PTO Meeting Minutes - October 20, 2009

Lincoln-Eliot PTO Meeting - October 20, 2009, Music Room
 
1) Welcome and Introductions
Agi Sardi, PTO president
Vicki Ritterband, PTO secretary
Barbara Phelan, teacher representative
Jason Raisner, teacher representative
Marcia Ward, Plowshares director
Michael Finnegan, Plowshares assistant director
Maria Greenberg
Shannon Flint
Michael Rothstein
Francine Marcello
Alison Leary Mooradian
Michele Kfouri
Emile Kfouri
Melissa Fang
Liz Adler
Nancy Caira
Alicia Matos
Susanne Goddard
Susan Dargon Hart
Larry Bloch
 
2) Principal’s Update
 

• Math Club: Thanks to several parents who have volunteered to help with math club, it will be held on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings from 7:45-8:20, beginning Nov. 10. The Title 1 funds that underwrite math club were reduced so math coach Elka Kulman now must partially depend on volunteers. If you’re interested in helping out, please email Elka at elka_kuhlman@newton.k12.ma.us. On Tuesdays, second and third graders will attend math club (assisted by fourth and fifth graders) and on Thursdays - fourth and fifth graders.

·      Morning Clubs (8-8:20): Melissa Fang will be running before-school basketball on Wednesdays and kickball on Fridays. If you would like to volunteer to run a club on another day, please contact Katie. She’s interested in non-athletic activities as well, for example some type of a crafting club.

·      Celebrating our Differences: About 20 families attended the first of several events this year whose goal is to celebrate the diversity of cultures and backgrounds that make the L-E community so special. The evening included a potluck dinner (I heard Nilson Matos’ Brazilian stew was delectable) and mapping activities in which families marked on a map where they are from and where they have been. Katie said everyone seemed to have a great time. Katie said these gatherings dovetail nicely with one of the goals identified by the school council recently: creating a greater sense of the school as a community space through hosting more low-key events like the recent pot luck.

·      Inclusion for English Language Learner Families: Katie recently held the first of several coffees for families who are not fluent in English. This one was for Chinese parents and a Cantonese and a Mandarin interpreter were there to translate. One of the ideas that came out of the coffee was identifying bilingual liaisons between the PTO and folks in the main language groups at L-E (Chinese, Spanish and Russian). The idea would be that the liaison would attend PTO meetings or at least find out afterwards the key things that were talked about, then communicate this information to the non-English speakers and let them know ways they can get involved in upcoming activities. If you are interested in being such a language liaison, please let Katie know.

·      MCAS Pilot: Newton is one of nine school districts in Massachusetts whose MCAS scores are being evaluated in a new way. This is a pilot program that measures not only how L-E students do in relation to a standard, but also how much each student grows from year to year. This new metric, called the “student growth percentile,” measures students' progress relative to other students with a similar test score history. So if a student’s growth percentile is 75%, that means she did better on the test than 75% of other students with similar scores the previous year. The state hopes the new metric will do a number of things, including help schools improve curriculum and instruction and make better instructional decisions for individual students.

3) Halloween Dance

Melissa Fang, our Halloween Dance head honcho, gave us an update on how the Sunday, Nov. 1 dance is shaping up.  Ticket sales have begun. If you buy your tickets beforehand, they cost $5. If you buy them at the door, they cost $8, and $7 if you sign up for our Stop and Shop or Shaw’s e-Rewards program (so bring you Rewards cards to the dance). Teacher raffle ticket sales (we raffle off cool outings and activities with different teachers and the principal) will begin soon.

Please keep your eye out for the Halloween Dance volunteer form. We need lots of volunteers to make the dance a success. We especially need parents to run games. The dance takes place from 4-7 p.m. We’ll do some preliminary setup on the Friday before. Leftover baked good from the dance will be sold on Tuesday to folks who vote at Lincoln-Eliot.

4) Recycling

Alison Leary Mooradian talked to the group about recycling efforts at the school. The city has instituted a new single stream recycling/automatic trash pick up program but hasn’t yet included the schools in the program.  Nevertheless, Allison “procured” one of the new recycling receptacles so school recycling will go on uninterrupted. The city will include the schools in the new program in the next month or so. Alison said she’d like the school to start recycling on a more “global” level.

5) e-Rewards
Maria Greenberg, who has been working hard on signing up the school for various e-Rewards programs, talked about the various programs that are available to schools.  She is currently focusing her energy on signing people up for the Stop and Shop and Shaws e-Rewards program.  She will send out an email soon to the entire parent group reminding them to sign up and to encourage friends and family to sign up too.  The e-Rewards programs gives L-E a percentage of the money our community (and other supporters) spends at these stores.  It’s effortless money, so please sign up.

In other news:

• The PTO is still looking to fill several key positions including co-president, Creative Arts and Science Chair and Spiritwear Czar.

• The L-E family directory should be published next week. Many thanks to Melissa Fang, Heather Kelly and Alicia Matos for putting it together.

• The yard sale made $2,000 and was a lot of fun.  Kudos to Missy White and Angela Winston (with lots of help from Agi Sardi and many others) for spearheading it. We are inviting anyone to take whatever they’d like any time from 7:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Susanne Goddard will be there to assist. The items are under the overhang near the parking lot. Yard sale donors are allowed to deduct up to $250 worth of donations without a receipt. If you need a receipt for your donation, please contact Agi Sardi at agi.sardi@gmail.com.

• The fifth grade graduation committee will have its first meeting at the Boys and Girls Club Thursday (yesterday) at 6 p.m. If you’d like to get involved in the group that raises money for all of the fifth grade end-of-year activities, please contact Susan Dargon Hart at zueban@mac.com.

6) Special Parent Guest
We had a fabulous presentation from L-E dad Mark Greenberg, who owns Murray’s Liquors in Newton , 747 Beacon Street, Newton Center, entitled “Wines on the Cheap: Strategies for Buying Good Wines at Low Prices.” He gave all kinds of tips on buying good, inexpensive wine and gave us names of wines to look out for. Unfortunately, PTO rules prevented us from sipping wine as we listened! Mark’s tip sheet is attached.
 
That’s it for October. Join us for our next meeting Monday, Nov. 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the Music Room.