Minutes from Parent Teacher Club Meeting November 14, 2024

PTC Meeting Minutes
Thursday, November 14, 2024 Meeting Began: 6:05pm

Principal Report given by Linda Staples (Principal Holmstrom unable to make it)
We had a power outage last Friday. On top of that, our fire alarm went off. The fire department arrived within five minutes to inspect the building. Everything was checked out and they pinpointed where the heat notice was coming from. The inspector said a bug could have crawled into the reader since it didn’t register any problems.

Vandalism: One person has been to court so far. Everything has been taken care of. We had a donation from Candelaria and a personal donation from a citizen in the community, which was so kind. The school district has their own insurance so Englewood was covered as far as fixing all the damages and replacing stolen items.
Local news KGW covered our school pumpkin donation day. The video was watched at our meeting. 350 pumpkins were donated, one for each of our students. It’s the fourth year that this past student has donated pumpkins to our school. We are so honored to have his support. It was nice to have a positive event after the break-in. It brought a lot of joy.

Our Panda Express Fundraiser was a great success. Total event sales: $1659.73. Amount raised for Englewood: $829.87.

Chess for success is going well, it’s week two. There is a waitlist.

Soccer is going well; it is also very full. They should be getting their t-shirts distributed this week, so that they can practice with their shirts and keep their jerseys clean for games.

Principal Holmstrom received a large donation of books which she has begun handing out to students who win awards.

Planning VIP store and assemblies: The character trait of the month is introduced at assemblies to inspire students.

Thinking Maps Training - staff
Mrs. Shaffner:
Thinking maps is a way to help students organize information from their head onto paper. There are eight different maps and use you a different map depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, such as compare and contrast or brainstorming. It’s for kindergarteners through fifth grade. It will prepare them for state testing and helps them gather information and organize it. My son has dyslexia, and we used it in Hawaii and it helped him so much it was amazing. It’s really an awesome and amazing technique and it’s going to make a big difference for our kids.
We are working on our perimeter fence that will keep kids in and keep others out. We do have people who wander onto school property from the park, sometimes not realizing they are on school property during school hours. We are one of many schools being considered for a new playground and we have not heard back yet. Our playground is not up to code and it is time for a new one. Our playground is also on city property, and a solution should be worked out by January. We have our fingers crossed we’ll be able to update our playground equipment.

Music programs are in full swing. Orchestra, 11/7
Honor Choir - 11/19 @ 7:00 - NSHS
Room 14 and 15 - 11/21 @ 6:30 - Englewood Gym 
Super Singers Choir 12/4 @ 12:00 - Downtown Mall Disney Dress-up Day - Tomorrow, 11/15
No school - November 27th - 29th, Thanksgiving Holiday Grading Day, December 6th- No school

Budget:
Budget is looking good. We’re at 19,662.93. Our goal in the next two months is to organize our budget for next year, setting estimates for each event so that we know how to plan ahead and what we’ll be able to accomplish for our students. We might want to bring pancake breakfast back or move Bingo night to the fall and have something in the spring. It will also help with transparency about what’s going on with our expenses. Our Jog-a-thon brought in about
$12,000.00.

Bill, our new treasurer, has created a new format for keeping track of the budget. The old one was no longer working. Every purchase the PTC makes will now be linked with a receipt or teacher buck. It will be much more organized and easy to see what’s happening. We want to use more of our budget this year instead of having so much carry over. We’ll see what else we can do for our students to make sure that it’s going back to the kids who raised the money.

Book fair is going on now, tell your friends. We don’t usually opt for cash, but instead use the profit for scholastic dollars for the school. It will be open before our Movie Night and perhaps after.

Question: Has the book fair ever been done during conferences? Yes, in the past we have had it open during conferences.

