Supporting the academic, social, and cultural development of every student at Eberwhite Elementary School
12/14/22 PTO Meeting Minutes
Board members in attendance: Corey Dukes, Mollie Olinyk, Krista Dunger, Alison Etter, Bridget Gruber, Judith Eveler, Miranda Budine, Corey Ryder, Jill Shiffert, Kristin Baker
Meeting called to order: 6:45 pm (late because of Zoom technical difficulties)
Updates
Principal Update
Eberwhite will hold a MLK celebration where parents are welcome. Info will be sent out soon via email.
Teacher Appreciation
We are wrapping up “countdown to giving” for teachers and staff. $20 Amazon gift cards were given for all the staff members for the winter holidays.
Spirit Wear
Spirit wear t-shirt and sweatshirt designs are set to go. PTO will begin selling spirit wear in January after the winter break. Sales will be online and order form (cash/check).
NAAPID Day proposal
The idea is to engage, inspire, involve and motivate Eberwhite parents to come to the school and celebrare, learn, share and unite the diversity in the community. The intent is to make this an annual event with a new culture being celebrated each year.
Monday, Feb 13, 2023
5th graders guide parents on classroom visits in the morning
Lunch for staff and parents only will be provided by Cuppy’s Best Soul Food
Appearance and Q&A by Supriya Kelkar (author, ‘Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame’)
Afternoon and Evening musical performance of the play “The Quilt Speaks, the Secret Messages of Songs and Quilts”by 4th and 5th graders
Total Cost: $2081.06
Proposed to be split 50/50 school and PTO
Krista - shared about grant rubric and invited Mr. Willets/Ms. Blair to submit proposal. PTO will vote on to approve via email after the proposal is submitted.
Events
Winter Events survey
100 responses from the survey. Consensus is for the Winter Woods Lantern Walk with cocoa and cookies on Feb. 11th. The details will come in January.
Mind Fair
Volunteer judges. Host after school sessions in Jan. and Feb. for students who need help with their projects. The event will take place on March 1-2, 2023
Family Reading Night and Family Heritage Night event ideas are in the works
Sustainability
Green Schools Award Application. Application opens in January. Bridget will work with Ms. Hubbard on filling it out.
PTO closet clean out recap
Tell your teachers to take what they need from supply shelf with surplus of napkins, utensils, plates, paper towels
Need help moving out one large heavy trash item
Thank you Ann for taking truckload of donations to PTO thrift shop!
Still need to organize/sort through decade dance bins
What to do with cupboard full of adult size tees? We think these t-shirt were a misorder in 2020 and the company sent adult t-shirts instead of child sizes. The correct child sizes were distributed to students and we are left with many adult size t-shirts. Possible ideas are to give the t-shirts away at future Eberwhite events and/or distribute them to new staff that need spirit wear.
PTO Council
DEI, 12 Days of Giving, Helping Hands/Gardens/DEI committees/Field Trips, and Safety
Questions regarding Field Trip funding:
Would someone be able to summarize how our PTO handles funding for field trips?
PTO covers one trip per class
The 3rd grade and 5th grade trips are a little bigger and funded in part by class parents
Do we have a policy or guidelines that we can share?
Do we handle curriculum field trips differently? For example, one of the other schools is looking to fund a field trip to Lansing for their third graders and looking for ideas on how other schools like us are covering the cost. I know we've talked about the 3rd grade Lansing trip at past PTO meetings, but I did not catch the final decision about funding and details.
Relevant teachers (i.e. Mrs. Bernstein) does the behind-the-scenes legwork
Fundraising (Armen and Kristen are unable to attend)
Spirit Wear will happen in January
Take out Thursday update? No update at this meeting.
Budget
PTOC Questions
Decade dance income was $2,000 in past years if we want to consider bringing it back next school year. Survey consensus was to not hold an indoor event this winter.
Scholastic Book Fair
Fall book fair was successful! The library gains $3,600 scholastic dollars to spend on new library books.
Nicola’s/Schuler’s
$677 was made and will go to the library
Meeting adjourned at 8:00 p.m.