the Fall. Turnout was great this year: 310 people bought tickets, whereas last year only 250 tickets were bought. And about 30 teachers came this year, whereas only 8 or 9 attended last year.

Barbara pointed out that every teacher who attended made an unspecified pledge at the Auction.

Volunteer Coordinators – Barbara Smith-Warner

Run For The Arts is coming up, as are two more Staff Appreciation lunches. Scrip has been down a little bit. We were getting 8-10 orders a week before Xmas, lately only getting 5 at most. Julie asked that people who haven't tried Scrip please use the online credit card Scrip feature because it's so easy.

Treasurer’s Report – Kristine Caldicott

Kristine presented a revised budget (See Addendum below) with the following changes:

Increase Grants from $15000 to $20000

Increase Technology from from $4485 to $5485.

Net reduction in Unrestricted Funds of $6000.

Kathie moved to approve the revised budget. Susan seconded. Discussion ensues.

19 members present. Budget revision approved via voice vote.

Guest Speaker – Virginia Jones—Parenting using compassionate listening techniques

Virginia gave a short introduction to the workshop that she will facilitate after the formal meeting adjourns.

Announcements

8^th Grade Trip (Anita McKey). Teachers Mr. Struckert and Mr. Gibson plan to accompany the students to Washington, D.C. Plant fundraiser and spaghetti dinner fundraiser are scheduled, as well as a Barnes and Noble fundraiser (on April 17^th). Julie pointed out that Dana Barbarick really jump-started this 8^th Grade Trip effort.

High School System Redesign (Julie) The PPS Board met last Monday and approved a Resolution but it did not include the number of Community High Schools. The Superintendent will announce this information in 45 days, after which there will be a period for community response. I encourage all of you to get informed and involved.

WWD Fundraising Report (Julie) The Walking With Dinosaurs ticket sales raised over $900 for the PTA.

The SEPTAP Meeting is next Tuesday evening, March 16^th.

Parent Comments

Susan asked Principal Geist if our school is pursuing a focus such as International Baccalaureate.

Adjournment

Maya moved to adjourn. Christine Putnam seconded. Approved via voice vote.

Meeting Adjourned at 7:45PM