Parent Connection - Meeting Notes

Parents present: Tara Luce, Leslie Keeffe, Kevin Keeffe, Lisa Bennett

Lisa reported that Ellen Kemnitz will be setting up a checking account at People’s State Bank. Opening balance will be the left over money from February’s Game night. She will get a Federal ID # in order to set up the account. Many fundraising/event ideas were discussed. Kevin will forward our ideas to the staff to get their input. The ideas we’d like to move forward with this year are:

1. Ice Cream Social & Raffle – each class would choose a theme around which to assemble a basket that will be raffled off. After a theme is chosen each family will be invited to contribute a small item to the basket. Maybe we can get parents to make a basket also. Tickets will be sold at the time of the raffle only, not ahead of time. We think that this way we don’t need a raffle license. Lisa will double check on this.
2. Car Wash – will think of locations (Quality Foods?) where we could set this up when weather warms up. Need to find parents who would be interested in heading it up.

Other ideas we will keep for the future:

1. Rummage Sale with perennial sale (people donate plants from their gardens to sell)
2. Spring Clean-Up Service: get a list of elderly & handicapped who need help with spring yard clean up and ask for a donation
3. Plant Sale – ask a greenhouse to raise a particular flower for us that we sell in spring – the plant could become our “signature plant” like the Aspirus Geranium Sale or the Am. Cancer Soc. Daffodil sale.
4. Fall School Supplies Boxes – have kits pre-made that parents can buy that would be filled with all of the required school supplies
5. Sell environmentally safe cleaners like Shaklee products – have a 5^th or 6^th grader and a parent be in charge of ordering monthly. Also use these products in our school.
6. UWSP Wisconsin K-12 Energy Education Program (KEEP). Energy efficient light bulbs, etc.
7. Put on a talent show (students & parents) and sell tickets. Have a nicely decorated table with dessert & coffee for a reception after the show.
8. SCRIPT program – needs at least one parent coordinator
9. Election Day in November – Set up a Bake Sale and Used Book sale at one of the polling stations.
10. T-shirts etc. with school logo when we get one

Game Night – Tara will set up another game night for April 4^th.
After School Programs - funded through the 21^st Century Grant.
Leslie has arranged a program with the owner of Water Street Arts. She will come in 5 Mondays from 3:15pm-4:30ish starting April 7^th. She will teach a couple of painting techniques and some clay work. The class would be limited to 20 students and she would need at least one but preferably two parent helpers. Tara volunteered to be one of the parents.

Kevin is working on setting up the Dream Flight program. This is a space shuttle simulation program. It comes with two trained instructors to teach the “missions”. There is a component of “astronaut training” that would be done in two after school sessions prior to the arrival of Dream Flight (a one day event).

Events Calendar – discussed the need to make a plan for what events we want to put on each year. Came up with a partial/preliminary list:

1. August - Orientation
2. Late Sept/Early Oct. – Fall Color Walk & meal
3. October/November – School Play (after school activity)
4. Jan/Feb – Teacher Appreciation Day
5. Earth Day
6. Peace Day
7. Montessori Education Week
8. Game Nights – 2 in fall as weather gets cooler
   2 in winter/spring before weather warms
9. Spring – Talent Show

On Thursday, January 17th, despite blowing snow and slippery conditions, the Horace Mann cafetorium was filled with parents and friends of 6th grade students who performed in their first band, orchestra, and vocal music concert of the year. Our 6th graders are given the opportunity to participate in the band and orchestra program along with their Horace Mann neighbors, and quite a few of them do. The concert was wonderful - thanks to the energetic staff for working so hard with our students!

Attendees: Holly Briquelet Miller, Ellen Kemnitz, Tony Kemnitz, Ginny Erdmann, Josie Becker, Tara Luce, Sarah Yoho, Ann Michelsen, Lisa Bennett

Committee Reports:

Parent Education: given by Ginny. Nothing has been scheduled yet but she and Rachelle are working on scheduling a Brown Bag Lunch/Coffee. Will look at a morning time and lunch time. Sarah reported that the guides are developing a Scope & Sequence so no need for this org. to do this. This is a very involved process and not something that would be very helpful to parents. Sarah said that the guides would make a parent-friendly version. We may want to put this on the website.

Parent Website: given by Marcus Nelson via conference call. Marcus has a mock-up but needs guidance on what to put on the site. We need to make sure to coordinate this with the school site. Parent Connection needs to tell Marcus where to go from here. We did not finish this discussion so we’ll have to wait until next month to move forward.

