September 2016

Claypit Hill PTO Board Meeting

September 14, 2016

  • President Holly Landsittel called PTO Board meeting to order at 7:05pm at Claypit Hill School (CHS).
  • Members in attendance: Holly Lindsittel, President; Alissa Duffy, Vice President; Melissa Davis-Bell, Treasurer; Katherine Bassick- Secretary; Liz Garcia; Cari Cornish; Principal Dr. Christie Harvey; Lainie Loveless; Margaret West; Jennie Doody; Shirra Baston; Jean Prince; Ashley Boyer; Dana Cooper; Azelene Edouarzin; Amanda Ciaccio; Trystan O’Leary; Lauren Reynolds; Eli Shine. A quorum was reached.
  • Wish List Recommendation was voted on and approved.President’s Report

Holly Landsittel started the meeting by welcoming everyone, distributing the meeting agenda (including in-depth handouts of several agenda items) and making introductions.

Review of Events

  • New Family and Kindergarten Playdate – The event was moved to before school started and was very well attended. As with the previous year, the timing of this activity was successful as more people are in town.
  • Building & Grounds Clean Up – Attractive new planters are being used at the front entrance of the school and there are some new plants outside of the main office. The Secret Garden was cleaned up. To prepare for Spring, flower bulbs will be planted this Fall.
  • Back to School Staff Lunch – The teachers enjoyed the event and, like last year’s event, there were lots of food donations from families.
  • Curriculum Nights– The new curriculum nights format, orchestrated by Principal Harvey was informative, engaging, interactive and overall was a huge success. Feedback from parents included that is was a good school community event. Parents appreciated the food and beverages provided.

 

Upcoming Events

  • School Picture Day– Picture Day will be on the 19th by Hayward Photography.
  • Room Parent Into Night– This event is being held on September 27th to discuss the role of room parents.
  • Movie Night– The first movie night is for K-2 and is scheduled for October 21st. The movie night for grades 3 – 5 will be scheduled at a later date during the school year.
  • Book Fair– The Book Fair is scheduled for October 21st – 27th and will leverage Movie Night to kick off book sales. As background, opening the book fair on the same date as Movie Night last year was a big success.
  •  

Wish List Recommended Vote

  • The total items of Wish List materials requested by teachers totals $27K. These items include things like a classroom rug for a new teacher at the school who is seeking a clean place on the floor for her students to gather, discuss and prepare for their classroom work. Other items include specific learning tools.  Members voted in favor of Wish List items and approved.

Reserve List Recommended Vote

  • There is approximately $8K left to spend from reserves. Holly Landsittel talked in great detail about each of the items for consideration as well as provided handouts. There was much discussion about each of the items regarding how/what the item is and/or how it is used, cost and return on investment. Highlights include:
    • Leveled Literacy Kits – uses Fountas and Penell assessment scale. For example, investing in a Red – Grade 3 kit would also serve advanced 2nd graders as well as 4th graders who find this level is a better fit. Claypit was one of the first schools to purchase one of the literacy kit. The kit is shared with Loker. Happy Hollow received a literacy kit through a grant. The CHS teachers will first try to receive the leveled literacy kit via a grant from Wayland Public School Foundation (WPSF) and will follow up.
  • Instrument Storage – The Wayland Public Schools (WPS) funded 50% of the storage area designed and requested, which leaves about 50% of students’ instruments without safe storage.
  • Exploring the PTO, WPSF and/or the school district to fund remaining monies needed. Without safe storage, instruments are accidently getting broken at school. With the present storage available, instruments that have a higher chance of getting broken will be stored first. Considered thought has been given to how to best maximize the storage that is available for use.
  • Wish List Items (If not funded by WPSF) – these items include Dash and Dot (toy robotic that makes coding fun); Osmo (sensorial tool to make learning fun) and Ipad Tablet Stages (ex: in art room, students can refer to it when working while keeping it off work area)
  • Other ideas include the library renovation and maker space

 

New Ideas

  • Book Drive for Fitchburg Public Schools – The Red Raiders Lending library, is a non-profit literacy program supporting school children in the City of Fitchburg, MA. The program is in need of gently used books for K – 8th grade. Various strategies were discussed regarding how our book fair could tie into The Red Raiders initiative. Will try it out during this fall’s book fair.
  • Book Fair – new vendor decision – There has been a lot of ongoing discussions about, primarily, the lack of quality books provided, for example, by Scholastic compared to the funds received by the school from the Book Fair. Members of the CHS book Fair committee attended the Sudbury Nixon School book fair to explore Bookends, a locally owned bookstore. Bookends Book Fairs receive strong positive feedback from parents regarding the quality of book selection as well as the overall turnkey manner in which the book fair is organized and run. It was decided to test a Bookend book fair in the spring’17.


 

  • Cookbook for School – Following the Staff Appreciation luncheon last year, many people said that they would enjoy receiving the recipes. After brainstorming numerous cookbook concepts it was decided to table the idea for now and possibly explore and e-format in the future.
  • PTO Shopping Night – Discussed the idea of a shopping night as a fundraiser and/or that ties into. After various ideations were discussed it was agreed to table the idea.
  •  

Meeting adjourned by Holly Landsittel at 8:34pm.

 

Respectfully Submitted by:

Katherine Bassick

PTO Secretary, Claypit Hill School