PTO

Minutes from January: Reviewed Motion to approve – Neilly Berger and 2nd – Helen Sharp

Beth reported – Beth thanked everyone who volunteered time to help make the Spring Book Fair a success. Everything went very smoothly. It was a good idea to have it open all day long. $7,442.00 raised.

It will be held on Friday, May 2nd the same day as North Schools Luncheon. Everything is in the works. We will need more volunteers to help the day of.

Andrea will be contacting current Committee Chairs to see if they are willing to continue for next year. We will start to fill in the openings and also have the Committee sign up sheets at registration

Andrea made a motion to have the following people elected into office for the school year 2008-2009
President – Beth Smith
Vice President – Kelly Erickson
Treasurer – Helen Sharp
Motion to approve – Neilly Berger 2nd – Rhonda McConkey

Spring Sing for the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders will be held Tuesday, April 15th at the high school

Spring Pictures and “Super Panorama” Picture

Spring Pictures – Friday, April 18th and the “Super Panorama” Picture – Wednesday, April 23

The volunteer breakfast will be held Wednesday, April 30 at 7:45 in the cafeteria.

The Rainforest Assembly will be held Thursday, May 8th at 1:30. North School will also see this program at their school earlier in the day. There will be an evening showing for the public at 7pm that evening in the South Prairie gymnasium. This show will be slightly different than what the children see during the earlier assembly program. Tickets are $5.00 at the door. This evening show to the public allows the schools to have the assembly at no charge. Rhonda reported that she will write a press release for the program.

Young Author winners to read at May PTO meeting

During the May PTO meeting the winners of the Young Authors will be invited to read their stories to everyone. There are 12 students in all – 2 from each grade. The children can come in their PJs. Cookies and milk will be served. This will hopefully boost the PTO meeting attendance.

Bids for the parking lot and road will be reviewed and approved at the May Board meeting. They will start construction as soon as school is out in June.

South Prairie building will be utilized during June and July with OSCAR, PATS, ELL, morning OSCAR and summer school

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
Rhonda McConkey – Tote bags will be ordered Friday, April 18th and should be her Friday, April 25th. They will be blue with the South Prairie logo in red. They will have them displayed at Market Day pick-up and in the school. The cost per bag will be $3.00. She will also make up a flyer with a picture of the tote bag.

Minutes from January: Reviewed Motion to approve – Helen Sharp and 2nd – Kari DeConinck

Treasure Report: Beginning balance - $9,823.48, Expenses - $1,526.74 , Income - $3,096.46, Ending balance - $11,393.20 &
Savings - $5,285.85

Who is going to run it? In the past it was 5th graders but this year their prep time is first period so they are unable to take care of. 4th grade Student Council members may be an option. Mrs. Graves with check with the Student Council leaders.

Only 6 were left last time. They will be sold during the Family Fun Night – Rainbow Ice (300), Cookies & Cream (300), Vanilla (200) and Chocolate (200) – Grand total of 1,000 available to sell during Family Fun Night.

To bring awareness and to provide a service to the community
Samples - $1.69 – Green Sample & $1.99 Navy Sample (larger bag with a cardboard bottom.
Going with the Navy w/red lettering for $1.99. Sell for $3.00 to just cover the cost – not a fund-raiser. Doing as a service to the community

Chair - Lori Grant
Theme – 1950’s Rock-N-Roll
Ticket pre-sell – 5 tickets for a $1.00 at the door 4 tickets for a $1.00.
Soda Shop in the cafeteria, have people wear poodle skirts and have DJ playing 50’s music plus tunes from today.
Menu: pizza, popcorn, Dippin’ Dots, pop, H2O. (Cash for food) Will check with the HS Sports Boosters to possibly borrow their popcorn popper.
Activities: Need to take an inventory of the games. A group of HS Swing Dancers will do a demonstration and then have volunteers from the audience join in. Possible activities: hula hooping or doing the twist. Mrs. Graves will ask the staff who would be interested. Use tickets to vote for the best one.
Class Baskets – Kindergarten: Princess/Super Hero, First Grade: Summer Fun, Second Grade: Baker’s Bananza, Third Grade: Movie/Music Madness, Fourth Grade: LegoLand, Fifth Grade: Sports Basket.
Big Raffle Item: IPod with I-tunes card and docking station
Ticket Sellers will be Teachers at the door and sell inside the gym
Need volunteer chairs for Raffle and Cake Walk (possibly a 5th grade mom)
Sell everything ala cart. Sell food for cash not tickets – much eaiser.Ran out and had to add from left over Popsicles which were sold for $1.00 instead of $3.00

President, Vice President and Treasurer – It is a two-year term. Committee chairs Andrea will contact to see who is willing to continue for next year.

