Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Hardy PTO Meeting Minutes Tuesday, May 7, 2013 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6:35 Principal’s Report New principal – Kristin DeFrancisco, great news from Deb’s perspective Mrs. Garrity is retiring, so a new secretary needs to be hired Need to hire a new 1st grade teacher Kudos to organizers of Int’l Festival Mentioned a formal good-bye for our Thompson friends – the idea is to have a picnic on the grounds of the new school with 5th and 4th graders 6:50 Events/programs • Int’l Festival update • Teacher Appreciation Week – ongoing, remind families to have students prepare something for their teachers on Thursday • Walkathon (this Friday - May 10th) – grades will be color coded, there will be 6 tables setup for each grade to get punched. Only prizes will be bracelets, different colors for varying laps. • BBQ (June 4th) - • 3rd Grade Colonial Day (June 5th) • Field Day (June 14th) • 5th Grade Activities: ➢ Plant Sale (Friday, May 9th) ➢ Car Wash/Bake sale (Saturday, May 18th, rain date: May 19th) – 10-3pm, there will be a signup genius going out soon. ➢ Class Night (June 19th) –need 4th grade parents to host • Classroom supplies fundraiser – Kirsten offered to do the shopping at Costco and Jenn Irvine said she would find a spreadsheet person. Debbie Pielech will coordinate the teachers to get us the lists to send to parents. • 7:10 Financial Report two more appeal checks came in last month ($100) Int’l festival was very successful Box tops brought in $340 dollars Expenditures – split cost of Beantown Jumpers with HASP, few field trips, started to payout 5th grade graduation money, Janet Welby spent some of her budget, spent some playground equipment money, spent $200 on t-shirts for Japanese visit, got the high- volume price. 7:20 PTO Elections/Leadership for 2013-2014 –open discussion about leadership structure, possibly have a representative from each grade with specific responsibilities, delegated tasks. At Bishop there is a room parent coordinator (Heather Digregorio is the person at Bishop). 7:50 Other business Deb’s Retirement party – Monday, June 3rd, Betsey will send out a signup genius for bringing finger foods Linda Garrity’s retirement – let’s think about something to recognize her service to the Hardy School Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, June 11th (second Tues. so as not to conflict with BBQ)

Hardy PTO meeting minutes, Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2013

Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2013 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6:35 Principal’s Report Deb reported on kids math activities, with display opposite cafeteria. April is poetry month; Deb is reading a short poem each Monday on loudspeaker, then hiding three copies of the poem in plain sight (finders get to take them back to their classes). Beantown Jumpers will be coming on the 12th to help with Walk-a-thon kickoff. Arlington’s new math coordinator will be holding an elementary school math night on 4/11. 6:50 Events/programs: • Literacy Night update Lisa P. suggested rotating theme every three years or so. Marci suggested setting it up so every child can go to every story. • Fit Girls update Lisa P. reported that there is a large group participating; we need more volunteers. (Tuesdays and Fridays, 2:30 - 3:30) • Int’l Festival (Apr. 27th) Gloria reported that they need more help with desserts, and volunteers to call up restaurants; we will send a letter to room parents to forward to their parents; we may need to nag parents to volunteer for this and other events; need 5-6 people to pick up food on day of, 1-2 people to help follow up with restaurants, 1-2 people to help serve on day of (will get additional help from high school students), and a dessert coordinator. Also need new people to make display tables. Need a preparation day about a week ahead of time to put materials together, either the 20th or 21st. • Teacher Appreciation Week (May 6-10) Jill has recruited one other person to help; format will be similar to last year; more info in coming weeks on how to volunteer; • Walkathon (May 3rd) We have selectman permit; next step is to make forms for assembly; we will probably get rid of the prize tables; • BBQ (June 4th) Marci has contacted Whole Foods, who will help out. We may plan a “battle of the bands” between Hardy & Thompson (Milagros will check this out). Pinal will do henna tatoos. • 3rd Grade Colonial Day (June 5th) • Field Day (June 14th) Victoria and Michael Leen (and probably Susan Dorson) will organize. Lisa nominated her husband John (Paolillo) as well. • 5th Grade Class Night (June 20th) Need 4th grade parent volunteers for the 5th grade party; • PTO Election Committee for 2013-2014 To make recruiting easier, Deb suggested that we could reinstitute child care during PTO meetings; also, we should have presidents meet incoming K parents; 7:30 Financial Report: • Annual appeal update • PTO Grant Committee update 7:45 Other business Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, May 7th

