PTA Meeting Minutes

PTA Meeting Minutes (October 14, 2020)

Google Meeting Link:  https://meet.google.com/yzm-kfkz-kvt

 First ever Virtual PTA Meeting

Record attendance- 28+ families

 Nicole: Welcome! Pledge 

  • General updates; overall very good feedback on the start of school  
  • Encourage parents to speak up during the meetings.  This is an interactive discussion
  • PTA purchases for start of school (fans, lanyards); funded 2 Mini Grants (supplies for 1st grade sit upons and renewed technology membership to Brain Pop Jr); BAS T-Shirts; Anything else on the horizon?
  • Chair Acknowledgments
    • BAS T shirts provided to all Kindergarten, new students and faculty – Christine DelRe
    • Picture Day –  Allyson Konzelman and Erin Braxton
    • Website – Benee Meade
    • BAS/OAS Drive In Movie Night – Nikki Mulchay & Jen Glackin
  • Moving forward how to continue to hold virtual events; STEAM Night/Art Night
  • Looking forward on calendar several TBD’s – updates on elementary Halloween activity? (students encouraged to wear orange, black, purple, or green Halloween t-shirts, and spirited face masks). OAS/BAS 5K, cancelled/postponed; no volunteers, time/profit w/o sponsors- possibility to move it to the spring
    • Brainstorm ways to turn certain existing or new events virtual to make this an active and memorable year for the students
    • Anything indoors is cancelled at the moment in an effort to follow mandated protocols
  • Several big budget items; should we just assume cancelled? – 
    • Officially cancel Holiday Boutique?- PENDING.  Currently brainstorming ways to still make it happen
      • Creating a “Big Book” from which the children could shop from. Book would be broken down by family member sections.  This would include photos of the gifts we are offering.  Students would make selections and volunteers would stuff bags for each student, using gifts that have been pre-purchased.  
      • Enlist class parents to help with holiday boutique for each class
      • HOW THE HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE WORKS- volunteer shoppers purchase gifts in various categories that are in turn used for students to shop for family member holiday gifts.  Prep for Boutique typically historically takes place the week after Thanksgiving or slightly before
      • Holiday boutique must be held prior to Hanukkah which is December 10th this year.
    • After school clubs? – Can we do outside?- Clubs are still up in the air, as we need to ensure they will be effective and engaging for the students and how they would look
    • Field Trips- CANCELLED
    • 2nd Grade chorus- PENDING
    • Skate Night- CANCELLED (will still explore the possibility of using the outdoor rink in Westfield, although it may still follow the same capacity protocols as indoor rinks)
  • Ways to continue to push/encourage joining the PTA
    • Possibility of using a paper form to encourage enrollment with the google link included
    • Continue to do blasts, website posts, social media posts to encourage enrollment
  • What’s the weather guidelines for continuing to get the kids outside as we get into Fall/Winter – Other PTA presidents brought up potentially purchasing tents
    • PTA to further explore the possibility of purchasing tents for the school to prolong outdoor time
    • Awnings have been used during inclement weather to get the students outside for snack time
    • Classes are adjusting as needed and have the option of using the gym as a large open space
  • As stated in the blasts, students will continue to go outside as long as possible (typically 32 degrees and above) in order to keep moving, walking, getting exercise.  Please dress in layers and wear comfortable shoes
  • List of teachers Amazon Wish Lists to pull together/publish out
    • Lists will be gathered for each teacher’s Wish List by the school 

 

Claire: 

  • 104 families have joined so far this year.  We also have 8 teachers that have joined.  There are 202 families at BAS, so we have just over 50% participation.  We have received $1,730 in dues (half is paid to national) and $550 in donations.  Google form has been setup with a venmo payment option for those that are having trouble setting up memberhub.
  • Current balance of the account is $8,639.90 
    • Pending items 
      • Deposit of $110 from Memberhub
      • Check of -$350 Brain Pop grant
    • We have spent $573.23 on mini grants so far this year (typical spend around $800)
      • First grade sit on project
      • Brain Pop subscription
    • We have paid the Cranford Theater up front for the BAS/OAS movie night, so we will recoup the $666.25 paid out to them plus a little profit (should be around $280 before prizes, likely spend for the prizes $150) 
    • We paid $571.25 for the Kindergarten, new student, and new teacher BAS tshirts
    • We contributed to supplies to prepare the classrooms for the school year and gave the teachers and staff welcome back gifts.
    • We also paid out for taxes and insurance for the year (approx. $500).
  • The budget for the year is currently accounting for events like Afterschool Clubs, Skate Night, Spring Backyard Bash, and 2nd grade show which are 5k of expenses.  We also have income from Holiday Boutique on the budget (we typically make $300) which we are thinking probably won’t be able to happen.
    • Have to go over future events.  If these events with big expenses are occurring then we need to brainstorm on possible events to raise money in the spring.
  • Courtney Baginski said she needs to order the 2nd grade yearbooks from PTA funds ($1500 has already been accounted for)

