October 2011 Meeting Minutes

Teach Boosters Club Meeting
Oct. 7, 2011


Attendees: Nell Bennett, Chantal Blanchaud, Kurt Rightmyer, Doris Kim, Nara Clark, Riana Baxter, Morgan Robertson, Taffy Gonzalez, Sunshine Cowgill, Karen Panasewicz, Denise Jenkins, Dan Block, Altee Vigil and Jocelyn Leonard.

Meeting called to order at 8:33 a.m.

Lisa Hargrave is helping out with the Student Council this year, and things are running smoothly. Student speeches will be next Wednesday.

The minutes from the previous two meetings (June and September) were brought up for approval. Kurt moved to approve September’s minutes. Riana seconded the motion. All were in favor. Kurt moved to approve June’s minutes. Taffy seconded the motion. All were in favor.

Principal’s Report: The first assembly for Teach is today. Catalina was a great success. The kids had a great time. The 4th graders will be heading off to AstroCamp soon. (Oct. 19-21). Mr. Block brought an idea for a new program for the students. It is called Destination Imagination or Odyssey of the Mind. This has been a popular program in the Lucia Mar School District. The students compete in challenges in a team setting. Students can be from all different grades, but 6th graders compete against 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Parents can go to www.destinationimagination.com to find out more about this program. The regional competitions are in January and February. Parents would be needed to help facilitate but this is mostly kid-driven. The kids are given a problem, and then they need to work together with their team to solve it. This would be something that would be done in the after school hours. Teams are usually 6-7 participants each. The cost is $130 per team, or $390 for five teams. Mr. Block will have a representative come to talk to parents about the program. More information will follow regarding that presentation.

Class Representatives: Nara and Riana are the 5th grade representatives. Morgan volunteered to be a fourth grade representative. We still need a 6th grade parent to be a representative. We also need an International Day Coordinator, and a Book Fair Coordinator.

Mrs. Rosenfield’s Math Festival Proposal: Mrs. Rosenfield came in to talk with us about funding a Math Festival. It would be an entire day of math. Each class would go to the Multi-Purpose room for 40 minutes to visit all the different stations set up to let them have fun with math. Teachers would then have a 1 ½ hour in service after school to learn how to make math more fun in their teaching of it. Parents and kids would then come back at night to explore the math stations again. Mrs. Rosenfield is writing for grants to help off-set part of the cost. The entire cost is $4000 for the day. She is hoping to get grants to cover about half of the cost. She has asked Bishop’s Peak to contribute $1000, and is asking us (the Boosters) if we could contribute $1000. This event will be for both schools. The link for parents to find out more information about this program is: www.cmc-math.org.

After Mrs. Rosenfield left, there was some discussion as to whether we felt we needed this program, and if we could afford to contribute $1000. Our assemblies are currently within budget, but if we took on this, it would wipe out our assemblies budget. Some money may have to come from the General Fund, or we would have to do some additional fundraising in order to contribute. After much discussion back and forth, it was decided that we would table our decision until the November meeting. This way, we would have a chance to go to the website to find out more about the program. Baywood Elementary held this same Festival last year, so if anyone has contacts at Baywood, ask them what they thought about it last year.

Genevieve Orders: Pick up orders on Thursday after 1:30. If your child has a big order to pick up, please make arrangements to help them get the orders home.

Treasurer’s Report: All bills from last year have been paid. We have two CD’s. One is worth $33,000, the other is worth $10,000. One of them is maturing this week. We need to decide if we want to move it.

Six scholarships have been asked for. Some parents have donated extra money to help pay for scholarships. Thank you very much. Please make payment arrangements for your child’s study trip. If this is a hardship, please call Altee Vigil, Treasurer, to inquire about scholarships, or to work something out.

GLScript brought in $252 this past week. Keep up the great work! Kurt volunteered to help Paige with script.

American Express has started charging us $7.95 per month for their use. However, we do not use American Express. Altee will contact them to see what is going on.

Mr. Block would like for us to purchase a safe to keep all of the script cards in. Morgan moved that we authorize Altee to spend up to $250 for a safe for this purpose. Chantal seconded the motion. All were in favor.

Next, there was some discussion about changing the bank that we deal with. It would be for our checking account with debit card, and the two CD’s. The two bank were are looking at are Chase and Coast Hills Credit Union. Altee will research the differences in interest rates, and compare the rates. Taffy would like to support Coast Hills, because they have supported us in the past. Karen moved that we move the CD’s from the First Bank of Santa Barbara to Coast Hills Credit Union, assuming the interest rate in within 1% of what Chase offers and move the checking account there as well. We would keep the current signers as Altovese Vigil, Sunshine Cowgill, and Jocelyn Leonard. Chantal seconded the motion. All were in favor of moving CD’s to Coast Hills. All were in favor of moving the checking account to Coast Hills, and all were in favor of the signers on the account.

Chili Cook-off: The chili cook-off will be Nov. 4, 2011 in the Multi-purpose room. In past years, we have had enough chili, but not enough salad or bread. So, this year we have decided to buy salad materials, and bread. Altee moved that we pay for these items this year. Chantal seconded the motion. All were in favor.

Extras: In the shed we have a large box of Capri Suns, a large jar of pretzels, a large box of graham crackers, and fruit snacks. We need to use this for some purpose before they expire. It was decided that we would offer them to the 4th grade to snack on for their AstroCamp trip.