Held at the HS field house. 2 classes are already full for next year. Changes to the screening process to make it better.

Playground philosophy – equitable (same opportunities to do the same type of play activities at each of the elementary schools)
Adding to South Prairie possibly in front of the Kindergarten rooms out side for Kindergarteners, 1st and 2nd graders to utilize.
Scheduled to add over the next few years
Maybe in 2010 add additional playground surface, which South Prairie is lacking especially during the winter months.

Architects are working on plans for bids this spring to start work right when school gets out in June

Under Kindergarten age – Infants to 4 and 5 year olds. Jen Schroeder is running the program. It is held in the Multipurpose Room. Averaging 15 to 23 kids per day. No attendance and it is free.

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
Kari DeConinck – Teacher Appreciation Teacher Appreciation week is not until the first week of May (Staff size –60)
Andrea Thurwanger – motion to buy the $5.00 gift certificate to Sean’s for Valentine’s Day for the staff. Helen Sharp - 2nd the motion
Mrs. Graves – the 2nd grade will be going to 3 sections next year. (K-2nd grade – 24 students & 3rd-5th grade – 30 students)
Total of 472 students this year budget was for 465 students (overflow from West and North and the ELL Service for kids from SouthEast.
2010 Redistricting The process has already started.
Helen Sharp – Target gives 1% to the school of your choice through your debt card. She will try to bring more information to next meeting or go to Target for information on program.

Minutes from November: Name correction for Holiday Tea Julie Breidenbach Motion to approve – Kelly Erickson and 2nd – Rhonda McConkey

Treasure Report: Beginning balance - $10,627.29, Expenses - $3,219.17, Income - $2,415.36, Ending balance - $9,823.48 &
Savings - $5,277.83

Andrea reported – Kid’s behaved well. The setting is perfect but because of the increased number children very crowded and felt rushed. Suggestion was made to hold over two days but that may make it more complicated or to double up the smaller younger class verses doubling up the older classes. There needs to be more information in the newsletter for the new students to South Prairie so they know what to expect.

First time offering Dippin’ Dots – December 14 Profits = $300.00
Ran out and had to add from left over Popsicles which were sold for $1.00 instead of $3.00
January 11 – Profits = $247.00 and added left over Popsicles (3 PTO volunteers ran the booth)

Originally set to offer February 1 and February 22 changed to just February 1 and then offer them at Fun Fair.
There will be 3 volunteers from PTO working the Dippin’ Dot booth.
Flavors offered February 1st – Rainbow, Vanilla and Mint Chocolate Chip

To bring awareness and to provide a service to the community
Jewel and Brown’s supermarkets sell bags to be used instead plastic bags for groceries. This makes it hard to use anywhere else.
South Prairie could provide bags with the South Prairie logo and then they could be used everywhere. “Go Green Go Everywhere”
Pricing – 100 for $1.79 each. Rhonda will try to get samples (red and blue possibly one from each company)
Andrea will check to see if we would be able to do the Fund-raiser in February.

Family Fun Night – March 7 from 6 to 8 pm

Chair - Lori Grant
Theme – 1950’s Rock-N-Roll
Soda Shop in the cafeteria, have people wear poodle skirts and have DJ playing 50’s music plus tunes from today.
Menu: pizza, popcorn, Dippin’ Dots, pop, H2O, possibly hot dogs, elephant ears, salt water taffy, candy necklaces and other candy from the 50’s. Suggestion: to check with Nestle to see if they would donate candy. Last year ordered pizza from Dominos. Suggestion: to check with Sam’s Pizza for the pizzas. (Also order more than what is recommended)
Child ID kits will be offered. Danny will need adult helpers. Jen Schroeder offered to help get things set up.
Possible activities: Lip Sync, hula hooping or doing the twist. Mrs. Graves will ask the staff who would be interested. Use tickets to vote for the best one.
Class Baskets – Kindergarten: Princess/Super Hero, First Grade: Summer Fun, Second Grade: Baker’s Bananza, Third Grade: Movie/Music Madness, Fourth Grade: LegoLand, Fifth Grade: Sports Basket.
Big Raffle Item: IPod with I-tunes card and docking station
Ticket Sellers will be Teachers at the door and sell inside the gym
Need volunteer chairs for Raffle and Cake Walk (possibly a 5th grade mom)
Helpers for games: SciFi Club, Middle School Students, talk with Sociology Teacher at the high school for kids who need community service hours.
Sell everything ala cart. Sell food for cash not tickets – much eaiser.Ran out and had to add from left over Popsicles which were sold for $1.00 instead of $3.00

