PTA Meeting Minutes 6.12.18

By Katherine Novello | June 20, 2018

Campbell PTA Meeting

June 12, 2018

6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Approximate
# of Attendees: 38

I.     Welcome
and Introduction: Nathan Zee, President 

  • Nathan
    welcomed everyone to final PTA meeting of the year

  • Nathan
    read a “Thank You” note from the 5th grade thanking the PTA for
    helping to fund their trip to the Baltimore Aquarium

  • Nathan
    welcomed new Campbell families to the PTA meeting

 

II.    Year-in-Review:
Nathan Zee, President

  • Nathan
    went over the highlights from the year:

    • PTA Membership

§ 
We had over 210
members join the PTA – the most we’ve ever had!

o  
Advocacy

§ 
Maintained
Campbell as an Option School (carryover from last year)

§ 
Fought to keep
Campbell where it is and preserve our Outdoor Classroom focus, Connection to
the Nature Center, Economic Diversity (with almost no achievement gap) – WELL
DONE EVERYONE

o  
Community
Building

§ 
Family Game Night

§ 
Campbell Spirit
Wear Sales

§ 
School Movie
Night

§ 
100% success rate
in announcing Community Meeting agenda in advance of Community Meeting – never
been done before!

§ 
Wetlands Festival
– most well attended festival ever including the dunk tank return and new rock
climbing wall (never mind the fluke weather pattern that resulted in canceled
soccer games on a beautiful sunny day) – ~40 volunteers to pull this off!

o  
Enrichment
Highlights

§ 
Project Discovery
Fall/Spring – Jenny and Tammy deserve platinum medals for their efforts here

o  
Fundraising
Highlights

§ 
$14,500 –
Wetlands Festival (including expenses)

§ 
$14,100 – Fun Run
(including expenses)

§ 
$2,600 –
Restaurant Nights

§ 
$2,260 – Square 1
Art

§ 
 $1,900 – Amazon Link Money

§ 
$786 – Penny Wars

§ 
$500 – Box Tops

o  
Funding
Highlights

§ 
Outdoor Classroom
Coordinator – We funded over 100 hours of Ms. Christy’s time this year (hours
for May and June still to come!)

§ 
We helped to fund
many of the supplies for the lessons that Ms. Christy gives the kids – when you
see photos on the twitter feed, many of the veggies, fruits, etc. are funded by
the PTA!

§ 
We funded
landscaping crews to come clean up the Campbell grounds twice this year

§ 
All Kindergarteners
got to pick a book from the garden at the start of the year

§ 
Two retirement
gifts for retiring teachers were funded by the PTA

§ 
The following
Teacher Appreciation events were paid for by the PTA:

·        
Staff Breakfast
(September)

·        
Olive Garden
Lunch (October Conferences)

·        
Staff Breakfast
(December)

·        
Teacher
appreciation week which included activities every day!

§ 
T-shirts for the
Math Dice team

§ 
Supported Boys on
the Move and Girls on the Run

§ 
Supported the
Coat Drive/Holiday Drive at Campbell to offer winter wear and presents to those
in need at the school

§ 
Two Wellness
activities for teachers this year.

§ 
Donation to CCPTA
fund: we made a donation to the County Council of PTAs who uses these funds to
help even out the funding between all the schools in the county.

§ 
We paid for the
remaining books on the teachers wish lists after the book fair

§ 
We were able to
provide food, childcare and translation at all of our PTA meetings

§ 
5th Grade
Promotion (coming up!)

§ 
We funded the
following for each grade level:

§ 
Specials: Ukuleles
for the music department, Classroom puppets and training for the Spanish
Department, Supplies for the 5th Grade Musical

§ 
Kindergarten –
Lots of classroom supplies and a field trip to Discovery Theater

§ 
1st Grade – Field
notebooks

§ 
2nd Grade – Field
Trip to the farmers market including fruit and veggie purchases, purchase of
bags and additional veggies for the showcase and some supplies for the Campbell
Olympics

§ 
3rd Grade –
Helped to fund the bus to Harpers Ferry for Field Trip

§ 
4th Grade –
Funding the field trip to Great Falls

§ 
5th Grade –
Helped to fund the bus to the National Aquarium in Baltimore

§ 
Interlude –
Funded many incentives and rewards and a calming herb garden

§ 
And our biggest
funding item of the year was the PA system upgrade!

§ 
Even though it
was last year – one more shout out for the pond upgrade from two years ago

 

III.   Treasurer’s
Report: Jenny Morris, Treasurer

·        
Highlights from
May include:

    • Collected
      about $8,000 this month from Wetlands Festival receipts

    • $143 from Box Tops

    • $121 from Amazon rewards

    • $150 from Kona Ice (from
      Wetlands Festival)

    • $275 from Silver Diner
      Restaurant Night

    • $140 from Brick’s Pizza Night

    • Main expenses were: Outdoor
      Classroom hours, Teacher Appreciation week activities, two Field Trips,
      some additional Wetlands Festival expenses, paid Project Discovery
      instructors, Interlude classroom supplies

·        
Funding request:

o  
$343 for 6 ft. recycled
plastic bench to replace the broken bench

§ 
Motion to
approve; seconded; approved unanimously

·        
Summer
budget/spending plan (from the time after the audit until the first PTA meeting
of the year in September:

o  
In accordance
with the draft budget, there will be money available to spend on Ms. Christy’s
summer planning hours and some grounds maintenance/work (about $1680 for
Outdoor Classroom hours and $800 for grounds maintenance)