Hardy PTO meeting minutes, Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2013

Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2013 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6:35 Principal’s Report Deb reported on kids math activities, with display opposite cafeteria. April is poetry month; Deb is reading a short poem each Monday on loudspeaker, then hiding three copies of the poem in plain sight (finders get to take them back to their classes). Beantown Jumpers will be coming on the 12th to help with Walk-a-thon kickoff. Arlington’s new math coordinator will be holding an elementary school math night on 4/11. 6:50 Events/programs: • Literacy Night update Lisa P. suggested rotating theme every three years or so. Marci suggested setting it up so every child can go to every story. • Fit Girls update Lisa P. reported that there is a large group participating; we need more volunteers. (Tuesdays and Fridays, 2:30 - 3:30) • Int’l Festival (Apr. 27th) Gloria reported that they need more help with desserts, and volunteers to call up restaurants; we will send a letter to room parents to forward to their parents; we may need to nag parents to volunteer for this and other events; need 5-6 people to pick up food on day of, 1-2 people to help follow up with restaurants, 1-2 people to help serve on day of (will get additional help from high school students), and a dessert coordinator. Also need new people to make display tables. Need a preparation day about a week ahead of time to put materials together, either the 20th or 21st. • Teacher Appreciation Week (May 6-10) Jill has recruited one other person to help; format will be similar to last year; more info in coming weeks on how to volunteer; • Walkathon (May 3rd) We have selectman permit; next step is to make forms for assembly; we will probably get rid of the prize tables; • BBQ (June 4th) Marci has contacted Whole Foods, who will help out. We may plan a “battle of the bands” between Hardy & Thompson (Milagros will check this out). Pinal will do henna tatoos. • 3rd Grade Colonial Day (June 5th) • Field Day (June 14th) Victoria and Michael Leen (and probably Susan Dorson) will organize. Lisa nominated her husband John (Paolillo) as well. • 5th Grade Class Night (June 20th) Need 4th grade parent volunteers for the 5th grade party; • PTO Election Committee for 2013-2014 To make recruiting easier, Deb suggested that we could reinstitute child care during PTO meetings; also, we should have presidents meet incoming K parents; 7:30 Financial Report: • Annual appeal update • PTO Grant Committee update 7:45 Other business Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, May 7th

Hardy PTO meeting minutes, Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Hardy PTO meeting minutes, Tuesday, March 5, 2013 Nagaokakyo Visit – Deb has asked that we give Field Day t-shirts to the visiting students and their chaperones (they will be visiting May 2); we voted to appropriate $$ (on the order of $150) to pay for this. Events: Parent’s Night Out (last Thursday) was lovely, but turnout wasn’t great. Margaret suggested that we may be overdoing events, and thereby dissipating enthusiasm. Betsey commented that too many of our events get handled by the same core group of people. She suggested making a school-wide push for volunteers for the upcoming events. Laura Doherty suggested following the Bishop model, which involves a coordinator who works with room parents; also, each grade is in charge of an event. We also agreed that we need to keep documentation about each event online (probably using google docs). Skating party: it’s up in the air whether we even have someone to coordinate this. Heather suggested we skip it this year, or perhaps join in with HASP. We all agreed that it is fine to skip it this year. International Festival (April 27th): Pinal (co-organizer) raised some questions about the mechanics of soliciting contributions from restaurants. Volunteers will be solicited soon. Literacy Night: Coming this Thursday (March 7); Margaret needs baked goods, and people to help set up 5 - 6. Walkathon: Need a date. Deb suggested May 3 (a Friday), with a rain date of May 10. Plan to kick this off the day before April break (April 12). Heather suggested special Hardy Walk-a-thon pencils as prizes. Fit Girls: There will be a meeting on March 19th; close to 40 girls are now signed up. Teacher Appreciation: Will be May 6 - 10. Jill Swilling is looking for 2 or 3 people who are coordinated and detail-oriented, to help her pull this off. Field Day: Susan Dorson has been asked to coordinate this. We settled on June 14, with the 21st as rain date. Victoria offered to help coordinate. BBQ: We chose June 4th, with a rain date of the 5th. Marci has a contact at the Medford Whole Foods. AEF Trivia Bee (March 24th). Financial Report: Annual Appeal just exceeded its goal. (See attached report.) Principal’s Report: Deb filled in some details about the Sister City visit. Snow days: currently, the last day is June 27th; we have one more snow day left. If we go beyond that, we may have to take a day out of April vacation, or use a Saturday, or part of Good Friday.