Officer Nominations in March – President, Vice President and Treasurer

Beth has done a lot of extra work decorating making everything look nice.
The school looks Great!

Thanked the folder moms for all their hard work.

Mrs. Graves needs lunch supervisors and subs to fill in for lunch supervisor duty.
Need to give people at least an hour notice in order for them to sub in for lunch duty.

Castle Spirit Challenge January 22 – 25th

Special activities all week and the game against DeKalb High School will be on Friday, 1/25 at the Convocation Center
The Student Council will be making banners.

Breakfast Buddies – January 25th 3rd graders
Kindergartner’s 2008-2009

Kindergarten Screening/Registration Thursday – February 28th held at the High School Field House from 8 am to 8 pm.
Call Kelly at the office if you have a child who will be going into Kindergarten next year at South Prairie. The Student Council will be making banners.

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
Andrea – In February possibly have South Prairie Teachers work as servers at Culvers for one evening. Need to discuss.

Minutes from September: Motion to approve – Neilly Berger and 2nd – Rhonda McConkey

Treasure Report: Beginning balance - $20,668.78, Expenses - $17,326.79, Income - $7,285.30, Ending balance - $10,627.29 &
Savings - $5,277.83

Income from this year’s fund-raiser was down compared to last year BUT compared to other schools doing the same fund-raiser South Prairie did well. Everything went smoothly.
As a note – Market Day has been way down only 28 and 35 orders in September and October.

New Business:

Neilly Berger gave the report
Date for the Holiday Tea is Wednesday, December 19th
They need more parent volunteers
        To bring food
        Help decorate
        Help in general
They will put a note in the next school newsletter (December 5th) and in the PTO newsletter (November 25th)
Last year they had 10 -11 dozen cookies donated.
Julie Breidenbach will play the piano during the Tea.

Days it will be offered during lunch time
December 14th, January 11th, January 25th, February 8th & February 22nd
Brenda Wilkinson and Andrea Thurwanger will man the booth December
Neilly Berger and Rhonda McConkey will man the booth for January and February
They will also offer Dippin’ Dots at the Fun Fair on March 7th.

Andrea will check to see if we would be able to do the Fund-raiser in February.
The Teachers would be the food delivers

Mrs. Graves needs lunch supervisors and subs to fill in for lunch supervisor duty.
Need to give people at least an hour notice in order for them to sub in for lunch duty.

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
A big thank you to the parents who brought food in for the Teachers during the Parent Teacher Conferences

Minutes from September: Motion to approve – Cindy Medo and 2nd – Michele Cole

Treasure Report: Beginning balance - $2,266.95, Expenses - $3,674.36, Income - $22,076.19, Ending balance - $20,668.78 &
Savings - $5,277.83 Motion to approve – Cindy Medo & 2nd – Michele Cole

$141.00 (worth of books) was donated to the local Red Cross and 141 books to various designated Charities
Profits from Book Fair: $1,870.00 worth of books for Teachers & $786.00 worth of books for Library use
$1,862.00 vouchers for Books – 75% for Library use & 25% for Mrs. Graves and Teachers
Total Profits - $4,500.00
Spring Book Fair set for April 7th to April 11th. Family Night – April 8th from 5 to 7:30 pm

Thursday, October 25th pick-up 2:30 to 6:30 pm
Do not know total income yet. So far $442.00 in donations and $18,700.00 in orders Internet orders are not all in yet.
Right now $1,400.00 less than expected.
Additional Fund-raiser Possibilities: Dip-n-dots to be sold during lunch on Fridays, Culvers 10% of sales during a 3 hour period one day a month, Cabana Charley’s a percentage of the sales one night. Have the South Prairie staff work at Cabana Charley’s

New Business:

We only need to order the amount that we have sold.
Items available – wind breaker shirt, long sleeve T-shirts, & sweatshirts

Thursday, November 8th – Dinner provided for the Teachers in the evening
Friday, November 9th – Breakfast provided for the Teachers in the morning.

