OPENING
In attendance were the PA parents, the PA executive board- Val Weintraub (President), Pepa Tanousis (Vice-President), Liz Gordon (Treasurer), Lisa Goldenberg (Secretary), and Ellen Maurer (Parent Coordinator).
Val Weintraub opened the meeting. The minutes from March were reviewed and approved by Felix Lempert and seconded by Brian Goldenberg.
Val Weintraub- Nominating Committee
The nominating committee for next year will include Shari Bennett, Liz Gordon, Emily Ades, and Jeni Byers. Elections will take place at next months meeting.
The committee will:
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-send out all job descriptions
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-all seats are open
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-we must have a President, VP, and Treasurer in order to have a functioning Parents Association
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-Val may run for president again and Lisa may run for secretary
Ms. Chocolate
Val met with our Ms. Chocolate representative, Barry. Lisa Goldenberg, Pepa Tanousis, and Emily Ades also attended the meeting. In addition to continuing our relationship with Ms. Chocolate to do our annual catalog fundraiser, we would like to sell sweatshirts (hooded w/ PS 196 logos). The price would be approximately $25. The cost of the sweatshirts would be $20 and they would be pre-order only so that we would not have to keep any stock. They are very good quality.
School Messenger
The new program we are looking into is less expensive than the one we currently use. We would receive the first 6 months free. After that it would cost $1.40 per student/ per year, totaling about $800. Our current service costs about $1,575 a year. Ellen would be trained. The new service includes e-mail and texting capabilities. They currently have a contract with the DOE but we can continue to run and pay for the service through the PA. Ellen can put out a school messenger message anytime. Just e-mail her and she will do it.
Motion for a new school messenger system
- Jeni Byers All in favor
- Majority
Motion approved
Jodi Freed-Hospitality International Night
The tentative date for International Night is May 26th @ 6:30pm. Everyone will bring a dish from their country/culture. We will need funds to run it. We are also interested in having a teacher auction (possible offerings may be lunch with Ms. Migliano or gym teacher for a period).
The auction would be silent.
Motion for $500 to run International Night
- Felix Lempert All in favor
- Majority Motion approved
Val 70’s Dance
The dance is scheduled for May 15th @ 7-9pm. This dance will be a fundraiser. Costs will be as follows:
-DJ= $325
-Food & Drinks= $425
-Afterschool will make decorations
-$750 Total
Liz Gordon- Treasurer
Please review the treasurer’s report. The special investigators never came back or called. Everything was in compliance.
The monthly financial report indicates that the total PA and BCAS balance as $89,644.23. The total income is $12,303.92. The total expenses are $34,580.50. The ending balance of both accounts is $67,367.65.
Emily Ades Go Green
Our new e-mail is up and running. Thank you to all who worked hard to get it going
Teacher Appreciation Week
Teacher appreciation week is the first full week in May. Teacher appreciation was started in 1984 to honor all of the hard working teachers. The PA would like to make a donation in honor of the teachers through Donorschoose.org. Teachers can visit the website and put things on it that they may need. Parents can then go on the website and make monetary donations to fulfill our teacher’s needs. No amount is too small. Flyers will go out explaining everything. If our teachers do not put anything on the list, the donations collected will be given to a needy NYC school.
Motion to do Donorschoose.org
All in favor.
Motion approved
Val
Chairs The price for the chairs and the dolly is $597.93. It went up slightly. Motion to approve new cost of chairs
All in favor of new cost.
Motion approved
Emily - Chairity Fundraiser
Anyone may purchase a plaque and choose what they want to have engraved on it. We can fit more than one plaque on each chair. We will have 32 chairs. Plaques will cost $10 each.
Motion to sell chair plaques
All in favor Motion approved
Sunshine Fund
Tracy Foo has done an amazing job with the Sunshine Fund but will be stepping down. We will need a new chairman. The system is set up by spreadsheet; it will only need to be maintained b y contacting Sherri Bell and Ms. Bermant to find out what is going on with our staff.
Azra Feratovic volunteered to take over. Thank you, Azra!
Jodi Field Day
Field Day worked very well last year. It would be easy to scale back from last year since we are in a different financial situation. Costs would need to be lower anyway. Emily Ades asked if we could go back to the old version of field day. It can be simpler with the teachers running it. It would include games and popsicles as well as a DJ (cost $300). There wouldn’t be a rain date. In the case of rain, it could be moved inside. Date TBD.
Motion for old field day
All in favor Motion approved
Jackie Astacio Fundraising
Kids boutiques is here just in time for Mother’s Day! Set up will be April 28th and the boutique will run from April 29-30th. Classes will be brought in at there scheduled time. Volunteers can get in touch with Pam to work. April 22- Cheeburger Cheeburger fundraiser- all day
Miscellaneous
PA Dinner June 8th at Portofino’s. $25 per person. Shari Bennett will do a flyer. All parents are welcome!
Middle School Hearing
April 28th there will be a middle school choice meeting at Russell Sage @ 6:30pm. A flyer was sent home regarding this. It includes all middle schools in District 28. they will talk about Halsey idea of going 6-12th grade.
Kaplan Tutoring
Do we want to participate? We will table this until next months meeting b/c executive board would like to meet with Dennis to discuss after school programming for next year. We would like to see if this can be worked into the schedule. Pepa has put together a letter/survey that will be sent out to parents who participate in the after school program. The parent’s response to the boards decision to go ahead with this survey was positive and supportive.
Lice
Parents must check their children. Recently there were 6 cases in one classroom.
Raffle
Free Family Portrait Winner: Liz Gordon
Elections will be held at next months meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 8:50pm
Meeting minutes respectfully submitted by Lisa Goldenberg
