Cameron Park Elementary PTGO
Minutes of the General Meeting
Held on February 9, 2012
in the CP Media Center

I counted 26 people in attendance tonight; the 23 of them not afraid to sign in were: Beth Anello, Jeff Barger, Rob Cardone, Karen Coulombe, Eric Davis, Adriana Dwyer, Carrie Feehan, Kristi Geib, Ellen Haver, Beth Hufus, Amy Hughes, Neil Jones, Jessica Kelly, Esther Kerns, Lin Kerns, Bernie Lee, Patrick Mitchell, Laura Nicholson, Lynn Pinnell, Craig Tucker, Maggie Weinstein, Chiana Wellier, Julie Vandiver. But Fran Hall, Ron Sellers, and Wandra Whitford … I saaawww you.

15 of the 18 Executive Committee members were present, constituting a quorum to conduct business.

A. Meeting Commencement – Dr. Eric Davis – Chairperson
--This month’s meeting was called to order at 6:34 PM with Dr. D confirming there was a quorum of Committee members present in the momentary absence of our Parliamentarian.
--It was next asked if anyone had any additions to the Agenda they would like to make.
--Jeff Barger said that Mike Watson, the CP custodian, had asked him to mention an issue of lights on the playground since it is so dark there at night.
--This is both a safety issue for the people who are authorized to be there, and a security issue for the people who aren’t, but apparently go there anyway. Dr. Vandiver said the County had checked all the lights after our concerns of darkness in the rear of the building raised after the Fall Fundraiser, but it is not known if they would fund additional lights in this area. Dr. V will check with the County.
--The Minutes from the January 12, 2011 meeting, having been previously distributed to all, were reviewed. No one suggested any changes, so a motion to accept the Minutes as written was made, seconded, and approved.

B. Public Comment
-- The Chair opened the floor for any public comment. Tonight’s unusually shy crowd had none.

C. Treasurer’s Report – Ron Sellers – Treasurer
-- The Budget Report spreadsheet, dated 1/31/2012, had been previously provided to all attendees. Ron went over the monthly reconciliation for January stating the opening balance was $57,813.25. Deposits for the month totaled $485.76, expenses were $1,146.78, leaving the ending bank balance for January at $57,152.23.
-- Ron stated that, in looking over the minutes from the January meeting, the $371.76 reported as a pending deposit from Box Tops was actually from retail promotions.
-- On another note, Ron stated he had received a notice from Harris Teeter that our balance there was about $36, and needs to be, he believes, in excess of $250 before they will send us a check. With that in mind, he urged all to sign up to connect their VIC card to the school if they have not already done so. This is an easy way to raise money for the school and must be renewed annually.
-- Amy Hughes brought up the fact that line items “Scholastic Book Fair” ($600 Budgeted / $583.78 Actual) and “Fall Fundraiser” ($2,200 Budgeted / $1783.56 Actual) had been added to the Budget and were not in the originally approved one. Ron stated that if you have a revenue, you need an expense. Since there was an expense for the Fall Fundraiser there needs to be a line item for it. Kristi Geib pointed out these type things were usually added to the “Discretionary” line unless it had been voted on to add the specific item(s) to the Budget as separate entities. Amy also said Scholastic Book Fair should not be broken out from Fall Fundraiser since this was the Book Fair certificates given out as part of the Fall Fundraiser.
-- There was a lot more discussion with relevant points basically restating the above, so Dr. Davis got the crowd under control and here’s what it boiled down to; (1) Scholastic Book Fair figures will be included in Fall Fundraiser figures and, (2) Laura Nicholson made a motion to amend the current Budget to include the Fall Fundraiser expenses as a separate item. This motion was seconded and approved.
-- Kristi also brought up that the Box Top Expenses (Budgeted and Actual of $19.24) is probably the same type of thing if those expenses are just for the mailing of the Box Tops. If so, it could be added into the Newsletter/Printing//Fees/Postage line. This was just simply agreed to (I guess everyone was tired from the Fall Fundraiser thing).
-- Next Ron mentioned he had discussions with Dr. Vandiver on the Cyber Kids and Earth Day budgeted items. Since there is no apparent activity in those areas, should the associated budgeted funds be moved somewhere else? One thing to consider is the Holiday Appreciation item where actual expenses were $25 more than that budgeted due to the addition of 1 bus driver. That overage could be taken care of by reallocating some of these funds.
-- Dr. Vandiver noted that the original budget they had been working from had the $1,000 for Earth Day as a Technology line item, so that line just needs to be relabeled from “Earth Day” to “Technology”, and that had been approved.
-- As for the $100 budgeted to Cyber Kids, Kristi made a motion to use $25 of that to balance the Holiday Appreciation overage and move the remaining $75 to Discretionary. The motion was seconded and approved.
-- Karen Coulombe asked if the Budgeted Revenue figure for 100 Day Pennies could be lowered from $1,000 to $450 or $500 since it’s way too high. It was mentioned that this could be done during the budget process for next year. This year’s total was $472.44 as compared to around $430 last year. New goal was decided to be $500. This new goal may be low since Jeff Barger has committed his next year’s class to a 100% increase over this year’s, for a total of 54¢. The Secretary was asked to make a note that this Budgeted Revenue figure needs to be revised when we establish next year’s budget at the May meeting, and thus ended the longest Treasurer’s Report ever.