Mrs. Musick, School Counselor:
I am taking over this year as school counselor since we lost our beloved Mr. Kanne to Alaska. He is very happy there, so that’s great.
We use a national, comprehensive school program. A little about me, I have my BA from UO in Fine Arts and Education. I stayed home with my kids when they were little and came back to Englewood about four years ago. I started back in the Special Education. My main goal was to be an art therapist and I evolved as I started working in schools. I am currently in a Masters program at OSU and I’ll be done soon. The mission is to help students feel seen and loved for who they are. Equity, inclusion and respect is our goal. I provide counseling for those who have trouble getting to school or are chronically absent. We utilize the Character Strong Program, which focuses on a character trait each month. This month is responsibility. We send a survey out to teachers and ask what is going on in the classroom, what do you need support in. For example, in 4th and 5th grade we have an issue with respect for each other and calling names. We have been working on a bullying and inclusion lesson with them. It’s a three to four week series. Additionally I help with 504 plans in general education, and ADD. I provide extra support for parents to make sure they are getting the support they need by connecting them to services in our community. I can do crisis management if needed. I don’t do a lot of individual counseling; I mostly focus on small groups, friendship groups, anger and self-control groups.  It’s so good to learn together, those have been fun. We also have lunch bunches. At our assemblies we introduce a new Character Strong Trait. It’s been a really great start to the year. It’s been a pretty positive group this year. We love Mrs. Holmstrom. She brought a wonderful energy to this school.

Question: Is there a way that parents can support the work you do?
I think being open to communication with the school is really helpful. Just building that relationship with teachers. If you feel that there is an issue we can help with, we want you to let us know. That connection with home and school is really helpful. Let us know if something is going on in your kid’s life. If they missed breakfast or didn’t get enough sleep. It really helps the staff to know what’s going on in their student’s life that might make their day or week more difficult.
For example, we have two families that had to put their dogs down. We really do care and we want to know about that stuff since it can affect kids at school for sure. Those kids might need extra support. You can email Linda, their teacher or the counselor. You can call the school if that works better.
Question: I don’t know as a parent how much is too much communication.
Mrs. Musick: It’s up to you. Don’t ever feel like you’re oversharing. Feel free to reach out always. I have a kid here too and I’m in the neighborhood if you need support.
Question:  4th -5th grade mix. Concerned about the social/emotional effects of this mix on kids. Is anyone paying special attention to that split class dynamic.
Mrs. Musick: It is challenging for teachers, having those blended classes. It’s challenging in so many ways. Fourth graders are still in that little kid phase. I’m going into classes this year and teaching social emotional classes with them. Teachers survey their main issues to address. I build lessons around that. Split classes are just tough. We went into it this year knowing that it’s tough so we have extra eyes.

PTC President:
Jog-a-thon went really, really well this year. We got the final numbers: around $12,000.00 was raised. Now, having done the jog-a-thon two years in a row, it seemed easier this year with our great team. It is a lot of work. We may structure our prizes a little differently next year. We spend about $3,000 on the event between prizes, shirts, and supplies. The awards are a lot of fun. It was fun to see them celebrate their success. It was a good year.
Movie night is tomorrow. We’re watching Coco. We did purchase a movie license. We could potentially do another movie night, we’ll see how this one goes. You can bring your own snacks, drinks, etc. It is just an Englewood community event. Not a community event. You can bring people but they need to be family, and please don’t post the event on Facebook. We are expecting 150-200 people. We’ll have chairs, you can bring a blanket. Book fair will be open at 4:45. We’ll have popcorn, pizza, candy, gatorade.

We now have a PTC Website that Bill Holmstrom has put together for us. Englewoodptc.com. It’s live and Bill donated the cost of the website this year ($200). It should help families to see what the PTC is working on, events to volunteer for and how/where to sign up. Families can see our budget and what it’s being spent on. We’ll have pictures up of students at events. It will be a cool way to keep parents in the loop.

The end of our meetings are open for questions. We’ll provide notecards at the next meeting for those who would like some, if that helps.

For events, only approved volunteers can volunteer for our school events. Make sure to complete a background check if you plan on volunteering in the future.

Meeting Adjourned: 6:55pm
Next Meeting will be 12/12/24 from 6-7pm