Gates School Parent Teacher Organization Minutes

 Tuesday, November 13, 2007

 

 

I.                   Welcome

Lucinda Sears called the meeting to order at 7:10pm.  There were 14 people in attendance. See attached sign in sheet.

 

II.                Motion was made to approve minutes from the October 16, 2007 meeting.

Minutes were approved and will be posted on-line and on the PTO board at Gates school.

 

III.             School Committee Update: Xuan Kong reported

The last school committee meeting was held at Gates School.  The school committee visits each school; they have visited 3 of the 5 schools so far.  During the last meeting school committee reviewed the need for repairs and updates to the three older schools, they have ear marked 3.5 million dollars to cover costs of new boilers and roofs for these 3 buildings.  The school committee will vote on this spending plan this month.  There will be a budget meeting held on 11-29-07.

The school committee is still focused on the need for more teaching aids in grades 3&4.  These two class levels have a lot of students and they are talking about how we can accommodate these two grade levels in the future. 

Xuan asked the committee about the increased hours for teachers’ aids and the pressure that it creates on each schools’ PTO to cover these costs.  The school committee thought that they should discuss how they can help alleviate the pressure on all the Parent Teacher Organizations.  Our PTO will follow up the school committee to make sure they know we are concerned about covering ever increasing costs of teaching assistants.

 

IV.            Principal’s Report: Walter McGrail

We have a new second shift custodian working at Gates, his name is George Haras.  Ernesto has taken a leave of absence to be with his family and may/may not be coming back to work.

The fifth and sixth grade report cards went out last week.   A parent requested that Walter print a schedule of when to expect grade cards to help parents be more aware.  Walter agreed this was a good idea. 

 

V.   Treasurer’s Report: Pat Easterly

There are many fundraisers going on at this time.  We have some numbers in (see attached) but some events are still in progress.  Although all of the numbers are down slightly we are doing well. 

 

VI.            Interschool Council: Chris Fenniman & Jeri Lee

Chris and Jeri recently represented Gates School at a meeting which is chaired by Bill Ryan to allow all the schools to discuss issues and talk about our schools as a whole.  The meeting is held twice a year this was the first of two meetings.  They learned that currently three schools are in need of new principals.  The High School search is in progress.  The Merriam School will start its search in January and the McCarthy Towne School will hire an interim principal and begin their search next year.  So the two elementary schools will not be competing for candidates.

They also reported that a local company that predicts the number of incoming students each year is suggesting that we will have a decrease in the number of students over the next two years.  Although people were skeptical of the predictions this company has always given us positive results in the past.

A Gates parent asked if Jeri and Chris would ask the Interschool Council to form a sub-committee to focus on the kindergarten selection process, they will bring the idea back to the group.  The Gates parent, Maureen Flynn, had many great ideas about how we could help incoming parents feel more included and welcomed to our school.  She will chair a new committee next year to welcome incoming parents.

 

VII.         Auction Update: Jim Tabner 

Jim Tabner reported that the next meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 14 at 7:15 pm.  Almost all positions have been filled and the auction is moving forward nicely.

 

VIII.      Fundraisers

·        We will now have a link at the PTO home page for businesses that give money back to Gates for each purchase someone makes by going through our web site.  Lucinda Sears has researched other school web-sites and newsletters and she has gotten the approval of Walter McGrail.  The Gates home page will not support any business transactions only the PTO site.

·        The Gates apparel line is doing well. 

·        Sunday night is the Simon Mall night.

·        Scrip forms are up and running!

·        We voted to not get involved with a Lowell Devils (formerly the Lowell Loch Monster) Hockey team fundraiser.

·        Everyone agreed that we need to try and exploit company matching to increase all our fundraising efforts.

 

IX.            Announcements

Our next meeting will be January 8, 2008 at the Acton Memorial Library at 9:30 am.

Classroom Representatives will survey each class in the New Year to find out if people are interested in going to a direct solicitation campaign next year.  This would allow us to do away with lots of little fund raisers and focus more on building a school community.  We would still hold the annual auction.

 

Meeting adjourned at 9:03pm

 

 

Minutes respectfully submitted by Cindi Hoggard, Recording Secretary