D. Principal’s Corner – Dr. Julie Vandiver - Principal
-- Dr. V started off with a good news, bad news thing. The good news was introducing Adriana Dwyer as our new Spanish teacher. The bad news is that on her very first day, Dr. V found out the FLAP (Foreign Language Assistance Program) Grant will not be funded next year. It’s not known what the County might do with regards to this, but right now we don’t know if there will be a foreign language program next school year.
-- Next was the Cameron Park Updates by the teachers for a summary of their grade level activities.
-- Kindergarten – Dr. Vandiver for Lisa Irby – They celebrated the 100th Day of school with several math, art, and writing activities centered around the number 100. Mses. Brooks, Jones, Patty, Watkins, Poe, and Root were all dressed up as their 100 year old selves. The PTGO got a big thank you for the grade level funds which were used to purchase books for the readers workshop, and they are about to order short books to reinforce their popcorn words. Ms. Roberson’s class placed 4th in the 100th Day Pennies with $30.17. Mr. Bemis continues to have scheduled read alouds and book discussions. They have started in the Computer Lab learning the expectations in the Lab and actually working on the computers.
-- 1st Grade – Wandra Whitford for Sheri Caligan – The first graders are going through lots of assessments, especially spelling inventories, to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are. They also celebrated the 100th Day with many math activities. They have been studying famous Americans and writing biographies. Mr. Bemis is going around to the classrooms, the last lesson being “describing words”.
-- 2nd Grade - Ellen Haver – A lot of appreciation was extended to the PTGO for the books and also a laminator that works. Some of the wide range of books came in today and are already in the hands of the kids. They have a whole range of fiction, non-fiction, humor, and popular chapter books. The 2nd graders have also been working with Mr. Bemis who is helping them with their math differentiation and providing challenging activities that extend the lessons to reach the high end students who need the extra challenge. The grade level has been working together on word study activities, where they are integrating these activities into hands-on, crafty things in the classroom which try to hide the fact the kids are doing academic work (ask Ellen about her special brownies). Miss Anderson is using an i-Pad in her classroom listening center, and has also set up a “Twitter” board in the room so the students can tweet each other to build the classroom community. She also has caterpillars in her room which is very exciting to the kids, but they don’t tweet. They are looking forward to their History Expo, which will be the 1st Friday in March, where they will be sharing what they have been studying in Social Studies, specifically biographies. There will also be puppet shows, video postings, and a wax museum.
-- 3rd Grade – Miss Anello – The Lions are doing an author’s tea (fundraiser) at the Barnes & Noble on 15/501 (New Hope Commons Shopping Center) on February 16th. Tell them at the register you are from Cameron Park and they will give 15% of the proceeds, in the form of gift cards, back to the school for use there. Ellen Haver added there is also an on-line code to use that’s good for all week, which she will get and send around to all. The 3rd grade is excited about their kick-off of the Hands for Habitat coin drive which is throughout the entire school. The Habitat house last year benefited a Cameron Park family who’s child still attends here. This year the house is for a family in Hillsborough with a baby who may be a future CP’er. This year Miss Anello will be running her first half marathon and asked for pledges on that, with all the money donated to Habitat. They are doing book clubs still, and their new focus is on test strategies. The kids are going to different classrooms and working on reading strategies and math strategies incorporated with reading, like math word problems. The students are gaining good experience and prepping for the EOG tests. They just received their division and multiplication units and will be starting fast facts with multiplication while still working hard on the fast facts for addition and subtraction. The kids have started their third rotation in Science, and still waiting for warmer weather to start gardening outside. For writing, some classrooms have done non-fiction informational books, and some are starting their fractured fairy tales. They are looking forward to the door decorating contest next month. They have also received and are excited about their new books. The classrooms now have “tons” on fiction and non-fiction books which have been placed in bins and are being circulated around to each classroom.
-- 4th Grade – Carrie Feehan – Carrie will have a couple of teachers from other schools coming to visit her classroom to observe their Literacy Block and have discussions to hopefully collaborate a little. They have ordered their books, but have not received them yet, though they were amazed how much they could get for the money they had. Seems she really enjoyed clicking buy, buy, buy. Battle of the Books is going strong with parent volunteers helping with that. They just finished a writing assessment where the students compared themselves to a famous North Carolinian or someone of some relation to North Carolina. She felt this writing assessment was really good in that the kids knew their paragraph structure by themselves, were able to complete it in the week of time, and had a quality product. They went to Raleigh last week where everyone learned a lot going to the Legislative and Capitol buildings and the Science and History Museums. When the kids got back, they had classroom campaigns, ballots, and elections. In Science they are starting magnetism and electricity, and in Math it’s data and probability.
-- 5th Grade – Jeff Barger – Quarterly math assessments were done last month, and right afterwards there was a math boot camp where the students went to different groups to work on something, based on their assessment, where they needed improvement. There were decimal groups, geometry groups, and a group with Mr. Bemis. They are planning to do this again in the near future. The next set of assessments will be given again around the middle of March. The also want to thank to PTGO for the books. The Battle of the Books is coming up in a couple of weeks. This week they have increased the sugar level of the school through the lollypop sale, where they have made almost $500 to help fund their trip to Washington, D.C. on April 12th and 13th.
-- Specials – Patrick Mitchell
- Spanish – Again pointed out that we have a new Spanish teacher who has been busy introducing herself to the students and getting the new curriculum stuff.
- PE – Mr. Westbrook is gearing up for Hot Shots. Information will be going home shortly.
- Art & Music – Ms. Casey and Mr. Mitchell have an artist-in-residence and they have been working with 5th graders, which will last another week. The artist has been working with Ms. Casey in the Art room making musical whistles, much like ocarinas, which will be playable.
- Technology – Mr. Rosensweet is asking the PTGO to cover the cost his attendance at the NC TIES conference being held in Raleigh this March, along with a substitute teacher to cover his class. Cost would be $140 plus the cost of the sub. The direction from Dr. Vandiver was that he needs to put in a Funds Request Form with the line item being Staff Development.