Principal’s Report:
1) EU Point Person – Rachel Vidales will be the point person at South Prairie

Books to Red Cross
Giving Tree at Christmas time
Military Services – gifts for the troops – possibly donate Girl Scout Cookies from the school.

The Parade will be at 1:30 pm
The Parade will be different this year – Plan A is for Indoors & Plan B for Outdoors.
Halloween classroom parties to start at 2:00 pm

Moment of silence at the beginning of every day
There will be a discussion by the Executive Board to decide how to implement this mandate at South Prairie

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
Box Tops – When to bring in? Start bringing them in now.
Question on if the Library still had Goose Bumps books – They are there.

Treasure Report: Brenda went over the Budget for 2007 – 2008 school year. She also went over the August month report. As of 8/31/2007 we have a balance of $2,266.95. The savings account balance is $7,267.75

The Ice Cream Social was canceled due to weather and the over abundance of mosquitoes. It will be rescheduled for the spring.
Issue – the Ice Cream bars (384 bars) for the event were already purchased and will not last until the spring. Many ideas were shared on how best to use the Ice Cream bars within the next few months.

New Business:

South Prairie School sponsors Cub Scout Pack 822. The Cub Scouts of Pack 822 represented at the meeting presented the Charter Certificate to PTO President – Andrea Thurwanger.

The Catalog Fund-raiser is our largest fund-raiser of the year. It helps to fund many of the programs at South Prairie during the school year. It costs the PTO $74.00 per student. This fund-raiser makes up 40% of the $74.00.
People can place orders on line but the bulbs are not featured on line and people need to be aware that there is a shipping charge if the products are being shipped directly to the person ordering verses going to the school and then delivering the orders.

First Breakfast Buddies of the year is Kindergarten on Friday 9/21 - 7:45 to 8:15 am

The Sycamore Education Foundation fund-raiser. (Teachers can apply for grant money from the Foundation.)
The fund-raising event will be held Saturday, 9/22 from 7 – 11 pm at Bloom & Gardens
There will be a silent auction with many great prizes to win. Each school will be donating a basket for the auction. South Prairie’s basket will have a summer theme with beach towels, sunscreen and a family pool pass for the Sycamore pool next summer. There is also a balloon raffle - $20.00 per balloon. The dress is casual attire. They will have a band playing during the event. Nat’s on Maple will be supplying appetizers and Taxco will be supplying the beverages. The cost for the event is $30.00 a person. You can get tickets at the door or see Rhonda McConkey.

Theme for the Book Fair – “Book Fair Blizzard”
Thursday, September 27th @ 7:40 am– teacher preview
Thursday and Friday. September 27th and 28th – children preview

Monday, October 1st – 9:00 am to 3:30 pm
Tuesday, October 2nd – 9:00 am to 3:30 pm book fair open and 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm Family Night
Wednesday, October 3rd – 9:00 am to 3:30 pm
Thursday, October 4th – 9:00 am to 6:00 pm

Book Baskets for teachers wish list
Gift Certificates for teachers - $30.00 Full time teacher and $15.00 for Part time teachers – Contact Michele Cole

Mrs. Graves thanked the parents and staff for helping to make the Open House a big success. It was well attended this year. We had a police officer at Open House but we will need to hire one for the holiday parties. The first party will be Halloween – Wednesday 10/31.

Two bids came back. They were double if not triple the amount budgeted for the project. It is on hold until January. One Suggestion is to widen the road coming into the school to 4 lanes with – left and right turning lanes and angled parking for the park.

Drop off of children before school & Pick up after school

We may have a sign up sheet for parents to help move the cars in an orderly fashion when dropping off and picking up kids.

Teacher or Parent comments/requests:
Mrs. Cleven, Mrs. Richardson and Miss Misner thanked the PTO for all they do.
The parents present also thanked the teachers for all they do.

Meeting Adjourned at 8:00 pm with a motion from Neilly Berger and a second by Jen Schroeder.

South Prairie Elementary School

PTO Meeting Minutes

	South Prairie Elementary School 820 Borden Ave. Sycamore, Illinois 60178 815-899-8299