Powell PTO Board Meeting Minutes
September 18, 2008
The meeting was called to order at 9:07 am. Present were Becky Friend, Sheri Brasher, Debbie Cordero, Amy Eckhout, Holli Sparks, Bob Belin, Pam Babb, Amy Eigner and Pam Jewett.
Secretary’s Report: Amy Eckhout
A motion was made to approve the August minutes. Bob seconded the motion and the minutes passed with a unanimous vote.
Principal’s Report: Becky Friend
We had 2 honor roll assemblies this week. The population has changed this year. 7th and 8th grade are full and we have 266 in 6th grade. Teacher initiated conferences begin next week. Arena conferences will be in October. Becky is on the Facilities Use Task Force and they have been meeting since February. We have a lot of extra space in our schools. They are getting responses to the proposed ideas at the community forums. The committee’s ideas will be presented at the Board of Education Meeting in October. The decision will not only be about money, it will be about equity in all of the schools. The smaller schools cannot provide the same quality of education as the larger schools. All of the schools will be impacted. There is a lot of emotion across the board. We are a community and we all support each other. It is fair to have a decision by the end of the calendar year, so the families and staff can move forward. We have no idea what the recommendations will be yet.
President’s Report: Sheri Brasher and Debbie Cordero
Do we want to have our meeting in October on October 23, 2008, the same night as the Board of Education Meeting? We can meet first and then attend the meeting to hear the recommendations of the Facilities Use Task Force. Yes, we will meet before the meeting. The time and place of the meeting is to be determined. We will notify you by email of the location. We have gone with a new apparel company. We have paid them half and the order is one week late. Pam suggested Debbie use the tax-exempt certificate so we do not have to pay sales tax on this apparel order. Bob will send you the link to get the certificate. We never officially voted Bob in as treasurer at our last meeting. He was officially voted in at this meeting. The district asked us to update and submit our by-laws to them. We are going to be posting our agenda and minutes on line this year. Christy posts anything on line on the PTO page for us. There has to be something in the by laws about what to do if there are not volunteers at the executive level. We may change the part about having two signatures on a check. We can change it to having 2 signatures if the check is over a certain dollar amount. We can have the reimbursement form signed by the president to count as another signature. Sheri will retype the by laws.
Treasurer’s Report: Bob Belin
Thank you to Pam Jewett who recruited Bob for us! Bob took the box of information we gave him and put it all in order. The format of the budget is changed. The top section is the income, the gifts line is a surplus, and the last section is where our account is now. We haven’t had many expenses yet. We went over in our assignment notebooks. We kept extra over the summer, which may help us if our magazine sales are down. We are now tax-free at the state and special district level. We cannot reimburse tax. As of January 1, 2009 we can use the tax-exempt
Powell PTO Board Meeting Minutes
September 18, 2008
Page 2
number. So far we have only bounced 2 checks from the magazine sales. We will make an attempt to collect by phone. If it can’t be resolved we will try to cancel the order through the magazine company.
VIPS: Pam Babb and Amy Eigner
We have a bill for VIPS notebooks from May. The notebooks came from the district. Magazine sales are down a little this year due to enrollment and the change in the buyout amount. The magazine sales company upped the buyout amount; he doesn’t get to make that decision, and so next year the buyout amount will be back to $10.00. No one in the initial meeting realized the impact of the $20.00 buyout. We think we will get close to $100,000, which is good considering all of the factors. We
have had some call from disgruntled parents over the buyout amount. We are proud of the sales team, they did a great job! We are working on getting chairs for all of our events. Debbie forwarded and email about Red Ribbon Week to VIPS. You will need to talk with Mrs. Nix about the week. You may also want to talk to Renata about Red Ribbon Week last year. You will need to supply the people, but the activities have been planned. What are they suppose to do with the contact forms they receive from the district? Amy Eckhout said the forms are typically a waste of time and most of the people do not have questions or know why you are calling them. It was suggested in a VIPS district meeting to not continue with the forms. We have decided not to follow up with these forms. They asked if they could post volunteer needs on line. Yes, that would be done through Christy.
PPC Report: Sheri Brasher
There was no meeting to report on.
PAC Report: Holli Sparks
We have only met once at the beginning of the year. We have 2 meetings a month scheduled, but we don’t always meet twice a month. We had 2 open parent seats, but they may be filled already. Amy Bringedahl presented the School Improvement Plan. We are going to spend time looking at PLC this year. Our plan is to bring boys writing to the girls level. In the spring we will be discussing the budget.
Pam Jewett asked Sheri if she signed the conflict of interest document? Sheri signed it at the meeting. It is needed to file the taxes.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:21 am.
The next board meeting will be October 23, 2008. Time and location TBD.