--Next on the Agenda, Dr. Vandiver gave us an update on the quote for new blinds. Lowes gave an estimate of $3,137.96 for new blinds in the Cafeteria, along the front of the building, and around the Media Center. That price includes taking down the old blinds and installing the new ones. Besides the blinds, Dr. V would also like an additional $150 for tools needed around the school, like an outside push broom and clippers. There is approximately $2,100 left from the Lowes Grant, so the request made is for $1,200 from the PTGO funds to cover the difference. A discussion followed to clarify that, in fact, we did have enough money to cover this request considering all the items budgeted for the rest of the year. After some discussion, it seemed as though that issue was put to rest, or so we thought!
- A motion was made for the $1,200 from the PTGO to go to Dr. Vandiver for the blinds, etc.. The motion was seconded, all those in favor said “aye”, but then from the rear someone said they didn’t think we had enough money. So we went over again that we had $57K+ in the bank, budgeted expenses are at $33.6K+, and income to date minus total budgeted expenses still leaves an excess of $2.3K+ to date. Then someone said we have to keep $5,000 in the bank because it is in the Bylaws. The Secretary commented it was not in the Bylaws. Then someone else said its always been, and Dr. Davis just wanted to know one way or the other. Oh, it was a mess. Our Parliamentarian, Mr. Jones, got us back on track by confirming it was not in the Bylaws, and there was a motion on the floor. Since the aye’s had already been heard from, Dr. D asked for those opposed, and none were voiced.
-- Moving on, Dr. V gave an update on the playground equipment. A drawing (as mentioned at last month’s meeting) was still not available, but the quote for the setup being looked at was $52,402.73 including delivery, installation, and taxes. The company could have drawing available for the Spring Fundraiser to show this is what we’re shooting for. The equipment can also be installed in phases to reduce the initial cost and add on to it later. We are under no time constraints now, and the phases thing sounds more doable. There will be more discussion on this issue as time goes on.