Hardy PTO Meeting Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013 6:30 – 8:00 AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6: 35 – Fit Girls (Sue Franchi) all schools except Thomson & Hardy are engaged in it. 3-mo program for girls to emphasize fitness through walking or running. Ends with 5K race for MWRA. $412 initiation fee per school (we’ll call Thomson and Hardy one school for this purpose). More info at www.fitgirls.org. Comittment is 2 afternoons/week. Runs March - May. We agreed to fund this, provided there is sufficient interest from 4th and 5th grade girls. 6:35 Principal’s Report • Safety update Deb led a discussion about school safety, in light of the Newtown tragedy. She reviewed the lockdown procedures in place at Hardy. 6:50 Review of events/projects and planning for upcoming events: • Picture Company We need to check whether we need a makeup day for 5th-graders. We voted to ask Hayward Photography for a 3-year contract, starting next year. • Hardy/Thompson Directory Andy has prepared a draft directory; we expect to be able to print them within the next couple of weeks. • Game Night Game night may incorporate math games this year; Julie mentioned that Gamewright came to a game night at another school and it was very successful; Julie will contact them; February 7th was proposed as a date. • Parent’s Night Out – proposed date in Mar? Jenn Irvine updated us on the ideas her sub-committee has come up with. Tentative date: Friday, March 1; B&G club will watch kids that night 6 - 9. Possible venue: Fox Library basement. Silent auction may feature teacher offerings, instead of big-ticket things. Waiting for confirmation of this plan from the Arlington Rec folks. • Winter Concert – PTO Breakfast (Feb14th) We’ll send out word via signup genius for bakers, setup, cleanup. • Skating Party (Mar) Will check with Ken Zimmerman to see if he is organizing this. • Int’l Festival (Mar) Pinal and Gloria are working on this; will meet this Friday to begin organizing. Thinking of first Saturday in April (the 6th) as the date. • Literacy Night – proposed date: Thursday, March 7th Claire confirmed at School Council that this is the date. • Walkathon (April/May) – volunteer coordinator update Jenn Irvine will help organize this. Marci will check with town to see if we can close of Lake Street. 7:20 Financial Report: • Annual appeal update • Other financial updates 7:45 Other business Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, Feb. 5th

Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013

Hardy PTO Meeting Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013 6:30 – 8:00 AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6: 35 – Fit Girls (Sue Franchi) all schools except Thomson & Hardy are engaged in it. 3-mo program for girls to emphasize fitness through walking or running. Ends with 5K race for MWRA. $412 initiation fee per school (we’ll call Thomson and Hardy one school for this purpose). More info at www.fitgirls.org. Comittment is 2 afternoons/week. Runs March - May. We agreed to fund this, provided there is sufficient interest from 4th and 5th grade girls. 6:35 Principal’s Report • Safety update Deb led a discussion about school safety, in light of the Newtown tragedy. She reviewed the lockdown procedures in place at Hardy. 6:50 Review of events/projects and planning for upcoming events: • Picture Company We need to check whether we need a makeup day for 5th-graders. We voted to ask Hayward Photography for a 3-year contract, starting next year. • Hardy/Thompson Directory Andy has prepared a draft directory; we expect to be able to print them within the next couple of weeks. • Game Night Game night may incorporate math games this year; Julie mentioned that Gamewright came to a game night at another school and it was very successful; Julie will contact them; February 7th was proposed as a date. • Parent’s Night Out – proposed date in Mar? Jenn Irvine updated us on the ideas her sub-committee has come up with. Tentative date: Friday, March 1; B&G club will watch kids that night 6 - 9. Possible venue: Fox Library basement. Silent auction may feature teacher offerings, instead of big-ticket things. Waiting for confirmation of this plan from the Arlington Rec folks. • Winter Concert – PTO Breakfast (Feb14th) We’ll send out word via signup genius for bakers, setup, cleanup. • Skating Party (Mar) Will check with Ken Zimmerman to see if he is organizing this. • Int’l Festival (Mar) Pinal and Gloria are working on this; will meet this Friday to begin organizing. Thinking of first Saturday in April (the 6th) as the date. • Literacy Night – proposed date: Thursday, March 7th Claire confirmed at School Council that this is the date. • Walkathon (April/May) – volunteer coordinator update Jenn Irvine will help organize this. Marci will check with town to see if we can close of Lake Street. 7:20 Financial Report: • Annual appeal update • Other financial updates 7:45 Other business Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, Feb. 5th