·        
Q: Will there be
any money available for a Welcome Back breakfast for staff? That usually
happens before our next meeting.  A: We didn’t
have that in the summer budget last year, but we can add it in so that whoever
is coordinating the breakfast doesn’t have to wait two weeks for reimbursement.
Do we have a motion?

o  
Motion to
approve; seconded; approved unanimously

 

IV.  Campbell
Changes for Next Year: Maureen Nesselrode, Principal

·        
School Siting
discussion has been tabled for now, but will resume in the fall; there is a
broader conversation around the EL model, and confusion within the community
about whether ours is a well-defined model for an option program

·        
As these
conversations continue, remember to attempt to educate others in the community
about the EL model, which is nationally recognized and clearly defined

·        
Test scores are
solid

·        
We had many
engaging showcases and expeditions this year, including some new ones that
really focused on social justice, community, and sustainability

·        
Changes for next
year include:

o  
Four Kindergarten
classes, three at every other level, including 5th

§ 
These two
additional classes necessitate the SpEd Pre-K relocating to Carlin Springs
Elementary school

o  
If we hit 500
student enrollment, we will receive additional funding

o  
Other grade
levels will have to be located on what is now the K-1 hallway because we’re out
of space on the other side of the building and we are not getting an additional
trailer for next year

§ 
Likely a 2nd
grade class will move to K-1 hallway

o  
Parking will be a
challenge next year, so please keep that in mind and don’t have the expectation
that there will parking available on-site for every event

·        
Q: Did you mean
we should be engaging with APS about the EL model, or just with the broader
community during more informal discussion? A: The broader community; more
people need to understand what EL is and why our model is distinct.

·        
Q: Do you know
where this pressure to change or take away our option status is coming from? A:
Pressure to find seats.

·        
Q: Any way to
engage more fully with ACPD about those who continue to turn left out of the
parking lot despite the signage? A: Ideas are welcome, but I’m not sure there’s
much more we can do to encourage compliance; it’s a known issue and there
really aren’t any tools that we have not yet employed.

·        
Next year we will
be advocating for a 4-top “cottage” relocatable; it’s likely that all of Pre-K
will be placed in that relocatable cottage

·        
We did get more
staffing allocations for next year already; we will have two art teachers (one
who is full time and one who is almost full time, with 0.9 allocation)

o  
That means we
will look at providing gifted art groups for identified 4th and 5th
graders

·        
Open House will
be held on Thursday, 8/30 at 2 pm

·        
Q: Will there be
any summer library events this year? A: No, but I can check to see whether the
school library may be open for some limited hours for children to check-out
books over the summer

·        
Q: Where are the
Summer School students who will be at Campbell coming from? A: They are all
Campbell or Carlin Springs students

·        
Q: Did the budget
reduction in FLES affect Campbell? A: No, it did not. However, Ms. Valdez will
be returning to Bolivia. We have already hired her replacement (from Tuckahoe).
However, there could be further cuts in next year’s budget and Campbell could
be affected.

·        
Q: When will we
get teacher assignments for next year? A: Letters will be mailed in August.
Some other staff changes are that Mr. Schoenherr is relocating to his home town
and Ms. Sim will replace him as a 2/3 teacher. We will be hiring a new K-1
teacher to replace Ms. Sim.

 

V.    2018-2019
Committee Positions/Speaker Topics/Big Budget Ideas: Barbara Martinez, Incoming
President

  • Barbara Martinez introduced herself and led us through
    an exercise where we identified what we were most proud of from 2017-18
    and what we want to see in 2018-19

    • Highlights of what we’re most proud:

      • Engaging with APS

      • Outdoor classroom/Ms. Christy

      • Support for EL

      • Increased PTA participation

      • Support for Field Trips

      • Grade-level funding

    • Highlights of what we’d like to
      see next year:

      • Increasing teacher funding

      • Food other than pizza at PTA
        meetings (we’ve tried this in the past, and it was not very successful)

      • Keeping Campbell an option
        school on this site

      • Outdoor white board/chalk board

      • More Ms. Christy

      • More diversity at PTA meetings
        (we have the Thursday morning parent group; working on ways to better
        engage the Ethiopian community; Claudia is our PTA Ambassador)

      • More arts groups (NSO, Ballet,
        theater trips or visits to school)

      • English classes for parents?
        Pairing up with parents who want to learn Spanish?

  • Barbara summarized the
    status of key PTA positions for next year and encouraged folks to
    volunteer where they are able

    • Looking
      for new individuals who want to be more involved in the PTA

    • We have a number of open
      positions on various committees (see handout)

      • New committee this year: Garden
        and Wetlands Maintenance Committee; will take over some of the
        coordination of this activity from Ms. Christy so she can focus on her
        lesson plans

      • Wellness Committee will be
        changing and become broader in its scope

      • We have a position for anyone
        who’s interested, and positions that fit with every level of time
        commitment and skill set/interest

    • Q: Room Parent Coordinator, what
      is this position? A: In the past, we’ve used Room Parents for
      communication; the Coordinator would contact the individual Room Parents
      with messages that the PTA felt were important to push out (such as a reminder
      about a fundraiser or an event); we’re open to thinking about how this
      position might be leveraged in the future

 

 

VI.  Closing
and Celebration : Nathan Zee, President

·        
Wanted to take a moment to recognize Claudia
Cuellar, who was selected to receive the APS Honored Citizen award for all her
years of service to our community; let’s hear it for Claudia! Well done and
well deserved!

·        
I can't thank you
enough for the opportunity to lead our PTA the last two years and I feel quite
privileged to be part of such a fantastic community! Rock and roll!

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