E. Old Business
-- Dr. Vandiver gave a brief update on the grade level book orders. We’d already heard how excited and thankful everyone was to get the books. They went through various channels, such as vendors and Amazon, and were surprised at the amount of books they could get and really utilize (i.e. 3rd grade got between 600 and 700). There are some personal expenses tied up right now, but everyone was able to stay within the $3,000 per grade level. With the exception of the vendor, all the books have been ordered and Dr. V will see Ron after the meeting to get those figures to him.

F. New Business
Spring Festival / Auction – Amy Hughes
-- The Auction date has been changed to Friday, May 4th. Previously it had been April 27th, but that happens to be the weekend of the Cub Scout Campboree. The event will be here at the school from 6 to 9 PM. Lots of things are being planned, and auction items are being solicited.

Volunteers for the Spring Festival / Auction – Rob Cardone
-- Rob has talked with the Counselors at both Orange and Cedar Ridge about soliciting some high school kids to help as part of their volunteering programs. The counselors reportedly were excited about the opportunity. Parents will also be solicited to help. A “Save the Date” flier will be going out to also solicit items for the auction. All help is warmly accepted, and if there are any additional ideas, get them to Rob.

Volunteer Appreciation / Recognition – Laura Nicholson
-- This is an idea getting underway about doing something, not necessarily costing money, to recognize the volunteers, perhaps a certificate, that may encourage people to do more and to just say “thank you”. Other suggestions were placing the names on a poster in the lobby, and even calculating a monetary figure to say our parent volunteers donated X amount of dollars in volunteer time. Good thoughts, we’ll think some more on this. Laura requested if anyone had any further ideas or thoughts, e-mail them to the PTGO. Maybe a light breakfast?

G. Adjourn
-- The Chair announced the next meeting will be March 8th, and tried to adjourn the meeting, but the Secretary had a few reminders for the crowd. Don’t forget to sign the Sign-In Sheet, an updated Executive Committee (EC) member roster was available showing Mr. Mitchell as the new Specials Rep., and for the EC members to get any comments or suggestions back on the proposed changes to the Bylaws sent around last week.
-- Neil Jones commented that, since the proposed changes only were sent to the EC, it is important to have open discussions of the proposed changes to make sure we are aligned with who we are as a nonprofit organization, what the rules are, and the history behind why some of the language is in there. Mr. Jones feels there should be open discussion and input from the general membership before the EC makes any sweeping changes, and strongly recommends we ask for an open quorum where we can discuss this.
-- A suggestion was made to perhaps send out an invitation to form a committee to look at these changes. Dr. Davis commented that he did not think we needed another committee, but it was the job of the EC to develop any changes to present to the general membership.
-- Dr. Vandiver was asked the status of the Ms. Aug. She is on medical leave through February, and Dr. V should hear more at that time. Debbie Werden is doing a great job filling in, and will stay in place for consistency until we hear something more definite.
-- Dr. Davis finally got his motion to adjourn in, seconded, and approved at 7:41 PM.

Submitted by:

Lin Kerns
Secretary
Cameron Park Elementary PTGO