Tavelli PTO meeting
March 6, 2007
The PTO meeting was called to
order at 7:02 p.m. Paula Metcalf, President of the Tavelli Parent Teacher
Organization. A sign-in sheet was passed
around.
I. Approval of Minutes: Paula Metcalf
approved. Crystal Long seconded.
II. Treasurer’s Report: Given by
Crystal Long, Treasurer of the Tavelli PTO.
CSAPS
–money given for snacks. Read-a-thon was
advertised great and grossed $4600. With
$500 for the author, a total of $4100 was made.
“That was great.” Brenda Cisneros
the Resource/ Mod. Cog. Teacher from Special Ed needed money to update their
reading program. PTO paid 1/3 (out of
the Multi-culture event), Dr. Lawler matched $140, and she pitched in the other
portion for a 3-way divide.
III. Committee
Update:
Read-a-thon: Kristen
reported that the Read-a-thon “did well”.
It made $4647.00 minus the $500 for the author and $200 for the
banner. She thought that grossing almost
5K and netting almost 4K was “pretty good”.
They were “above goal” since that wanted to gross over 4K. She thought it was good that they encouraged
participation, not necessarily the donation.
Paula had a contest question. Kristen
said that since they had over 330 donation sheets, they had more than the
number of sheets needed to have Dr. Lawler and Bev dress up as Thing One and
Thing Two. Kristen said that Renee
Walden had a 96% return of the sheet from her class, and that Mrs. Bolton had a
75% return from hers. They each won $20
gift certificates. Mrs. Hitton’s class
was the winner of the poem. Many thank
you notes were written from the kids.
Kristen said “they couldn’t have done it without the teacher
participation” and “Bev did great – she pretended to go back and forth about
wanting to wear a blue wig and the kids loved it”.
Kristen
said that they would like to do it again next year since they did pretty
well. She said that everyone liked
having an author come in. She said that
they had a really good response and thinks that the kids had a “really great
time”. Crystal said “on the fundraiser
for next year. If PTO approved, would
like to continue for the future”.
Kristen thanked everyone who helped, including Rick for the chocolate
fountain and Lynn Knoeble. She thanked
Danny Pink the school Resource Officer SRO for being “Officer Buckle”. Bev said the “kids enjoy it”, and Kristen
said “he’s super with the kids”. Bev
commented that Kristen and Lynn did a “great job with the bulletin board”. Kristen said she would do it again next
year. They would keep the program
interactive and would promote it more, especially the “when, what about, and
who to talk to” questions. The kids had
someone who explained it to them this year, in 3-4 years down the road
“everyone will know about it”. “Everyone
seemed to have a good time, and the goal is good – to promote reading”. Teacher Judy Gerard said that her kids really
were into it. Parent Julie Gallager said
that her young child brought a book in she knew and was very proud of it. Paula said “thanks to all”.
Book Fair: April 17-20. Paula coordinated the pancake supper with the
Book Fair on the evening of the 17th, from 5-8:00 p.m. This is to bring the parents into the Book
Fair.
Albertson’s rebate: Paula said
that Albertsons is now a new company and that they are collecting the preferred
cards, which are linked to the school.
They said that they would match the 1st quarter donation for
the 2nd quarter. The new
program starts June 27th.
Kristen recommended that we find out about the new cards to get the
parents to benefit the school for the 3 months that school is out. Paula said that they are sending everyone new
cards on June 27th.
Team Tavelli: Steve from
Leadership/Exercise spoke. He said that
Team Tavelli (40-50 6th graders) is a good core group of kids, but
that there are not a lot of parent volunteers.
The Fundraiser this year will benefit Ronald McDonald House, which
provides families with kids a place to stay during traumatic times. Last year Team Tavelli raised $1500 for the
Food Bank. Currently they are trying to
establish a monetary goal. They met with
the kids 1 ½ months
ago to set up. They are using the area
by the office. Kids that donate items
will have their names up on the bulletin board.
