May District and School Board Reports

Drawing by Ariel Dreicer, Grade 12 Chagrin Falls High School.

The Board of Education report was presented by Mary Kay O’Toole.

• A big thank you to PTO for your $5,185.77 in donations for the months of February, March and April, 2010.
• Negotiations with the teachers’ union have been progressing and a tentative agreement has been reached.  The union will be voting on the agreement in the next few weeks.
• At our next Board Meeting we expect to approve a contract for Dr. Bill Koons to serve as our High School Principal.
• Screening of candidates for Assistant Principal is currently underway.
• It is the administrations intent to keep the number of minutes for the Advanced Placement Science courses to the same schedule we are currently using, that is one and one-half periods.
• Preliminary results indicate that our OGT test scores were very good this year.

The District Administrative report was presented by Chuck Murphy.

• Teacher Interviews

We have been very busy hiring a math teacher for the high school and middle school and a social studies teacher for the high school.  We are down to three candidates for the math job and 2 candidates for the social studies position.  There are many layers to this process before we decide on our recommendation to the Board.

• New Electives at the High School

The High School will be offering two new electives next year.  They will be offering digital photography and video broadcasting.

• PE Curriculum

The PE curriculum has been revised and approved by the Board this year.  We are offering many new exciting and cutting edge things in the curriculum.  We will be offering a course called GYM that will feature things like fitness folios, pre and post fitness assessment, goal setting, use of fitness software/Tri Fit, testing equipment, heart rate monitors, pedometers, the Wii, DDR, and Geo Motion mats just to name a few things.

Sculpture by Mike Fields, Chagrin Falls High School, Grade 12. Presented at the Spring Art Show.

District PTO Reports (Final Meeting of the Year)

PTO BOARD REPORTS

Comments from the President – Gwenn Klose

• Gwenn is currently filling Committee chair and school representative positions. If you or someone you know would like to get more involved in PTO through one of these positions, please contact Gwenn.
• Incoming/Outgoing Executive Committee members, please plan on attending a meeting Thurs June 3^rd at Gwenn’s house. This will be a chance to share any information with the Incoming Committee members and help them with their new positions. Outgoing committee members, please be sure to have your notebooks updated and organized to pass on to the new members at this important meeting.

Comments from Secretary – Kathryn Williams

• Thank you notes shared.

Comments and Treasurer’s Report – Jen Ganger

• Treasurer’s monthly financial report distributed and reviewed.

Comments from 1^st Vice President – Colleen Mahoney

• Welcoming: Maggie Mayes reports the following end of the year numbers for new students in the Chagrin Falls School District:

• • Here is the list of new student numbers by building:
  • Gurney Kindergarten:  ****Although there were approximately 140 new kindergarteners, only 60 of them came from homes where the parents were brand new to the district****
  • Gurney 1st- 3rd:  21
  • Intermediate School:  16
  • Middle School:  8
  • High School:  24

Please note: These are student numbers, not new families and these are approximate.  Some of the paperwork I received was missing information like grade level.  Also, because of the way the form is and the fact that parents may fill it out months in advance, sometimes parents mistakenly put the grade level which asks for “current grade” but they student comes to Chagrin starting in the next grade up!  It’s a little confusing, but the new welcoming chair will have all of last year’s data to look at and consider.

• Store Credits: Kelly Hendricks reports that Heinen’s has distributed checks to each of the school buildings for our Heinen’s Rewards Program.  We received a total of $7,876 ($2,711 from the High School, $991 from the Middle School, $1,840 from the Intermediate School and $2,334 from Gurney.)  The checks have been collected from building principals and turned over to Jen Ganger.  Heinen’s requires all district residents enrolling in the rewards program to designate a specific CF school.  The year- end checks are sent to each building and then collected for deposit into the PTO account. Next year, the checks should come directly to PTO.

