PTSA Board
President - Erin Ambrozic and Katie Horton
Vice President - Carlos Ruiz
Secretary - Karli Warren
Treasurers - Tara V. Lee and Stephanie Johns
Committees:
Art Docent – Karli Warren (Co-Chair needed)
Auction – Tara Lee
Communications – Ashley Stafford
Community Outreach -
Family Engagement -
Trunk or Treat - Bethany Suhn
Fundraising –
Legislative –
Membership – Melissa Pointer
Staff Appreciation – Monica Ackerman/Becky Heinle
Strategic Partnerships – Nici Feldhammer
Talent Show – Karli/Hilary Paris & Suzie
Teacher/Staff Liaison – Adrienne Lentz
Website – Ashley Jones
Yearbook - Annie O’Toole
Legislative Report: Meghan Cichy
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Presidents Report: Erin Ambrozic and Katie Horton
Secretary-elect: Sara Molina
“Elect” position protocol: Official vote needed
Purpose: Elect-Positions are helpful for vacancies, accountability, sharing capacity
Does not have executive member voting rights but may step in for secretary if/when needed
Does not guarantee future role; nominating process still stands
Secretary only: Currently have two (co) presidents, vice president, and co-treasurers.
Member at Large - New Position (approved in September)
Goal: January onboarding
Need 2-3 people to be a VTF - “nominating committee” for potential candidates
Duties include monitoring emails for nominations, helping promote the position
Deadline for nominees: December 22nd
Vote/Approval of candidate: January meeting (if not before)
SWAG is here-ish!
Sweatshirts for sale today (crewneck, adult sizes)
Online store update: Tara
Highline Area PTA Council - Erin & Carlos attended 11/15
Spanish-speaking community connection events (Rosie)
January events: Bingo - most likely end of January
Committee Updates:
Staff Appreciation - Monica Ackerman/ Becky Heinle
Auction - Tara
First meeting Dec 12th - 7pm in library
Committee leads needed: Volunteer Coordinator
General auction help needed: Auction item procurement, Sponsorship procurement
Membership - Melissa Pointer
Vice Presidents Report - Carlos Ruiz
Secretary Report - Karli Warren (Sub Sara Molina)
Treasurer's Report - Tara Lee and Stephanie Johns
Bank Account Balance as of 11/29/23
Checking - $101,567.04
Savings - $40,038.69
Total - $141,605.73
Next fund raiser - SWAG and 2024 Auction (4/19/23)
Principal’s Report - Maggie Heater
Calendar Updates:
Bingo Night: end of January
Skate Night: 2/29 - Southgate Roller Skating Rink
Talent Show: 3/19 at the PAC ate TBD
International Day/Night: Spring
Auction: Friday, 4/19 at the Cove
Field Day - June 13th
5th Grade Graduation: June - evening before last day of school
MEETING MINUTES
7:02 pm start time
7:02 Discussion Question - If you could live in any fictional world, what would it be?
7:05 - recap movie night. Success, lots of North Hill students, very packed. Used budget for snacks and had extra to save for Marvista in future. Sound was a bit of an issue (too quiet)
7:07 - discussed secretary elect position. January 17th meeting we will have an election for secretary-elect and and member-at-large, so until then we will be recruiting people to nominate candidates. Proposing a list of nominees done by Dec 22. Monica Ackerman and Brian Jack have agreed to be on the vanishing task force to be the nominating committee.
7:13 - Marvista swag. Did a test run, have now updated website to be able to accept payment. Ready to start selling on the school website, but running into challenges accessing the school’s Paypal login. Hoping to have it up and running within the next week. Orders will be filled as placed and sent directly to purchaser, so PTSA doesn’t need to intervene. Kelly Stonelake suggested that we allow an option to add multiple phrases on the shirts (such as “Proud Parent” and “Marvista Alum” and upcharge for $10 extra for each line), however it’s unclear how feasible these customizations would be.
7:21 - Highline Area PTA Council, Erin and Carlos attended, were able to talk to some high schoolers about having a feeder event for high school in the future. Also discussed this idea with reps from other schools. Discussed with council about desire for Spanish-speaking community connection events. Rosie helped craft a survey that will go out to families to ask about facilitating connection among Spanish-speakers in the Marvista community. End goal may be to foster sense of community for Spanish speaking families here. Open to members reaching out to Erin or Carlos if they want to share ideas for this event. Separate future goal would be to also have a dual-language event. Discussed new Friday Spanish class offered for 2nd and 3rd graders from a grant that Marvista received. There were many applicants and not many spots open. Discussed future years goal to be able to provide Spanish language classes to more students at Marvista.
7:30 pm - Bingo night at Marvista, most likely at end of January
7:31 pm - Staff appreciation. Huge praise for Annika for her amazing spread in the staff room last month. Goal for December is to have 72 small gifts all wrapped and labeled with a number. Teachers will draw a number and get a gift. Gifts can be as small as $5 value or higher. Monica will make a spreadsheet for sign ups to donate gifts. Donors can wrap their own gifts and label them, or just donate them and we can coordinate a wrapping party. Sara Molina volunteered to wrap any gifts. Goal is to have this done by Monday December 18. Discussed using numbers to select gift and it sounds like many people think it may be best not to do that and to allow teachers to choose from any of the gifts they’d like. Still hashing this out.
7:39 pm - Auction, December 12th at 7 pm is a meeting to launch the auction committee and planning. Nici is sponsorship person, looking for new sponsors to get involved. Need a volunteer coordinator for the day of the event so that when people show up to help, they have someone who can tell them what to do instead of swamping down Tara. Meeting in December will go over what information is already decided and planned, and things to initiate. Need help with clean up crew for auction.
7:42 pm - Membership. Melissa Pointer has been researching this over the years to see what’s going on with membership. Slide showed the PTSA enrollment since 2015, with a steep decline in current membership. Membership and qualification for “low income” are not correlated, so it is likely not the cost of membership that is the barrier to people joining. Only 2 staff members are current members, however Melissa has a report about why staff involvement is important. Want to initiate a membership campaign to increase enrollment. Need to look into the amount of money that is raised each year by the PTSA and see how that may connect to membership. Would be great to have sign ups for PTSA at school events, as it is very difficult to connect with parents through the current channels. Maggie Heather suggested that we make a paper flyer to send home to families to join PTSA as there is significant electronic communication fatigue. It would be fun to do a classroom challenge to see which class gets the most parents to join.
7:56 - Treasurati report - Cash on hand is over $141,000 as of today (plus $500 in Paypal). $1500 made back so far from sweatshirt sales (roughly half of what we’ve spent). Employee matching has come through from multiple companies right now. Just made 3 year subscription to website cost.
7:58 - principal report - very busy last few weeks with conferences and report cards. Teachers are still getting accustomed to new grading system. Currently just holding it together until winter break. Extended a huge thank you for teacher appreciation spread last week. Questions about a giving tree for this year, and Erin reported that Mr. Ritsema has collected and donated gift cards in the past, however we have not yet heard about this from him for this year. Maggie is going to reach out to him and see if he’s doing it again and if we can spread the word and help collect money or gift cards for him.
8:05 end time