LES PTA Board Minutes
February 17, 2012
The LES PTA Board meeting was called to order by Kim Braun at 9:40 a.m. The meeting
was held in the conference room at Laytonsville Elementary School.
Attendance
Kim Braun, Liz McClure, Patti Twemlow, Shannon Hockey, Elena Mitrione, Scott
Frohman, Stacie Vodra, Cathleen Marose, and Lisa Lataendresse were in attendance.
Donna Sagona was present for a portion of the meeting. The meeting was open to the
public.
Approval of Minutes
The January 20, 2012 minutes were approved.
Old/Unfinished Business:
Fundraiser Survey: The PTA Fundraiser survey had 60 responses online and another 20
collected on paper at Mamma Lucia night. Results are being tallied and will be
presented next month. A comment was made that it may be helpful in the future to be
more specific about fundraising to encourage people to donate.
International Night: International night is moving forward as scheduled.
Mamma Lucia Night: Seemed to be very successful, final amount has not been released
by Mamma Lucia yet. A suggestion was made to encourage people to wear their spirit
wear for these type of events. Mamma Lucia is changing their policy and in the future
will require the flyer to be presented.
General PTA Meeting: Was not very well attended, but was very effective and
informative. The presentation power point is available on the website. A suggestion
was made to record the meetings and put the recording on the website as well.
Directory: Shannon Hockey reported that due to some conflicts of interest caused by
allowing others to sell advertising for the LES directory that we will not be pursuing that
solution any further. However, a similar, but different solution may have been found.
She will do a trial run of the new option and report back in March.
Spring Festival: The theme will be Rock and Roll, volunteers are still needed. The next
meeting is February 21, 2012 at 7:30 pm.
Landscaping Funds: Discussion regarding the funds allocated for summer landscaping
were tabled until the Treasurer is present.
LES PTA Board Minutes
February 17, 2012
New Business:
Variety Show: The first meeting for the variety show went well. Participation requests
are slowly coming in. There was discussion on how to continue to get the word out to
encourage participation.
Scholastic: There was a discussion on the Scholastic Newsletter and the Monthly Book
Sales and how the school participates. It was noted that we will add this topic to a
future meeting for full discussion.
Recess Area: the subject was brought up that the recess/play area is not very secure
from the neighborhoods behind it and access from the parking lot. The topic was tabled
for further discussion.
PTA Field Trip: Kim Braun is working on coordinating a PTA field trip to Great Seneca
Elementary so that the PTA can see how things are working in other elementary schools
to get ideas for our own.
Kohl’s Cares Program: Kim Braun is looking into how the PTA can better utilize this
community resource available to us.
PTA Board Meeting Date Changes: It was proposed to change the meeting dates in
March and May so that the Board meetings were not happening at the same time as
International Night and the Spring Festival. The new dates will be published when
finalized.
Principals Report: Mrs. Sagona was present to discuss current topics going on at LES.
The topics discussed included:
Volunteers: projects come up during the year that need volunteers, the school
and PTA are working on designing a jobs “classified section” to post the new
opportunities in the Bulldog, on the website, on the bulletin board. Coordination
of this effort will fall under the volunteer coordinator.
Flyers: All flyers distributed by the PTA need to be copied to the office staff and
included in a binder. This allows the office staff to have complete information in
order to field questions that come up.
Dr. Starr’s Book Discussion: the book discussion was described as good,
successful, and interesting and discussion followed on how to possibly make the
books more available to the school community and the possibility of creating a
parent bookclub.
LES PTA Board Minutes
February 17, 2012
Variety Show Practice: It was announced that Variety Show practices could not
be held at the school after school, which caused some distress with parents.
Mrs. Sagona reported that the concern is that having unknown numbers of
people in the building on an unscheduled basis creates safety issue and staffing
and building services issues. However, they will work with folks to schedule the
practices and then it will be allowed on a pre-arranged basis.
Clubs: The spring clubs are being worked on but many volunteers are still
needed to make it work.
There was also discussion on Dr. Starr’s visions for improving teaching and
learning everyday, how Curriculum 2.0 is not just a curriculum but a teaching
method that supports that vision, and even teachers who are not moving to the
curriculum this year will be adjusting their teaching to the new method.
The meeting adjourned at 12:04 pm.
Respectfully Submitted by Shannon Hockey