T-shirts: There was a problem with the orders on the T-shirts, and we need to get a few more made. Chantal moved that we use the profit money from our current T-shirt order to replace the mixed-up T-shirts. Morgan seconded this motion. All were in favor.

Meeting adjourned at 10:00 a.m.

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Teach Boosters Meeting Minutes Jan 7, 2011

Teach Boosters Meeting
January 7, 2011

Attendees: Sande Rutstein, Paige Wright, Taffy Gonzalez, Riana Baxter, Sunshine Cowgill, Jessica Napier, Nell Bennett, Erica Stewart, and Jocelyn Leonard

Meeting was called to order at 8:41 a.m.

Financial Report: Altee informed us that we have received a bill from the district for $11,209.58, from last year. Altee just received the bill in December, right before break, but it is for the 2009-2010 school year. She also received another bill for $19,000 from the district. She is checking with the district to see if the $11,209.58 is part of this bill. She has asked for an itemized bill from the district. She is also looking into last years financials, to see if this has already been paid, and may be a mistake. Altee is catching up on the bills, after having lots of GL scrip coming in and going out. We currently have $35,000 in the checking account, and we have CD’s. We have changed over the signers on all of our accounts at First Bank of San Luis Obispo to be Altovese Vigil, Sunshine Cowgill, and Dr. Ahmad Amir. A motion was put forth by Erica to accept these three people as the signers on our accounts. Taffy seconded the motion. All present were in favor. None were opposed.

Principal’s Report: We are now in 2011. We are almost halfway through this school year.
The fourth graders will be taking the writing test this year. (They didn’t last year due to budget constraints). The test will be given on March 1. March 2 is the only make-up day.

The Geography Bee is today.

We have added nine new students since Winter Break. Our enrollment is now 122. There is a max of 35 per class. When class sizes reach 33, the teacher gets an aide for 1 hour per week. When class sizes reach 35, the teacher gets an aide for 2 hours per week.

Lice—still a problem at both schools. We have had 35 confirmed cases at the two schools. There were a bunch of new reports after break. Keep vigilant with getting rid of the nits.

Teacher’s Report: The books purchased for Battle of the Books for each teacher are now ready to be passed out to the teachers starting today. Thank you Jessica!

Mrs. Jones came in to give the Teacher’s Report today. She also brought in two students from the Student Council, Grace and Emma. They are requesting $210 to be spent from their fund to repay Mr. Jim Schemmer, who built the GaGa pit at the Chili Cook-off. Sunshine let them know that we would talk with the Student Council’s advisor, Laura Finz, and get back to them.

Mrs. Jones let us know that April 9 Teach will be hosting a Big Brothers/Big Sisters event. It will be a game day/volunteer thank you day. The teachers will be meeting with Big Brothers/Big Sisters at the end of January , to get more information.

March 12 will be the Applebee’s Pancake Feed fundraiser, put on by the teachers, to help pay for the Adobe computer software in the Digital Media Lab. The cost will be $7 per ticket with $2 going to Applebee’s. The teachers are thinking of charging a smaller fee for children. Perhaps $5 for children. The teachers, Mr. Block, and the librarian are going to be the servers. There was a request for anyone who knows a local celebrity, to see if they would help serve also.

Tiger Tales are still going well. The classes are taking turns taping segments to be shown on TV.

Needs: A back drop for filming against, or $100-$120 for supplies and builders. Also, deck stain to protect the GaGa pit, and hinges and plywood to build the backdrop.  Also, $368 may be needed to pay for Ms. Kelly’s student teacher to accompany the 5th graders on the field trip. She is still seeking approval from Cal Poly.

Budget: Erica suggested that the teachers be given a form that they would fill out letting us know what is going on in the classrooms, and what supplies are needed each month. The form would be due at the beginning of the first week of the month, so that we could know what is happening in the classrooms, and what the needs are. Then at our meeting, we could vote on the issues if needed.

We really need to start raising money. We are having a lot of money going out, and not much coming in. If we do all of the activities this year, as usual, without any fundraising, we will be at negative $28,000. This is the worst case scenario (if the district bills from last year have in fact not been paid yet). Best case scenario would be $15,000 in the negative. We have three options: 1). Do no other activities the rest of the year, and end up with only $6000 in the negative. 2). Charge $210 extra per family and keep the activities as scheduled for the year. Or 3). Do some fundraising. However, many people would have to get involved with this to make it work.

Paige suggested putting a survey on the back of the scrip form asking people if they would like to commit to buy a certain amount of scrip each time it is offered, or if they would like to help with a dinner/auction fundraiser.

Dinner/Auctions can raise a lot of money.

It was suggested that we ask alumni for donations.

There will be a proposed budget meeting in May (it will be a separate meeting) so that planning can be done for next school year.

A chairperson is still needed for the March-a-thon.

Taffy requested that a form be filled out when there is a vote so we can have a record of those.

Laura Finz stopped to represent Student Council. There was a proposal by Sunshine that Student Council have their own checking account, so that is separate from the Boosters checking account. Laura thought that was a good idea. It would also teach the kids responsibility.

Altee will talk with Ahmad about the Student council funds, and to see if the Sun Dial (6th grade gift from last year for the garden) was paid for yet. We don’t see it in the garden.

Back to the students from Student Council’s request…Taffy moves to let the Student Council use their funds (providing they have enough) to reimburse Mr. Schemmer for the GaGa pit. Jessica seconded the motion. All were in favor, none were opposed.

Meeting adjourned at 10:13 a.m.

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