PTA News

Canajoharie PTA Minutes—November 12, 2006

1. Greetings
   1. Co-President, Melissa Balk, called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm with fourteen members in attendance. Brief introductions by members were given and the pledge was recited.
2. Secretary’s Report
   1. The secretary’s report from the last meeting was read by the secretary, Tracy Mead. Moved/Seconded/Accepted
3. Treasurer’s Report
   1. The Treasurer’s report was reviewed with updates by the treasurer, Ellen Welch. Moved/Seconded/Accepted
   2.  There was discussion regarding the increased balance due to the recent fundraisers. On motion member voted to allocate the funds earned from the fundraiser to the Special Projects account. Moved/Seconded/Approved
4. Old Business
   1. Picture Committee Report: The retakes for the school pictures by Lifetouch are scheduled for November 27th for the High School and November 28th for the Elementary and Middle School. Lifetouch will retake the pictures for any reason. The digital camera given to the school by Lifetouch will be available for future school events. The topic of spring pictures was tabled for the next meeting.
   2. C&R Fundraiser Report: Melissa reported that everything went smoothly with the distribution of the PTA fundraiser. The fundraiser was very profitable for the PTA and there were many volunteers who assisted with the fundraiser and Melissa thanked everyone for their help.
   3. Membership: Tara Mason, membership chairperson, received the membership cards and distributed them. Tara will be picking up the High School memberships in the near future.
   4. Movie Night: The next scheduled movie night is November 17th at 7:00pm in the Great Room with the movie “Cars” to be shown. The last movie night held on October 20th was very successful. The juice was donated by McDonald’s for that movie night. Jackie will get the refreshments for the movie night scheduled for November 17th.
   5. Boxtops: Kathy Dopp reported that $403.80 in boxtops had been recently submitted. Also, Kathy has collected 369,000 soda tabs for the school.
5. New Business
   1. Enrichment Committee: The enrichment committee met on November 14th at 6:30pm. The committee approved $1,290 in requests received from Kindergarten through High School.
   2. Correspondence: There were many letters of thanks received from teachers and students for the support the PTA has provided. Melissa will let the teachers know that any student who wishes to come to a PTA meeting to give a brief summary on what they were able to do with the funds they received would be welcome.
   3. NYS Consumer Protection Board Info: Melissa reported she had recently attended a NYS Librarian conference. At the conference there was a guest speaker who gave a presentation on identity theft. Melissa suggested having the speaker come to Canajoharie to present to parents/families who might find this topic of interest. Melissa will contact the speaker for a future presentation.
   4. Other New Business:
   1. Melissa reported the television in the Great Room is no longer working. The enrichment committee had received a request from Mr. Sincavage and Mrs. Heiser for a tv/dvd/vcr combo for the gathering room. The estimated cost of the entertainment system was $2,500 which would include a plasma tv. This could be used for many school functions for the elementary and middle school. A motion was made and duly seconded. There were some concerns regarding the purchase price and set up of the system and obtaining a service contract. It was decided to amend the previous motion to approve the request. A motion was made, seconded and approved to hold the approval pending further information.  Melissa will contact Mr. Sincavage and Mrs. Heiser to discuss the issues and this topic will be discussed at the next meeting. Pat Beyer offered to look into the pricing for the entertainment system and will report on her findings at the next meeting.
   2. Bronwyn McCaffrey attended the NYS PTA convention in Rochester on November 10th thru November 12th. Bronwyn attended workshops throughout the weekend including writing resolutions, membership and using newspapers to educate. There were many vendors at the convention including Lifetouch and Barnes & Nobles. Bronwyn had some concerns regarding the Canajoharie school not being represented in some of the programs the NYS PTA offers including the reflections program, voting delegates from our school and scholarships available to students. The “Summer Experience” offered in the summer by the NYS PTA will also have many interesting and worthwhile topics and Bronwyn encouraged members to attend this conference.
   3. Mr. Rose discussed information regarding substantial funding that Canajoharie School will be receiving in the future. The school is eligible for “excel funding” from the state, which pays the local share of school building projects. There are many different categories the funding is eligible for including technology, expansion, security and energy to name a few. The board has started to compile a list of needed improvements for the school including but not limited to issues with the Nellis Pool, traffic pattern problems at the elementary, the fire alarm system, exterior lighting around the school and school security. Mr. Rose was requesting the PTA support to understand the obligation to use these funds while they are available and to help the community understand this will not be an expense to taxpayers. This topic will be discussed at the December 14th board meeting and Mr. Rose encourages everyone to attend this meeting to understand the project.
   4. Mr. Rose also wanted to discuss the topic of security at the school. There is currently an open door policy at Canajoharie. Due to recent events in other schools in the past year Mr. Rose felt it would be unjust not to get feedback on this topic from PTA members and parents as to how they would feel with a more “secured” system for our school. A brief discussion was had regarding how parents/teachers felt on this topic. Mr. Rose thanked everyone for their feedback and noted this will be a topic of great importance in the near future.
6. The meeting was adjourned at 8:10 pm. The next meeting is scheduled for December 12th at 7 p.m.