Minutes, Hardy PTO meeting Dec. 4th 2012

Minutes, Hardy PTO meeting Dec. 4th 2012 Took a quick poll to see how is/isn’t getting the weekly PTO Post (Andy still isn’t). Picture re-take day will be this Friday. Need one or more parents to help out. We’ll ask the 5th grade teachers to spread the word. Directory: room parents have been asked to get info from parents, with opt-out. If we do this in-house next year, we’ll plan on using surveymonkey. Will aim to get it out by new year. Unicef: netted over $1500. Holiday Giving Tree: all stars have been taken! Parent’s Night Out (Jenn Irvine): Planning for Whittemore house, Friday or Saturday, likely in Feb or March. Menotomy Wine will come pour. Space for 100 people; will sell tickets. Possible on-line silent auction. Orgo meeting this Thursday. Winter Concert: we’ll run a breakfast as usual. Skating Party: Lisa P. will check on dates. International Festival: Milagros and Gloria are meeting this Friday, with Pinal, to start the planning. Date TBD. Undecided as yet whether we’ll have it on a Saturday. Literacy Night: Tentatively planned for March 7 (during reading across America week). May do a Dr. Seuss theme, as March 2 is his birthday. Last year we limited it to K - 2; may consider broadening it. Book donation program: Margaret Muirhead suggested expanding a small program that she has been running single-handed – parents donate $12 for the purchase of a book, which has a book plate inserted with their info. Group suggested advertising during Literacy Night, Book Fair, maybe Curriculum Night. We discussed the need to get information about what the PTO does out to parents in a more effective fashion (apparently too many parents don’t read what we send). One idea: permanent informational poster in outside bulletin board. Another: turning the Herald into a blog. Need to form a committee to determine how to spend the $4000 we have set aside for grants. Some of this money is reserved for 4th grade movie making project (about $1000). We discussed the need for more effective fundraising (participation in this year’s Appeal is only ~35%). This led to a discussion of the need for a deeper “bench” of parent volunteers. We will work with room parents to find volunteers for spring events. Victoria suggested asking room parents to send a message with a signup genius link to their parents.

Hardy PTO meeting ,Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Hardy PTO meeting Tuesday, February 5, 2013 Directory is out. Special thanks to Andy for all his work on it! Andy and Pete met with other parents (from other PTOs) to discuss directory production. Discussion with Josh Lobel about data and access to it. Game Night: We have most volunteer slots filled, but still need help with setup and cleanup. We have prizes from Little Fox, and Henry Bear’s Park (to raffle off). Gamewright has given us 30 demo games to try out, and 50 to sell at the event (we keep half the proceeds). Parent’s Night out: scheduled for 2/28. Will take place at Menotomy Beer & Wine. Jenn Irvine is organizing; needs help rounding up raffle items. Winter Concert: need volunteers to bake things, and will try to solicit coffee from Jam’n Java or Starbucks. Skating party: Not clear whether we will hold it this year. Ken Zimmerman may have looked into this. International Festival: Will send out a save-the-date shortly. Date is set for April 27th. Pinal and Gloria are thinking of having food this year, and also soliciting recipes from each table so as to make a cookbook. Literacy Night: We will keep it for K - 2, though we will ask some 5th-graders to help out. Theme: Dr. Seuss (coordinated with Read Across America, right after Dr. Seuss’s birthday). Date is March 7. Margaret and Claire need help with designing and making decorations. May get kids to help. Time: 6 - 7:45. Some kindergarten requests for books and math games are left over from last year; will need to budget these in. Walkathon: Brett, Pat Egan, and Jenn Irvine will all be working on this. Fit Girls: very popular, at least 26 girls have signed up. Sue Franchi will need volunteer help with this! Ned will check with Sue about paying for this. PTO closet: It’s a disaster! We will work on organizing a crew to clean it out. AEF Trivia Bee: Jenn Forbes is hoping that the Hardy community will contribute a team. Financial report: Slow month last month: a little money trickled in from the Annual Appeal, along with some matching gifts. We are now up to $15,635; 91 contributions, 57 at Benefactor level. Outflows: we paid for the directory, along with labels for books in the library. (There is some chance the District will start paying for library books.) Nicole reported on some of our suggestions for possible AEF grants for the upcoming grant cycle: Peaceful Playgrounds; morning yoga for kids (before school). Deb’s report: We have an artist-in-residence coming the last week in February (a percussionist). He will work intensively with 5th-graders for a week. Deb is in conversation with District and Town to figure out who is responsible for maintaining playground structures, which turns out to be complicated. Hardy and Brackett (alone) are under the auspices of the school department. In all the years Deb has been here, the only significant playground repairs/maintenance have been paid for by the afterschool program. Deb is working on changing this, so that the District will, in the future, take more responsibility for this. Deb announced her plans to retire at the end of this school year, and was met by shock, followed by sadness. We will miss her sorely!

