Hoosic Valley Parent Teacher Organization

Regular Meeting Minutes:  October 10, 2024

Location:  Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library

Attendance:

President: Liz Ruepp

Vice President:  Melissa Kalbfliesh

Treasurer:  Carolyn Gifford

Secretary:  Shannon Hansen

Members (in-person):

Kate Teal

Tiffany Hurley

Deb Van Valkenburg

Stacey Kyea

Lisa Meehan

Lindsey Donovan

Meghan Luskin

Jamie Pollay

Tegan Kondak

Kayla Gregoire

Kimberly Macica

Brandie Buid

Called to Order: 6:36 PM

Review of Minutes:  

Please read the September and October meeting minutes to determine if changes need to be made.  Thank you, we will discuss at the November meeting.

Unfinished (old) Business:

Color Run – The run is scheduled for Saturday October 19th, and the run is producing positive vibes with the children in the school.  The PTO discussed how to handle if there are any extra prizes at the end.  The discussion revolved around every child getting a key chain.  Additionally, the $10,000 goal was already exceeded as of this meeting.  The funds will be used for future PTO events and requests.  A logistics committee was created to plan out the day of the run.  Volunteer names were provided to the committee.

Membership Drive –  More green paper was requested by the front office to send out the drive request.

Teacher Conference Dinner – November 7th will be the potluck for the teachers.  Sign up genius will be going out in the next week for this event.

Picture Day – Picture day for the Elementary school is scheduled for Wednesday October 23 and Thursday October 24.  Sign up genius will be sent out for volunteers in the next week.

Trunk or Treat – Held on Friday October 25th.  Five sixth grades parents have signed up so far.  Since only five 6th grade parents have signed up, the request will go out to the larger community.  Due to the small amount of candy donated before the event in the past, the PTO will be requesting a five dollar donation or a bag of candy donation to participate in the event.  This proved successful in the past.  Early candy donations will still be accepted at the elementary school.

Yearbook – Electronic folders have been set up.  Shannon is looking for help for the Color Run and Trunk or Treat event.  She is looking into the feasibility of QR codes in the future so anyone can submit photos.  Additionally, she will provide folder access to the school teachers for each of the grades. She will continue to look for help in the future as needed.

Writing Olympics – Tiffany discussed making the last week of March (tentatively 29/30) the due date for submittals so edits can be made.  She worked to deconflict this event with STEAM night and the vendor fair.  This year has the potential to be easier due to submitting digital files.  Kimberley Macica agreed to help Tiffany chair this event.

Book Fair – It will run from Thursday October 17 to Friday October 25.  The book fair material should be delivered any day now.  Liz identified a potential co-chair to help (please reach out to Liz if you are interested).  Sign-up genius will go out for Pre-K to 3rd grade to request volunteers to help fill out wish lists. 

Bus Driver/Custodian Breakfast – This event will be looped in with the teacher conference dinner.

New Business:

Ornament Night – This event is fun for the kids, not a fundraiser.  December 6th is the tentative date.  Kids will have the opportunity to come and decorate ornaments for their trees.  Meghan, Lindsey, and Kate volunteered to co-chair this event.  They are looking into potentially have candy canes as well.

Festival of Wreaths – This will also be held tentatively the night of December 6th.  Liz recommended a motion to buy raffle tickets which will help ease picking of the names.  Additionally, buying sturdier hooks to hang the wreaths.  Both motions were approved.  The plan will be to draw the winners on December 18th.

Reimbursements – Two motions were put forth to reimburse ice cream cards for summer school and teacher tenure gifts.  There were a total of three teachers this year.  Both motions were approved.

Funding Requests:  

Fire Prevention Day Pizza – this was requested by Bridget Chapko.  The request is for the PTO to pay for pizza for the firefighters who are volunteering to participate in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Fire Prevention Day.  The day was opened up to the entire school so it will now be an all day event.  The group discussed the why and who would be getting the pizza.  Only the volunteers would be getting pizza, not all the kids or the school.  We discussed most of the fire fighters in the community are volunteers so they would be taking a day off to help out at the school.  Additionally, this is a school wide event, not a particular grade and it supports a community service mission.  The motion was approved to provide pizza.

Indoor recess balls/indoor recess supplies – this was requested by Kerri Greco.  Three years ago the PTO received a $1000 Stewarts grant which was specific to be used to buy indoor recess supplies.  We have not requested this grant recently.  Someone asked if this request had been brought to the school board or business office since these are really school supplies.  Since the answer was unknown, the group decided to table this request until this could be better understood.

Third grade snacks – this was requested by Beth Elmer.  Lots of discussion occurred for this topic. Third grade lunch is not until 1pm this year with most snack times being around 10am.  This leaves a large gap before lunch time.  Teachers discussed the difficulty of teaching a student when kids are hungry, so lots of teachers ask for donations or supplement themselves.  Some encourage breakfast since it is free to all students this year.  It was also identified the nurse has crackers for certain circumstances.  While the PTO wanted to help, the discussion led to the determination that they cannot supply snacks to only one teacher and cannot take on an entire “snack” program.  The group was open to supplementing a food program if there was something already in place.  This topic was also tabled for a larger discussion and a determination on how to engage the appropriate program to support snack time.

Future Discussions:  None

Meeting Adjourned: 7:51 PM

Next Meeting Scheduled for Thursday November 14 at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library

Reminder – any questions regarding the minutes can be directed to Liz or Shannon.  Their PTO emails can be found on the website under contact us.