They will run a penny drive the whole month of April. Students are asked to donate items on a wish
list or $ - but to participate on a comfort level. This makes a difference to a lot of
families. They are doing this in the
morning between 8 and 9:00. Donor
receives a sticker to put on the bulletin board. Cash jar is in the office. Steve said that Dr. Lawler wanted it
promoted. They are making promotional
posters at Kinko’s. They want to have
them stand out. Captains will go to each
classroom to show and tell the students about it, plus will be in flyers and in
the Thursday notes. There is a link to
the Ronald McDonald House on the web site.
Mr. Deakin will run some videos produced by the Ronald McDonald House. Bev said it would be good if the kids did a
promotional video, they could run it in the mornings from 8:40-9:00 on any day
on the morning announcements. Paula said
to look at Kristen’s PTO website and could do something like the
Read-a-thon. Rob could help. Steve continued by saying that they are
hoping to gather parents together to go to the Ronald McDonald House in Denver
to help with something like cooking a meal or doing something to physically
help. The next meeting for Team Tavelli is Monday, March 26th at
12:30-1:30 in the media center. They
would love to have 5th & 6th grade parents help participate. Encourage 5th & 6th
grade parents by making posters or “quelling riot”. In April they will bring a 4th
grader to get involved as a recruit. “These kids have a lot to offer” (fundraisers Food Bank of Larimer
County and Hurricane Katrina).
This also provides a “coaching mentality” for 6th graders to
help the 5th graders. These
are leadership aspects and give some meaning to their school days.
Barnes & Noble Bookstore: Kristen said
that April 16th will be the Barnes & Noble drive. Paula said good,
since we planned the Mexican Restaurant family night out at the same time. This would be good to keep “our foot in the
door” for the next holiday season.
IV. Special Guest
A.
Kindergarten and
ELA Teachers
1)
Kindergarten Judy Gerard presented an overview of the math program and showed us some
“Home Links” pages, how to play “Monster Squeeze” & Dominoes, and talked
about “How Big is a Foot?” book. This
“builds a number sense in Kindergarten”.
Robin
McMorrow showed us “Roll the dice and color in the picture” type work that they
do that focuses on counting on and not repeating. Boys are very competitive, and she has found
that a game fashion for learning works best.
Like the “dollar bill game” and other money games. They also use coin stamps to count out
1$. She showed us that they put “star
words” in whiffle balls for reading, writing, and fine motor skills
practice. The kids are now doing
“sticker story” which uses stickers to write out a story. Ms. McMorrow passed out a “Simple Educational
Ideas for Summer” handout.
Ruth
Lieurance passed out a handout of “Ideas to do Together” and handouts on
reading in creative ways. She showed us
how the kids do “eggs with words” that sort real versus nonsense words and
group word families, “clapping with syllables” for listening and phonetic
awareness, as well as the alphabet sound chart and shape sorters. One key is for parents to develop their own
puzzle making with their children as children loves puzzles. She said there is a teacher store in Windsor
on main street.
2) ELA (English Language Acquisition)
Naomi
Gomez and Ava McKelvey said that about 90 students are with foreign language in
all of the grades, where English is their second language at home. There are two levels 1) Basic Interpersonal
Communication Skills or BICS, and 2) Cognitive Academic Language or CALP. They build background knowledge called
“pre-teaching’ to tap into what the kids already know. They maintain high expectations. They showed some excellent work including a 3rd
and 4th grader’s video on planets, a news report that 5th
graders did on the Revolutionary war, a 2nd graders “wildlife for
kids” report, and 5th graders “Lamborgini car” poster.
B. Bev
for Dr. Lawler
1) Student
Based Budgeting. SBB. 6 kids to 1 ½ staff units is $90K. This means a possible 4-5% increase to
Tavelli. Phased in soft landing, with 1 ½ more staff units
for next year for the whole building.
Will be deciding 1) will we get it, and 2) how best to use the money,
including space issues. Kristen said
that it would be nice to have a foreign language back in the school.
Next months guests are the 1st
and 2nd grade teachers.
8:31p.m. Meeting Adjourned
PTO Meeting notes
Jill Williams PTO Secretary