As a reminder, everyone is invited to attend PTA meetings! It's a great way to hear from Principal Cassidy and also to learn about upcoming PTA events. We hope to see you at our next meeting on Tuesday, February 17th. We meet in the Media Center at 6:30pm.
Esther Jackson Elementary PTA Board
Meeting Minutes
January 20, 2015
Present:
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Daniel MacLagan, Jennifer Cassidy, Becky Anderson, Shari
Perkins, Tia MacLagan, Paige Janco, Leslie Greindl, Cheryl Maloch, Andrea
Grieco
|
Location:
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EJ Media Center
|
|
Next meeting:
|
February 10th, 2015, EJ Media Center
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Call to Order – Dan MacLagan, 6:35pm
Old Business
·
Last Meeting’s Minutes Approved
·
Teacher Appreciation Breakfast was good, lots of
food provided for the teachers as they returned to school for the teacher
workday after Winter Break. Thank you to
Shari Perkins and Lisa Newara for co-chairing and stepping in at the last
minute!
Principal’s
Address – Jennifer Cassidy
·
Ms. Cassidy
gave a shout out to Lisa Stamey. With
Lisa’s help, the school was able to obtain an $8300 grant from the Thurber
Family Foundation that will be used to fund the Destination Imagination after
school program for the rest of the year.
o
Mr.
James will be heading up the Destination Imagination program.
·
The
school will be hosting a parent information session on the Georgia Milestones
Assessment. She would like all 3rd,
4th and 5th grade parents to attend, but it would be
beneficial for all parents, even if your student will not be taking the Georgia
Milestones this year.
o
They
released the Assessment Guide in December so they can share factual info with
parents now.
o
She
would like the PTAs help in spreading the word:
§
Georgia Milestones: Parent Workshop
In April 2015, GA Milestones will replace the CRCT for Grades 3-5. All
parents K-5 are invited to join us for a parent workshop.
There will be two identical sessions: Thursday, February 12 at 6:30-7:30
and Wednesday, February 18 at 8:00-9am. Both sessions will be held in the Media
Center and translation will be available.
Topics will include: general testing information, new ways students will
respond in writing: extended and constructed responses, sample test questions
for grades 3- 5, strategies for best supporting your child with the increased
testing expectations, connection between curriculum and testing.
·
In
December the state released the new CCRPI results.
o
EJ’s
overall score went down 1.7 points.
o
Content
mastery levels stayed about the same.
o
There was
a bigger drop in the ELL areas.
o
Across
the board, no significant declines.
o
Ms.
Cassidy would be happy to discuss the results in more detail with parents, but
last year when she had a parent meeting about the CCRPI results, only one
parent attended. She asked for feedback
on whether we thought there was a need for a meeting this year.
§
Several
people mentioned that they were more interested in their children’s individual
results than in this kind of statistic.
§
This
led to a discussion on Progress Reports, Report Cards, Teacher Communication,
etc…
·
Ms.
Cassidy said her expectation is that teachers should be sending out something
(e-mail or paper) at least once a month about what is coming up.
·
The
Report Cards and Progress Reports are done on a schedule.
·
Outside
of that, the amount of communication with the teachers is different for each
student.
·
Home
Access Center was also mentioned as a way of keeping up with your student’s
results on a timely basis. Ms. Cassidy
said that the teachers should be entering scores within 5 to 10 days of an
assignment.
Budget/Annual Fund
Update
·
Tia stated that she has made another deposit for
the Annual Fund, but did not have the amount available.
New Business
·
Open Board Positions – two Vice Presidents have
had to resign from their roles recently, and need to be replaced.
o
VP of Communications
o
VP of Fundraising
o
Becky has a meeting scheduled with Tara Barooah
this week to come up with job descriptions for this and a few other open
positions. (Yearbook and Spring Carnival Co-Chair.)
o
Ms. Cassidy offered to help by sending out a
school wide e-blast when we have information so that it goes to all families,
not just those in the PTA.
o
Dan and Shannol will continue to try and
recruit!
·
Bingo Night – Friday 2/6
o
Ms. Cassidy let us know that we are good for the
date even though it is a Friday. Fun
Time Live will be cancelled that night.
o
The letter to the GBI to get the Bingo license
has been sent. (Lisa Stamey)
o
Katie is working on the prizes.
·
Fun Time Live
o
Flyers will be sent soon,
o
Just need to show up.
o
Question was then brought up about capacity, and
whether they would be staffed enough to handle any amount of students, or if at
a certain amount, some would be turned away because of no pre-registering
system. It seems that they have planned
for a large number of attendees so this doesn’t look like it will be a problem.
·
Spirit Night
o
Next Spirit Night is Feb 11th at Sky
Zone
·
Directory
o
Shannol has gotten the data file from Dora. Is working on getting it into PTAvenue and
getting an electronic copy.
·
Yearbook
o
Need Chair
o
Dan was asked if he could get with Shannol about
creating instructions on how to upload photos to Picaboo. Many teachers and event chairs have photos
that need to be uploaded and don’t want to wait until last minute.
·
Spirit Wear
o
Need Chair
o
Shannol would like to see a school design
competition next year/have student designs available. It was asked if the art teacher could assist
with this and Ms. Cassidy said that could be arranged.
·
Survey
o
Shannol and Dan would like to do a survey for
the parents about the PTA to get their feedback.
·
Atlanta Hawks Fundraiser
o
Tia would like to head up a PTA fundraiser (GA
PTA Family Fun Night at the Hawks)
o
Every ticket sold is $5 for our PTA
o
Game is March 27th
o
This was approved, she will work on flyer and
get them out to students
Committee Reports
·
Membership
o
Lisa N is currently working on the envelope
drive.
·
Volunteers
o
Tara will work on creating job descriptions for
the most needed positions.
·
Science Expo
o
Kick-off was on 1/16. Ms. Merkle and Ms. Williamson helped to
create a video showing experiments for the kick-off to run during
announcements.
o
Forms are available in the office and online and
are due 2/12.
o
We have applied for a grant to fund the Science
Expo, but will not know if we have received it until late February.
·
Leslie asked if there was anything special we
could do to say goodbye to the building.
There was a discussion about students using paint (making a mural) or
markers during room parties. Ms. Cassidy was ok with this as long as building
was being demolished.
·
Reading for Education – was very
successful. The goal was 130, and they
received 155 booklets back. Several
families sent money in with a note declining participating. Teachers received
the prizes for their classrooms today. Ms. Cassidy noted that Dan and Shannol
did a good job with the communication for the program.
·
Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up Feb 17-20. Shari Perkins and Jodi Kaplan are
co-chairing. Someone mentioned that
Katie had ideas for the breakfast for this one, so they should be in contact
with her.
·
Tia mentioned that she had received a letter
from SunTrust regarding fees, including a per transfer fee ($14) that would
make our PayPal transfers unaffordable.
She contacted the manager and the fees should be waived. It may have
been sent to us (as a non-profit) by mistake. She will need to watch to make
sure they don’t charge us.
Meeting
Adjourned by Dan MacLagan at 8:20pm
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