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January 8, 2008Irvington PTA January 8th, 2008 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: Irvington School Library 1. December PTA meeting minutes were approved. 2. Committee reports are now submitted in writing and are included with the agenda + minutes. 3. The PTA still needs a fundraising chair + alumni chair. 4. Amy, a parent, took photos of the meeting for the yearbook. 5. Auction update: the auction is 8 weeks away. Two platinum level sponsors. Sponsorship money eliminates the need to take funds from the proceeds of the actual auction – it underwrites the cost of the auction. Donations + sponsorships are not where they were last year. We are still soliciting sponsorships. The catalogues are supposed to go to print on Feb. 11th so if people have auction items please submit them to the auction committee. The donation receipt is the same for all donations this year. The donation forms and the family sponsorship forms are on the auction board right inside the school entrance. Still need some big live auction items- vacation homes; fun big-ticket items needed, dinners, and other events are great. 6. Arts night will not happen this year unless someone is willing to coordinate the event. Jennifer Hawkins (previous Arts night coordinator) is willing to help + consult on the event, but isn’t able to do it this year. It involves organizing the stations, booking the artists, coordinating the rooms, etc. It could be a group project. 7. Steve Zich has set up some trial Google groups to increase communication between the Irvington communities. PTA, TAG, tumbling are some examples of groups who may want to use a Google group. PTA hopes to go live with the Google groups soon. 8. In an additional effort to increase communication, we are also going to try to translate PTA information into Spanish. 9. Irma met with Andre Jackson, PPS, Family + Community Engagement and got some ideas for increasing membership and reaching out to unrepresented groups. 10. Cathy Cooke and Renee Bolland are working on the Black History Month Program. The program is on Saturday, February 23rd starting at noon. Kevin Atchison will be catering some of the food and people are encouraged to bring a side dish to share. There will be a well known African dancing group performing and a keynote speaker. Voices of Children Choir are also performing this year. There are usually 35 kids participating in the choir and over 60 children this year. Volunteers needed to help set up on the Friday after school - before the event. There will be a Friday folder mailing and information up on the board about the event. 11. Miles Woofter spoke about the Spaghetti dinner. He hopes to have older kids involved in organizing the event. In order to increase community attendance, an invitation to the event will go into the Irvington Community Association (ICA) newsletter. Hopefully the event can bring in a bit more money this year. If anyone wants to get involved this year and take it over next year, talk with Miles. 12. Treasurer’s report was shared. PTA still needs to spend money from last year’s auction. The newly planted trees and other garden and winter maintenance expenses are not yet submitted. Jill spoke to the fact that Arts and Music money hasn’t been spent yet, but invoices will come in very soon. Scholarship invoices are coming in. It would be helpful if restricted donations from last year were spent before this year’s auction. 13. Site council update- minutes are on the website and on the bulletin board. The site council is focusing on the school improvement plan, which is very structured. The council is currently reviewing last year’s goals and amendments. Hopefully the school improvement plan it will be available online sometime soon. On January 31st there will be an open house for families with students entering 6-8th grade. 14. Margaret Greer has been working on integrating Saturday Academy’s LEAP classes into the TAG program. Oregon Graduate Institute runs the program and has a good reputation for their courses. The courses are relevant to school grade curriculum.
15. Q& A with Principal MacLeod: -Pre-K Nothing new is known about pre-K for next year. Irvington will have pre-K next year but the district will be making the decision about what that program will be. -Class size and needs for next year Kindergarten class is big this year so the question was raised about next year’s first grade classes. Ms. MacLeod won’t know anything until February about FTE money. It is based on the average daily attendance from last spring and this fall. This is also a concern for the middle school teachers. -Title 1 issues By Oct 31st, the student population at Irvington needed to be at 40% free and reduced meals to qualify for Federal Title 1 money. Irvington receives approximately $185,000/year in Title I support. We did not make the 40% for this year - we are 15 families shy. The district is looking into changing the qualification process (to make it more stable and predictable) so that schools don’t have to qualify each year. There is currently a lawsuit against the State of OR charging it is illegal for public schools to charge for full day kindergarten. At Irvington, Title 1 funds pay for full day kindergarten. The money from Title 1 funds both kindergarten educational assistants, half of one teacher, two days of reading program, and our full time librarian. Desegregation funds used to fund full day kindergarten, but the grant ran out several years ago. We have not always qualified for Title 1 funds and after the Desegregation money ran out one-year full day kindergarten was paid for with general funds and then one year there was fee for service kindergarten. 16. Ms. MacLeod’s announcements:
17. No new information from the facilities meeting, but reports are supposed to be available on January 6 at the district. 18. Cherie Allbaugh is organizing the MLK food drive and there is information posted with the details. 19. There will be a traffic coordinator/school liaison PDOT person here tomorrow (January 9th) at 2:45 to do a review and look at pickup and car traffic and signage and see what can be done to improve traffic safety. 20. The Irvington Home tour offered the Irvington PTA the opportunity to earn money for running the café during the tour. Charles and Laura Barker will be organizing the café. Thanks! 21. The Chez Jose fundraiser will be on Monday January 28th during dinner hours. Irvington School will make 10% of the profits. 22. Weird wacky science class offered on Tuesdays after school has spots available and it is open to 2nd graders now. 23. Cathy Percich is determining availability for community garden plots and she will do a lottery. There will be information available at next month’s PTA meeting. 24. Fourth graders will do an overnight on the Oregon Trail in April. They have sent in an application for scholarships. The fourth graders will need to do some fundraising and they are thinking of popcorn sales, read-a-thon and others. They will also ask those families who are able to contribute $20, with kids earning as much as possible. May need money from PTA.
25. CPPS is sponsoring a Parent Leadership Conference on Saturday, Feb 9 @ Benson High School. Anyone who is interested in increasing parent and community involvement in our public schools is invited to participate in this year’s Parent Leadership Conference. Doors open at 8:30, and the last workshop will be over at 11:45. The 2008 PLC will focus on examining stories of successes (and some failures) in developing strategies to increase parent involvement at the building level, in a variety of area schools. Questions? Contact CPPS at (503) 220-0577 or email: cpps@cppsportland.org . Perfect for a parent who is interested in becoming an Irvington PTA officer next year! We are looking for two representatives from Irvington. Let us know if you’d like to attend. PTA Committee Updates Tech Committee There have been some problems as the website is switching to a new server. It is difficult to post and it is crashing right now, but be patient as the problems are identified and fixed. E-mail management – we set up a Google group for the Irvington School PTA + TAG parents. They are both currently being tested. Once the kinks are worked out, we’ll communicate its availability to the entire PTA + TAG community. If the Google group works, there are endless possibilities in how we can use Google groups to communicate with all Irvington School community interests. Interested in joining the tech committee? Questions? Doug Carlson, 503.281.5861, rachelabra@msn.com Last updated by lmeilinger on Oct 24, 2008 at 01:33 PM |
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