Chestnutwold Parent Teacher Organization (PTO)

Sept 17th, 2025

Attendees: 6 board members, 29 attendees, Mrs. Leach, 2 Kindergarten Teachers

Phoenix Fun Day 9/26 - Fun event with inflatables, DJ, Raffles. We need volunteers, bake sale donations. Pre-order pizza by Monday. Last year we raised over $7,000 for the PTO
Trunk or Treat coming up - Sign up to give out candy and decorate your car (sign up form will be available soon)

10/24 - the Friday before Halloween, and that will be from 630 to 730 in the school parking lot

First assembly this year - Little Circus
Hoping to have two assemblies in the spring as well
Looking for a bake sale lead to help coordinate Election Day Bake Sales
Coming up in November - Young Writer’s day - authors come and present to students. We’ll be looking for volunteers to escort authors to the classrooms
Book Sale will be looking for volunteers as well
Looking for a new lead for Art in the Classroom, possibly Music in the Classroom as well. Students who participate in that will get an extra piece in the art fair
Homeroom helpers - still looking for volunteers
Box tops - easy way to help raise money for the school

We have three paid clubs, which are from outside organizations. There's a fee to join and registrations on our first come first serve basis .
Registration is open for our volunteer-led Fall In-school clubs. Registration closes on 9/22 at 10pm.

These are free for any student who gets into the club. It is not first come, first served. We ask that you put your child's preferences down, and then Sandy will work really hard to accommodate as many people into their top preferences as possible. Sometimes we have to go to a random draw for particularly popular clubs.
You'll find out early October, which club you were able to get into.

In an effort to organize those events, we wanted to put a committee together who would be the liaisons for the fifth grade teachers, who largely drive the fifth grade events, to give them 4 parents to help funnel everything through, be a go-between between us and them, and help organize efforts.
Ideally, two fourth grade volunteers and two fifth grade volunteers (those two 4th grade parents would have a very small role in their first year, but possibly take over and be the 5th grade representatives, the second year)
Our hope is that the tradition continues, and when you're in fifth grade, fourth grade parents step up so that you can enjoy the play and the graduation ceremony, and things like working the basket raffle table is handled by your fourth grade counterparts. We're pretty excited about just organizing the efforts and bringing back that spirit of the help from the fourth graders to support the fifth grade activities.

Treasurer needed for this year - reach out if you’re interested! We have to fill this position to be able to fulfill our bylaws. Please reach out if you want to learn more about the position!

Our intended second your treasurer moved out of the district and could not serve on the board.

Chestnutwold PTO is about community - that is all of you. It is all of us working together to put on things for kids. There are tons of opportunities, some are behind the scenes, not all are during/after school hours.

Just a reminder for everyone when we talk about the Chestnutwold community or when you hear us talking about these things that we're putting on, it really doesn't happen without the wonderful people in this room and those who have already agreed to volunteer with us. Thank you to everyone who has already volunteered for something!

https://www.chestnutwoldpto.org/s/FY26-PTO-Budget.pdf
Spirit wear - we’ve had a stockpile of inventory (from previous year budgets). We’ve made a conscious effort to reduce inventory. We still make a small margin of what’s sold online
Field trip funds help to offset the cost of the student trip cost
Currently no plans for a spring adult event (parent prom last year was fairly low attendance)
Budget has been approved

Busy time of year - thanks for everyone who came out tonight
Read the Smore on Fridays, PTO blast on Mondays - this will give you the most information about what’s going on at Chestnutwold
First assembly to start the year - Morning Meeting Assembly - all the kids sit in a big circle, run by the teachers. “I Believe That I Can” is the theme this year
Fire drill and bus evacuations were already done this year. Will share when we have done a lockdown drill, but not for fire drills.
Aimweb and MAPs testing run by data and child study team - beginning of the year assessments inform how students are placed in WIN groups. (WIN time = what i need time) WIN groups start at the end of Sept/beginning of Oct for 6-8 weeks. Teachers and data teams meet and discuss at this point to make sure kids are getting the right support. Mid-year there are assessments again, 6-8 weeks later another round of review, and then an end-of-year assessment.
Teachers invited to PTO meetings so teachers can share to rest of the staff, and share something with attendees (what’s going on in your child’s class)

Thanks for coffee & pastries
K working on identifying letters, sounds, fluency, writing, sight words (lots of songs to remember). At home - kids can be sight words detectives. Ask questions about characters and what happens beginning/middle/end when reading
K Math - looking at shapes, things are the same, almost the same (attributes of shapes), counting up to 5. Problem-based curriculum, very hands-on. At home, you can look at patterns, categorizing, noticing numbers out in the world

First meeting is October 13th, then will meet with the Superintendent, Principal, school district representatives, various people from across the district, other district PTOs, board members. Great way to hear and learn what’s happening at other schools in the district
Email will be sent out after it happens
Anyone who has discussion points for the IDC can reach out