Extra Curricular Committee: due to the time required for this committee Holly will have to step aside. It is Holly’s understanding that Leslie Keeffe will stay involved. Holly will pass on the information she has gotten to Leslie.

Social Events: Tara Luce has scheduled another Game Night for Jan. 25^th 5:30-7:30pm. She will get the information into the newsletter and the communication folders.

Fundraising: Ann Michelsen had to step down. She has just too many other commitments.

Sarah Yoho shared information about an annual Montessori conference being held in Washington, DC March 6^th-9^th. All of our guided will be attending. There is room if some parents want to attend. Early bird registration is $325 and needs to be in by Feb 8^th. If any parents are interested please contact Sarah. She has the conference catalogue. WAMCS can register two parents at their member rate but all expenses would have to be paid by individuals.

Meeting concluded with general discussion, questions of & answers from Sarah about our school.

December 11, 2007
Parents Present:
Kevin Briquelet Miller, Anne Michelsen, Monica John, Ellen Kemnitz, Leslie Keeffe, Kevin Keeffe, Tara Luce, Lisa Bennett

Committee Reports:

Parent Education – Ginny Erdman gave her report via telephone to Lisa Bennett. Ginny and Rachelle Melms have met a couple of times and have come up with four ideas that they’d like to develop:

1. Brown Bag Lunch/Breakfast – a relaxed atmosphere where parents can discuss issues regarding the school
2. Education about WAMCS itself – how the charter is structured etc. They will talk with Kurt Weyers and Nell Anderson when developing this information.
3. Scope & Sequence of Curriculum – what is covered in a 1st, 2nd, 3rd…graders curriculum
4. Meet the Materials events – familiarize parents with the Montessori materials, how they’re used, the philosophy behind them, etc.

These ideas are in the development stages. Ginny & Rachelle invite anyone interested in helping them on this to contact them.

Volunteer Coordination – Collette Kunz gave her report via telephone to Lisa. Collette checked with Nancy Keener and Nancy seems to have the volunteer information well organized. Collette will be the contact person if anyone needs help in finding volunteers for activities.

Fundraising – Anne Michelsen

Anne met with Martina Strehlow to discuss fundraising activities. They decided to put off any official activities until January. Anne will look into existing programs at grocery stores etc. that are easy to set up. After 1st of the year they will look at more formal fundraising opportunities. We talked about developing fundraising projects that are in keeping with the Montessori philosophy, i.e. a plant sale vs. candy bar sale.

Anne will contact the guides and Kurt to get an idea of exactly what we need to raise money for. We talked about needing some money for our parent group in order to buy copy paper, babysitting services for our meetings and possibly for refreshments at events.

Website – no report from Marcus Nelson

Lisa Bennett clarified that the website Marcus will create would not replace the site that Sarah Yoho has created and maintains. Sarah loves taking care of that site and wants to continue doing that.

Social Events – Tara Luce

Game Night went great! The room was full and everyone had a great time. The kids didn’t want to leave. All participants wanted to have one every month. Tara will plan one for Jan. & Feb because these tend to be quiet months and people will have new games from the holidays. She will look into the best space to use because we could quickly out grow room 155 (before/after school room)

We talked about planning a Spring Event that would celebrate the end of the school year. After some discussion it was decided to get a committee together in Jan. or Feb. to start the planning for this. This is a big event so Tara will need a larger committee to do all that is needed.

Ellen Kemnitz reported that she has found out that it should be no problem to get a Federal Tax ID#. She is looking into exactly what else we need to set up a simple accounting system and checking account.

Name Change -The group discussed the possibility of changing our name from MAP (Montessori Association of Parents) to Parent Connection. MAP has turned out to be a bit cumbersome to explain to people. Parent Connection seems easier to say and use. It is descriptive of our purpose, to be one of the ways parents can connect with their children’s school.

Emailing service – Zina Harrington, a parent at Rib Mountain Montessori and a friend of Marcus Nelson’s, has offered to be our emailing person. This is her business and she is offering her services free of charge. She has the list of email addresses so if anyone needs to send information about Parent Connection meetings, events, etc. they can send the information to her and she will create a nice looking page and send it out. The emails announcing tonight’s meeting were created by her. She makes them look great, very professional. This way we have one person with the email list. All she asks is that we give her a 3 -5 day lead time.

We will still send all information in student’s Communication folders also. This will ensure that everyone gets all of the information.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, January 8th 2008, 6-7pm

Childcare will be provided in room 155.

Please contact Lisa Bennett at 845-4886 if you have agenda items or need childcare.