March 14th, 2024 - Meeting Minutes

Call to order – 6:01 PMRoll call 

Review of previous meeting minutes (M. Litven)

Motion to approve: Megan Angle

2nd: Jorge Mijares

Treasurer Report by T. Baker

Megan Angel shared that she is planning for a bubble bus for the end of year prize (pending approval from admin)

K. Baker asked if teachers would prefer for students to have time to see what the prizes are and have time to work towards them. Teachers agreed that would be a good idea.

Big Ticket Item Survey – will be rolled out and results shared with administration. 

Fundraising Orlando City SC Introduction by T. Baker – there will not be a competition with students, but students are able to earn on field experiences if we sell at least 50 tickets total.

Fundraising spirit night update by M. Litven, next night will be March 19. We make a percentage of sales regardless of mentioning the spirit night. 

Events by M. Angle

Sham Grams, dance recap, end of year carnival will be either May 17 or 18. May 17 was previously approved by the prior administration. Should be a family event. Snow cone party, we are waiting on admin to tell us what the schedule will look like. M. Litven asked for an update and Larsen said she will get with the leadership team to discuss. M. Litven mentioned making sure we are close to a power source. Movie night was introduced for March 28, all movies are PG so a concern was raised that this would be an issue since you must have parental consent. Shelbi Moore took the vote and Elemental won. Concessions will be sold again. Staff appreciation the PTO will provide breakfast and lunch, along with stocking the breakroom and there will be extra special surprises. 

Unfinished Business by T. Baker 

Open board positions, all are open as positions turn over each year. Nominations were opened. Shelbi asked about adding descriptions so people would know what is part of that position. M. Litven shared that she did not post on the initial post since other PTOs have a different structure and felt we should review each of those positions before finalizing them. M. Litven asked to discuss what positions we will be offering and if any are changed. T. Baker shared the way the middle school runs their PTO. Shelbi shared her concern about having fewer board members and trying to use more committee chair positions. M. Litven shared that she feels some people may be overwhelmed to take a board position and may be more open to a committee position as it has less time commitment. T. Baker mentioned leaving the position as is. J. Mijares mentioned making junior and senior positions, similar to a committee chair and board member cooperation. Shelbi mentioned merging positions. Megan mentioned leaving positions as is and seeing who we have run for positions. C. Andrews mentioned that she agrees with the level of commitment being overwhelming to think about and may scare people. She also recommended having events lined up in advance and allowing people to sign up in advance. Smith shared from a teacher standpoint that we came in to pick up the pieces and now we need to do it from day 1 and hoping parents will see and want to step in to help. Shelbi shared that the hope with the dance and end of year carnival will demonstrate what families can expect and they will want to be a part of it. Carla asked about sending information home, t. Baker shared that we were told it was not approved by the previous administration. Larsen asked why it was not permitted before and Smith and Olenick also shared they did not understand why things were not permitted to be sent home since previous schools they had worked at allowed it. Shelbi asked what permissions are needed to go back to posting in 3 languages, Melissa shared that the previous communications board members were able to translate as there were more of them, but we do want to get back to providing information in multiple languages. There is currently a program being utilized by the PTO that will translate into the preferred language when Melissa is posting. Jorge shared that we will put forth the effort to proof the posts in different languages. Shelbi has people who are willing to translate in their native language. Melissa shared that the PTO stopped also since OCPS stopped posting in multiple languages. Moving forward Shelbi will work to get those who have volunteered to translate to work with us. Posts will be in English and there will be captions below that are in 3 different languages by Jorge.

New Business – none at this time

Next meeting April 11 at 6PM

Olenick asked about the silent auction and Megan let her know it was canceled because we have been so successful in fundraising that the manpower was better to be spent on other events. Jory shared that the teachers had not started talking about the auction and raising funds. T. Baker mentioned possibly bumping the teacher appreciation up more next year and allowing for more fundraising by the grade levels. Melissa asked about doing something for classified staff on April 2 as it is a national recognition day. Megan asked if we pushed an email out to teachers and had them make cards and letters for the classified staff. T. Baker mentioned a gift card provided as well. Smith mentioned designating a type of staff for each grade level. Megan mentioned sending out an email on March 25 with information for the teachers. Megan will head that up and Olenick got clarity on what will be expected. The PTO will provide a gift card for each as well.

Andy Clark asked about the child that was hit and what the PTOs position is with that. Tim mentioned that we are limited to being on school property and we can not do anything outside of the fence line. Melissa stated that the PTO is here to support the school so we want to support what the school decides on. Shelbi mentioned we have had conversations in the past about providing a safety event sponsored by the PTO. Melissa shared the middle school had an event today where a program came out to the school to give free helmets and how we spoke with the middle school about doing a safety event at the start of the school year for 2024-2025. Olenick suggested that summer is an excellent time and could be the same day as meet the teacher. Shelbi mentioned she had talked about having a bike shop come out and trying to make it fun. Shelbi stated that she has spoken to a gentleman a few times about what to do and how to make things safer. Jorge asked Larsen if there was a way the school could reach out to the county to see if they could come provide rumble strips. Larsen said she can ask and they have been out to look and assess. Since the county is who oversees everything outside of the school it would be up to the county. Megan mentioned Story Grove may do something since it was just handed over to the people. Larsen said when she asked the safety director he gave the answer that we are limited on how to work on parent behavior outside of the school grounds, she was recommended to be consistent with the messaging and keep pushing it out via Connect Orange. The high school SRO is willing to come and help on days that he can. Positioning of the elementary school SRO car was also spoken of, but that is up to the SRO at the school. Andy Clark mentioned the high school SRO shared that you should go online and file a complaint about the area. Larsen shared the site is trafficcomplaints.com and Olenick shared that Nicole Wilson’s office responds quickly. Melissa shared she had a concern about kids not being placed in car seats and there are not any inside of the vehicle. Shelbi mentioned she had a conversation about car seat safety and some safety vehicles out for an event in a prior conversation she had with someone. Jory shared that families from other countries may not have the same safety requirements and the education piece is key. 

Motion to Adjourn by Megan at 7:14 PM

Second by Shelbi