Highland Elementary PTO Meeting Minutes
November 18, 2019
Welcome: Crissy Field and Brittany Sullivan welcomed attendees to the meeting.
Principal’s Remarks: Dr. Etlen thanked the PTO for the Chipotle fundraiser. We are starting American Education week and Dr. Etlen along with Miss Foley will be in the lobby answering questions during parts of the week. The Penn State STEM Program wrapped up this week to rave reviews on all sides. Report card conference scheduling began this week, emails went out today for those and for a traffic safety reminder.
Superintendent’s Remarks: Dr. Fecher came in for tonights meeting to make sure he is maintaining open communication with the Highland community, and to gather any feedback to the communication improvements his staff has implemented over the last year. They launched a family resources webpage to make things easier to find for parents and other stakeholders, and people are always welcome to email the administration, someone will definitely respond. They are working with an eye on the big transition in Fall 2022, and have already been forming subcommittees to make sure no detail is overlooked. The population of the Abington School District continues to trend upwards.
Treasurer’s Report: With Jen Shultz unable to attend, Crissy delivered the financial report for the month. No results yet on the Yankee Candle fundraiser, but we may need to find another fundraiser to also make up for the absence of the KidStuff Book fundraiser. We have higher hospitality expenses already for the year than last year.
Review of Recent Events:
Class Parties: We had parent complaints for Halloween party sign-ups being posted to Facebook before going out on class email. Some parents are not active on FB and missed out on a fair opportunity to sign up. Brittany will email all the class parents about asking teachers to send out the sign up geniuses on email before posting to social media.
PTO Directory: Improved, completed, and going out this week.
Other Business:
Open PTO positions for the 2020-2021 School Year:Co-President, Treasurer, Special Persons Dance committee, Box Tops Chair. Treasurer position is urgently needed to be filled, in consideration of Jen’s upcoming due date.
Share and Care- Currently going strong, with a last requests email having been sent out.
Adopt-A-Family- Also in progress, with all kids now assigned.
Winter craft- Flyer is being sent to Dr. Etlen this week, donations are already coming in.
Zumba- Cindy made a request to increase her fee. Currently students pay $20 for 5 hours of zumba, with Cindy receiving 50%. She already receives $25 per kid at other schools and is possibly increasing those to $30. Multiple options were discussed with a potential vote on the matter to be held in the new year.
Book Fair- Georelle looked at changing company, but our current schedule did not allow a change this year. We may want to rework the timing next year (possibly moving Barnes and Noble night as well) in order to switch companies. Georelle is also preparing materials for the Read-A-Thon.
A retirement gift to KL from the PTO was also discussed.
**Please join us for our next meeting on January 7th at 9 am in the cafeteria.