Minutes, Tuesday Nov. 13

Hardy PTO Meeting Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012 6:30 – 8:00 AGENDA 6:30 Introductions 6:35 Principal’s Report Deb talked about the challenges from the many interruptions this fall. iPad carts have been purchased for the three schools housing Thompson students. This has helped with oversubscription of computer lab. 21 ipads on the cart. Classroom teachers received iPads, but unfortunately specialists did not; Deb took 6 ipads from the cart (27 originally) to give to specialists. Kevin Guiney asked if Town is offering help in use of ipads; Deb replied that there are monthly workshops. 6:50 Review of events/projects and planning for upcoming events: • Picture Day Hayward is waiting to hear from parents who want retakes before scheduling makeup day. Feedback from Picture Day tells us that we need to be better organized next time – e.g., take one class out at a time, rather than one whole grade. • Book Fair Mary reported that we made $9271 in sales, with proceeds of $1886; Eva: the two afternoons that went beyond the school day worked very well, would be a good idea to do one of these later in the week so parents have cottoned on to the fact that the Fair is going on. • Election Day Bake Sale Jenn reported that the bake sale worked out very well; her Brownies were “key”. We took in $950, and will split this with the Brownie troop. • Hoe Down Went well, but definitely need more volunteers; we decided that we need to streamline pizza selling, to avoid any confusion/upset on part of parents. • UNICEF collection • Hardy/Thompson Directory? Andy and Pete have started work on this; have put together google doc with every kid from this year, and what contact info we have; will contact room parents to fill in info; • Holiday Giving Tree? (Nov/Dec) Kristen Barnicle will be working with Deb and classroom teachers on this. • Menotomy Wine Tasting (Jan) - Jenn? Jenn is investigating renting the Whittemore house, to make this a bigger event; January is probably not doable; Jenn will report back in December on availability. • Winter Concert – PTO Breakfast (Feb) • Skating Party (March) • Int’l Festival (March) Gloria offered to help coordinate this with Milagros 7:20 Financial Report: • Annual appeal update Good news: we are at 91% of goal; bad news: only 68 contributions. We will send out a reminder appeal soon. • Other financial updates 7:45 Other business • Fundraising effort - Linda Flynn Date of next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, Dec. 4th