 

 Nikki: Upcoming Events – 

  • 👟👟National Walk to School Day– October 7th- Special Thank you to CPD for joining us for National Walk to School Day! Our Yearbook Committee is still in search of pictures of families walking to school that day so please submit your pictures to basyearbook2021@gmail.com
  •  🎬BAS/OAS Movie Night update; BAS/OAS Halloween Addams Family Drive-In Movie Sold-Out within 24 Hours of promoting school wide! We are in the process of securing baskets for raffling off the night of the event. We will be taking pictures of students who dress up in front of their cars, Jennifer Glacking the event Co-Chair is connected with the local press and will feature the event, we will also send the pictures for the BAS yearbook.  We charged $35 dollars per car so we did make some money off the event which is nice! Money was collected using my personal venmo and I will be getting the money to Claire once the October 20th deadline for all money has passed and all registrations has closed. We are currently waiting on just a few people to submit payment, if they do not submit their payment by the 20th we will go to the BAS families on the waitlist! Between OAS & BAS we filled 65 slots for the event in less than 48 hours!
    • Working on securing press coverage for the event.  Certificates will be handed out for costumes.  Raffle baskets from local establishments
  • 🏃🏃‍♀️OAS/BAS Virtual 5K→ We are still in need of chairs for the OAS/BAS Virtual 5k! As the fall is slipping away from us we may need to discuss tabling this event to the spring?? 
  •  💟 Cranford Family Cares Collection (chair Megan Scanielo)–> we are collecting goods at the Drive-in, and we will also organize additional collections soon. This will likely be a November event.
  •  🔬🌡️🧪Virtual STEAM Night (co-chair Kristin Ferrera, Benee Meade); Currently scheduled for Nov 19th More information to follow
  •  🎃CFEE Trick or Treat Signs for Sale– the CFEE is selling Trick or Treaters Welcome signs for homes as a fundraiser! $15 for a sign, and on the back the signs say Sorry, We’re Out! Proceeds benefit the CFEE which  uses the money to fund grants for the Cranford Public School teachers! Click on this link to sign up for a sign!

 

Benee

  •       Website- baspta.com
  •       Website is up to date per the current event calendar and will continue to be modified to become more user friendly
  •       Inform parents website is up and running and a useful tool- especially for those who don’t regularly check social media
  •       Calendar tab is updated on the PTA Website and events are hyperlinked to corresponding flyers/posts
  •       Add PTA meeting notes tab on website to provide minutes for those who cannot attend

 

Courtney:

  •       Any exciting happenings at the school ie. New babies, good news- please update Courtney so she can send a card from the PTA.
  •       Welcome back gifts for the teachers and the first week of school lunches were very well received 

 

 Julie: Class Parent Update – Sent out google form for class parent sign up.  

  •       Vision on how virtual class parents will work  
  •       So far we have received 11 responses.  They break down as follows: 
    • Kindergarten: We do not have a volunteer from Mrs. Ruszkowski’s class.
    • First: We only have one volunteer from Mrs. Zabludovsky’s class, we do not have any volunteers for Mrs. Cruz, or Mrs. Toddings;
    • Second: we have one volunteer each for Mrs. LoGuidice-Alfano, Mrs. Oricchio, and Mrs. Kloc.  We do not have a volunteer from Mrs. Nudelman”s class.
    • Many volunteers from Miss Bagniewski’s AM and PM classes.      
  • Class parents this year will focus on virtual activities and supporting teachers, unfortunately there are no in-person activities planned at this time. Class parents manage the class directories.
  • There should also be class parents for the virtual classes too, especially to manage the class directory
  • Identify what amount the family donation should be this year to support Class Parent activities

 

Xiomara: Blast info is all that Nikki shared above (all upcoming November events mentioned in October blast) 

  •       One parent did email us this regarding Amazon Smile: I noticed that the amazon smile name is wrong for searching  146714 Bloomingdale Avenue Sch PTA, is what i was able to find. searching with school instead of sch won’t show the charity.  thought someone might not be able to find it.  searching with just the number at the front is also effective.  Will be updated in time for the next blast.

 

Additional General Topics: 

  •       Mrs. Murphy- Thank you to the parents for being patient during this time.  We typically have events confirmed and planned well in advance, but we are now working in a non-typical way.
  •       There will be many more google forms, google docs, blasts, social media posts, etc. to effectively communicate with parents for the foreseeable future.
  •       For the yearbook, brainstorm how to include virtual students, as they are not all BAS students 
  •       No assemblies for the foreseeable future, holding virtual assemblies is not as effective
  •       Explore including a section in the blasts “Your PTA Dollars at Work” as a tool to inform parents of how their donations are being spent on a monthly basis.
  •       Explore using part of the Class Parent funds to go towards games, coloring supplies, etc. for indoor recess kits for each class.  
    • Class parents can also request donations from the families in each class