PTO Minutes 03-16-10
Drummond PTO Meeting Agenda
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
9:00 A.M. – Drummond Montessori, Room 007
Present: Grace Kwon, Megan Hinchsliff, Simone Widney, Elsa Rivera, Hollly DuPart, Bonnie Kenz-Mara, Lisa Wright, Sabrina Craig, Marilyn Rosano, Neha Gandhi, Malefia Emiru-Charo, Laura Lopez, Marilyn Rosado, Sarah Landicho, Sherry Coleman, Mark Neidlinger
1. Welcome/Introduction
2. Principal’s Report
• Staffing
- Congratulations to Laura Lopez, Drummond’s new Parent Worker
- Mark has officially been chosen as Drummond school principal. Thank you.
• CPS is facing a projected $700 million to $1 billion deficit for the 2010-11 year
- Specific figures and potential plans CPS has to reduce this deficit were shared
- Mark expects to receive Drummond’s 2010-11 budget by end of March which will give a
better idea of how the budget cuts will affect Drummond.
- Notification letters to new student families will be delayed to April, pending budget.
3. Treasurer’s Report
• Current balance: $4,711.16
• Upcoming expenditures (estimated):
- Teacher Appreciation Day $400
- End of Year Picnic $400
- Summer Get Together $700
- 8th Grade Trip (max) $1,000
- Database $1,000
4. Old Business / Updates
• Drummondschool.org website
- Some updates have been made on the website. More to come.
• Newsletter – Sarah Landicho
- Hopefully next school year, newsletter will be a class during the day.
• Book Fair – Sarah Landicho
- Working on spending the money raised from the Book Fair to add new materials.
• PTO Elections
- Elections will be held in April
- Anyone interested in being nominated should contact Grace Kwon.
5. New Business- Committee Reports
• Diversity & Outreach Fundraisers – Sabrina Craig
- Planning on fundraisers to support the Spanish language program
- 63% of parents indicated they would like to see Spanish implemented
- Working to get Spanish language classes during school time.
- Using a vendor such as Language Stars could cost $10-$15K for each student to receive
Spanish classes 1-2 days/week for 45-minutes.
- Need to raise money by August 1st
- Plan to have 3 small, events based summer fundraisers this year to raise the money.
Game Night at Leona’s – Parent driven
Parent Night at Lotties’ – Parent driven
Pump It Up – Child driven
- Goal: Install Spanish language program at Drummond and sustain it.
• Teacher Appreciation Day
- Pam Anderson (Chair)
• End of the school year picnic
- Laura Lopez and Maria Holstead (co-chairs)
• Revamping Online T-shirt store – Grace Kwon
- Need to get pictures of t-shirts available to post online
- Currently receiving reporting of online store from PayPal
- Happy with current t-shirt vendor. Price and quality are quite good
- Marilyn Rosano offered to take over online PTO store management
• Database – Grace Kwon
- Current database is 1/5 of PTO budget
- Looking into creating our own database or purchasing & customizing
• Corporate Giving Concept– Holly DuPart
- Ideally, with corporate giving program, we would have a pool of finances, donated by
corporations, to fund various committees so fundraisers would not be necessary.
- Lots of parents feel bombarded by fundraisers
- Need to be proactive to get other people (businesses) to give us money
- This would be a corporate giving program that happens annually with Friends of
Drummond (FOD) helping to fund the program.
- October is a good time of year for this with matching donations at the beginning of the
calendar year.
- Design flashy promo materials are needed.
- Montessori Matters has a corporate giving component. Holly and Mollie and Montessori
Matters will touch base to ensure no overlap of services.
• Montessori Matters – Mollie Stromberg
- Kick off was delayed until budget received to be able to provide a tangible goal.
- Goal was: $75K but will need to increase this goal due to CPS reports.
- Website in the works. Has logo, diverse photos of children, similar to big event
website.
- Conclusion is June 3rd with a concert. Location TBD.
- Next step is to communicate why we need this money.
• Fall Walk-a-Thon – Grace Kwon
- New group fundraiser to help finance PTO, After School Care, Diversity & Outreach,
Teachers, and possibly 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C.
- If we raise $25K, that would be $5K to PTO and rest help fund each group
- Possible name: Drummond Montessori Matters Walk-A-Thon
6. Kudos / Thanks
• Everyone who made Family Reading Night a wonderful success!
7. Announcements
• Accepting nominations for PTO 2010-2011