Minutes from Oct. 2 2012 PTO meeting

Hardy PTO Meeting Minutes Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012 6:30 – 8:00 Upcoming Events: • Ice Cream Social – thanks to all volunteers, good turnout; did not cover cost of ice cream yet; plan on second scooping for Friday, Oct. 5; possibly get 5th graders to help scoop. • Hardy/Thompson Directory Talked last year about doing directory in-house; need to find out what means we are allowed to use to collect data; Deb absent, so she can’t answer yet; will check with her about this. • Picture Day – Tues. Oct 16th, need volunteers to work with Lis Zimmerman, anyone? • Book Fair – scheduled for Oct. 22-25 Will put signupgenius into next Post; late days Monday and Tuesday; evening event: author coming to speak about his book (W, 6 - 8); will need cash box, small amount of money for supplies for book marks that kids will make; will offer assistance to kids identified by teachers; • Election day bakesale Coordinate with Girl Scouts; Jennifer Roderick will check with Michele Tirone and Chris Foster; • Hoe Down Friday, Nov. 2, 6:30 - 8:30; will serve pizza at 6; Marci will coordinate volunteers; Jill Swilling will coordinate bakers; • UNICEF collection for Halloween Betsey asked for help with Unicef collection this year; Julie offered to help; Financial Report: • Annual appeal update Appeal letter went out last Thursday; already at $3750 (plus a few checks not yet entered); almost half of donations through PayPal; • Other fundraising Andy reminded everyone about other sources (Target, Amazon, etc.); Jenn Forbes has taken over box tops, already collected 500 to submit; will put out one more reminder before Nov. 1 submission deadline; Lisa Paolillo suggested reinstating a raffle to encourage Box Top collection; • Pete suggested (prior to the meeting) that we encourage/remind families to take advantage of any matching programs their employers might offer Date of next PTO Meeting: Since the first Tuesday of next month is election day, the date was changed by unanimous consent to Tuesday, Nov. 13

Minutes from Sept. 18, 2012 PTO meeting

PTO Meeting minutes September 18, 2012 Overview of PTO Goals & Responsibilities: • Hope to create a welcoming environment, foster strong sense of community at Hardy, provided a general overview of social events, fees charged to cover costs, not to raise funds. • Fundraising: the appeal is our major, annual fundraiser. $15-20k raised annually. Walkathon may raise about 5k, etc. Funds are raised to enhance educational experience of our children as well as cover unanticipated school costs that the district may not be able to cover. • Utilizing funds: Last year several document cameras and projector equipment were bought with extra funds. PTO works closely with teachers to understand what is needed in the classrooms. • Ms. D’Amico provided positive feedback about the Hardy PTO PTO events: • Ice cream social: Sept 27th, 5:30pm on playground. Chilly cow sells ice cream at cost, in past we charge $1 per cup to cover costs. Signupgenius.com messages to be sent out for volunteers. Ms. D’Amico strongly suggests holding event outdoors only, not fair for kids when event is indoors. Set rain date for October 1st tentatively. • Back to School Night: Sept. 20th, 6-8pm – limited pizza will be sold in cafeteria at $2 per slice: set up at 5pm, start selling at 5:15 (until 5:45) • State law can’t serve certain foods until after 2:40 • Book fair: Oct. 22nd-26th. New vendor this year. Will need volunteers. • Hoe down: proposed Fri., Nov. 9th (Fri. before long weekend), back up date Friday Nov. 2nd. Kerry, Syl and Marci coordinating event. • January: Menotomy Wine tasting night • February: winter concert and breakfast (volunteers for baked goods) • Game night usually held in February • Literacy night: proposed date of March 5th (Dr. Seuss’ birthday) • International Festival – late March tentatively • Skating party – March • April: PTO nominations • Art Night event in spring • Teacher appreciation in May • Walkathon in April/May timeframe • Annual field day and BBQ in June • Thompson send-off party Financial report by Andy Forbes: • Field trips are one of the largest expenses, 8k last year • PTO also funds assembly performers/speakers, garden expenses, 3k towards library books, 2k for 5th grade graduation activities, $200 reimbursement for teacher out of pocket expenses, hardship fund (science camp), playground supplies as necessary, etc., etty cash for Ms. D’amico,1k for art events, Elmo document cameras for classrooms, and other expenses • Picture day as fundraiser for PTO, annual appeal, walkathon, box tops, stop & shop, target, amazon, etc. • Grants Mass Cultural Council – grant funding available • Bake sale on election day OK since school is closed. Approved food list provides guidelines for what food can be served during school day (separate guidelines for lunch program). • Thompson PTO provides $4,800 toward expenses • 9k excess, looking for way to invest it. • Arlington Education Foundation grants Teacher Reimbursement policy amendment: • Betsey shared a topic that was discussed at Hardy school council meeting regarding how to reimburse teachers for smaller classroom expenditures. Teachers typically buy supplies on a regular basis and may not bother to keep and/or submit receipts when they happen to grab something needed in the classroom as they do their personal shopping, for example. Motion made to allow teachers to request reimbursement for up to $20 without receipts if they provide an affidavit hat they spent he money on classroom expenses (and a brief description of expenditures if possible). Motion passed unanimously. Submitting receipts is still encouraged for majority of expenditures. Principal’s report: • Pleased with how everything worked out last year with additional Thompson students and staff. Expects another good year this school year. • Implemented a new “Mystery table” motivational program to promote positive cafeteria behavior – new target behavior each month, this month is to be respectful to lunch staff. • Each grade will have a special community responsibility this year: 5th graders to take care of recycling, 4th graders lost and found alley, 3rd graders will be responsible to organizing cleanup of playground on Monday mornings; 2nd grade will work on keeping tidy hallways and 1st graders and kindergartners will be responsible for caring for the Hardy garden. Next PTO meeting: Tues., Oct. 2nd from 6:30-8:00pm To do items: • Marci offered to call town hall re: replacing trees lost in microburst. • Ms. D’amico to contact DPW to fix depression in playground entrance which gets muds and ice.