• Website: Angie DeBernardo reports:  We are closing out the year with 57 “followers” for our RSS feed.  We average about 181 independent visits a month.  We’ve had over 200 items downloaded since the download tracker was installed. At least a select group of people are using the site regularly now.  I’d like to see it grow as an information source for parents in the next school year.  I think that only happens with time.  The site needs to consistently provide new information for people to use it.  This year, I did monthly updates using the reports from the schools to the PTO meetings as the main information on the site.  We could add in more posts about the “special events” that happen all year if the PTO leadership thinks that wouldn’t be interpreted by parents as “spam”.   I’d like to put up the welcoming rep info and school supply pack ordering info if people that move in over the summer might be able to utilize it.  Next year, the PTO should try the Evite system to advertise electronically if we are staying away from paper flyers and folders.  I have our email list of 440 members set up in 4 distribution lists.  I can set up the Evite system for next year if we have an event we’d like to try that way.I’m making up a summary sheet with all the info needed to run the website and instructions.  I’ll make it a new “folder” for the exchange.   I think we should consider making up access instruction sheet to some parts of the PTO web resources and putting it in the folders of some of the executive committee members.  That way, executive members could access email, Evite or post information on their own.I would like to transfer the account annual payment to the PTO somehow if we are sticking with our current setup.  Last year, I paid the site fee and was reimbursed  but that won’t work if the job gets handed off each year.  That’s all for 2010-2011.

• Calendar: Lori Newbauer will be calendar chair for the 2010/2011 school year calendar.

Comments from 2^nd Vice President – Gigi Kuper-Lewis

• Art Show went VERY well!  Art was beautifully displayed & the student work was wonderful!!   Thank you to Bridget Roush and her committee for a SUPERB job! (Editor’s note:  See work form the art show displayed here on the May Reports for the High School and the Middle School.)

• At the May 3^rd BOE meeting :

• • The H.S. P. E. teachers presented about the “New P.E.” program: more focus on fitness, activity, movement rather than games, sports, competition. Incorporating heart monitors,

T-Bows, tension bands, etc.    The Board recognized Edmund Leopold for his generous contribution to the “new P.E.” program.

• • Several staff members presented the district’s new RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION program.  It is a district wide program to initiate consistent assessments, providing students with needed intervention and a lot of follow up to see if the chosen interventions are working.

• • Mr. Charles Barch was introduced as the new athletic director.  He was previously the Athletic Director at Notre Dame College.

• At the May 15^th Board of Education meeting:

• • The Spanish teachers presented a class trip for 2010 – 2011.  It’s a trip to Spain.   It will be over Spring Break and the students will take classes while there and live with a Spanish family.

• • Mrs. Hamid presented a class trip for 2010 – 2011 to Egypt.  The students while stay in hotels.  It is also over Spring Break with a couple of days of school missed as well.

• • The baseball coach requested to continue to take his players on Spring break to play in Florida.

• • Ms. Malone presented a summer camp for the soccer team at West Virginia University.  It includes soccer camp and a white water rafting trip.  Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Penler do not think it is a good idea to school sanctioned white water rafting trip.

Comments from Financial Vice President –Laurie McCormack

• Financial Planning Committee - Ann Thomas has sent out letters to the PTO grant recipients. The letters inform them of the grant approval and explain to them the protocol for receiving the items requested.

• School Supplies – We have all lists from grades 1-8 and quotes back from Innisbrook.  Grades 1-8 can be ordered online and shipped directly home.  No calculators or protractors (8^th geometry only) will be supplied by Innisbrook.

Email blast has already gone out for MS.  Other grades should also get one.  It will also be in the newsletters.  The deadline to order is in mid June.

• Membership – there is 1 additional member.

• Fundraising – We are just starting to look at our options for next year.  Gwenn, Jessica and Laurie met with rep from last year.  The Entertainment book is now a small pamphlet customized to our geographical location with online access to additional coupons.  The company has also replaced Otis Spunkmeyer with another cookie dough company, Classic Recipes.  For the same price, there are 48 rather than 36 cookies per container.  Sally Foster will no longer be door to door catalog sales.  The kids would sell gift cards to go onto their website, order and have it shipped directly home.  Shipping charges start at $5.95.  We would receive $8 per $20 gift card sold and 40% of additional online purchases.  Last year, we received 50% of total purchases.

We are meeting with the Otis rep tomorrow and hope to make a decision next week.

Tags: Fundraising, PTO Committees, Special Events, Staff Changes, Testing