There will be no meeting in December


Thank you Hedges families for your generous donations to the Flathead food bank!!

PTO Meeting 11/19/13 6:30

Attendance:

Rachel Hanko, Jessie Cady-Kauffman, Kris Reed, Angie Beyl, NatalieMiller, Rebecca Linden, Julie Wood, Nancy Easley, Sarah Parkman, Christie Saugen, Amanda Davey.

Review of the Hedges Mission Statement

In light of how busy we get and how many commitments we get involved with it is nice to know what the purpose of the PTO is.

Our Mission is to provide support and resources for students, parents, staff and administrations. Where there is a need, we aim to fill it.

How we do this?

Scholarships-     College bound Hedges alumni

                                Summer programs for Hedges students

Fundraising         Box tops program

                                Smiths earn to learn

                                Campbells soup labels

                                Toyota truck raffle

                                Hedges spirit gear

                                Large door to door fundraiser

Sponsor school community building events

                                Fall festival

                                Skating party

                                Ice cream social

                                Teacher appreciation luncheon

Principal Report:

Mrs. Miller has some new behavior initiatives to discuss including “I caught you” cards. Kids are putting them on her desk and a small prize is given when their card is drawn as initiative for noticing and supporting positive behavior.

Mrs. Miller has been working on a Response to intervention program; this is a multi-tier program that provides intervention for students that demonstrate a need for additional support. Tier I for behavior, Tier II for Academics and Tier III for both.

We will be purchasing a new PA system with PTO funds. The district will purchase a new phone system that will line up with the new PA system and that should save a lot of money.

Treasure Report:

Deposited $160.00 from the phone book, $230 from t-shirts, and $739 from the fall festival.

Check went out for Oriental Tranding for $215.14, Little Ceasars $48.00, Candy $63.00. Our current checking balance is $1,008.75 in checking.

Old Business.

Fall Festival was fun and had great attendance. Profit was $367.00. Need to decide if we would like to to this every year or every other year.  Discussion about sometimes out account decides if we can do it that year or not. Kids really seem to like it, it seems like a lot of work but it is really fun. Someone suggested it is much better inside than outside.

Popcorn popper. The old popcorn popper died so a new one was purchased with PTO funds $193.62 was the cost. It has already arrived.

Elliots fundraiser(cookie dough sales). Delivery was very easy and organized, the profit was great, $7,173.00 in profit, this money goes into the activities fund, not into the PTO checking but can be accessed by PTO if we need it, it is just a lengthy process. Do we want to participate in this fundraiser again? If so what do we want to do differently? Ideas were to get the teachers more involved perhaps giving them 5% of sales from their class for their classroom. Prize for the top sales, like a bike. Online sales were not very lucrative for us, we only made 3.50 per tub or 10% and they cost buyers considerably more to ship. We didn’t do a very good job of advertising and it was confusing for parents. We should do an assembly and give out cookie samples or something. There needs to be a place on the sheet for cash donations so they do not get lost. Perhaps we should change the time to earlier in the spring when families are not still trying to get in the swing of school and it is not such a busy time. We are having a reward lunch for the top sellers this year they get to have Pizza with Mrs. Miller. $700 was the top selling order.

Thanksgiving baskets.  We have six dinner boxes to give to families in need from our school but we still need six turkeys to add to them.  PTO approved $100 to purchase turkeys at cost, the additional expenses of the turkeys has been donated by Super One grocery store, the turkeys will be purchased in the form of gift cards specifically for approximately 15 lb turkey.

Phone Book Report. We changed the form to accommodate all family make up’s and we changed the wording on the form. We needed 4-6 adds to pay for the book but got 15 adds, so we raised $480.00 it will cost $100-$200 to print. In the future we would like to have the phone book out earlier. Suggestions to put out the family contact information with the orientation packet at the beginning of the year so that we can complete the phone book sooner.

Box Tops. The first deadline for tops was Nov 1^st and we had $289.00 the next deadline is March 1^st. Our school is not competitive at all with the other local schools, even the smaller outlying schools are earning way more money for their schools than we are. You can purchase box tops online by shopping through the box tops websites in addition to clipping box tops. Suggestions were to have a PTO education table at events to get our families aware of boxtops and boost competitions with classrooms.

New Business

Yearbook. Hap Aldrich has changed his prices this year so we have to table this issue for now.

Giving Tree.  Rebecca has suggested we create a giving tree that contains cards with requests from each teacher for things that they need or want for their classroom so that families can grab that ornament and provide that request for the classroom. This lead to a discussion of possibly reintroducing room parents again for teachers who would like a parent to help in the class room with whatever they might need.

No Meeting in December.