Minutes from July 24 2012 PTO meeting

Hardy PTO Meeting Minutes Tuesday, July 24, 2012 Planning for SY2012/2013 • September – lots of events, need lots of volunteers o Before school: teacher lunch on 9/4, teacher breakfast on 9/5 – need bakers o Welcome coffees on 9/6 and 9/11 (kindergarten) - need bakers o Back to School Night – use Elmos to present • Discussed PTO organized events throughout the year – need organizers, please get in touch with Ned or Heather if you’re interested in helping out. Will try not to schedule events always on Thursdays. • New idea: Eva Bitteker suggested having parent breakfasts in kindergarten classrooms (maybe other grades) to facilitate parent connections/involvement (opp. to learn more about PTO activities) • Looking for grant writing expertise as well as in-house CPA for tax assistance Financial Report • Approx. 15k in bank account – need to spend down, possibility: in-house teacher grants, also can leverage AEF grants with PTO money • Decided to maintain benefactor rate at $150 and include details about what certain amounts fund • Will focus fundraising /appeal effort on expanding donor base • Did not receive sufficient field day t-shirt payments, need to collect in advance Field Trip Funding • Decided to continue funding field trips – should note cost per child of field trips in appeal letter and that we are the only school that fully funds field trips (makes parent’s lives a lot easier, etc.) Other business • Kate Kapstad asked if we should reconsider using Bookends. The group agreed continue with Bookends and request no toys. Next PTO Meeting: Tuesday, September 18 (allows for more time to get the word out to new families and kindergarten families)

June 5, 2012 meeting minutes

Hardy PTO Meeting AGENDA Tuesday, June 5, 2012 6:30 – 8:00 6:30 – Introductions & cookies • Minutes 6:45 - 7:20 – Events/Projects - have received some funding from aef requested money for ipads to make films about core values pilot it in 4th grade and then perhaps expand to other classes need more equipment such as a second ipad and accessories - need abt $2,000 for two classroom sets - approved contingent on seeking other funding for the ipads if not found, then money will be allocated by August 1st • Hardy Film Festival (Susan Bisson & co.) • Literacy Night debrief (Claire & Margaret) • Flower sale debrief (Cris) • Teacher appreciation debrief (Jill & Katie) • Walk-a-thon debrief will eliminate prizes for next year and will find some replacement • Colonial Day debrief • BBQ (June 13) still looking for volunteers • Field Day (June 15 – note the date change) Joe will no longer be here next year so we will need a new coordinator for next year 7:20 - 7:40 – Principal’s Report - last week she sent out letter to parents about next year current third grade will divide into five classes current 4th grade will get one additional teacher for three grades 7:40 - 7:50 – Money issues - andy reports that we have about $6,000 excess funds to spend. Deb reports that there are still 6 classrooms that do not have document cameras - deb has $4,000 left over she would therefore need $2,000 to get all the cameras needed motion to set aside an additional amount up to $3,200 for elmos. Approved • Appeal update • Spending committee - at tonights school council, deb passed out school budget - the money she gets from the district - $24,800 per year. Money that teachers spend out of their own pocket - around $500 per year this year we allocate $200 per teacher, but they have to submit reimbursements would we want to continue with this model, or shift to old model where we just gave them each a check for supplies also, do we want the PTO to continue to pay for field trips? 7:50 - 8:00 – Stuff we forgot to add to the agenda Date of Next meeting – Some time in July!!