Attendees: Ms. Leach, 2 first grade teachers, 6 board members, 7 attendees
Welcome & PTO Highlight of the Month
First of the PTO volunteer raffles - close to 1,000 entries!
Your name has been entered if you volunteered at PFD, bought raffle tickets, were a sponsor/donated to attend, are a homeroom helper, led a club, attended the October PTO meeting, participated in the pretzel fundraiser, or donated/volunteered with the PTO in any other way shape or form in September or October!Winner of the first volunteer raffle - Kemp Family - music teacher for the class! (Thank you Mrs. Esposto)
Next meeting will be Art teacher for the class
Vote to Approve Minutes from Last Meeting - APPROVED
Recap and Upcoming Events and Activities
Trunk or Treat - cars get more creative every year, fun to see the kids having a great time. 5:30-6:30 is a good timeslot. Thank you to Chrissy leading and all of our volunteers
Phoenix Family Fun Night was a huge success! We wanted to do something that involved our teachers’ families and school community families together. Credit to Ms. Martin for her brainstorming for this idea. Excited to try and keep it going. Great to also tie in our theme this year and enjoy screen-free activities
Halloween parties were a great success despite some hiccups with homeroom helper communication - we have some ideas to help things run more smoothly for the next party. We appreciate everyone’s hard work
Bake sale and Clothing Drive - thank you Kate for leading
We raised $587 for the bake sale, $149 for the clothing drive
All table volunteers who signed up came for their shift, but we do sometimes run into issues with baked good volunteers not following through. May try to be more targeted with donations (eg. focus on donuts and coffee) and try to start earlier in the day. We could try this in May when it’s a less busy election. Most people were looking for either donuts, coffee or soft pretzels. We didn’t have a lot of baked goods.
We have lots of leftover bagged snacks and drinks from PFD - Could think about selling bagged snacks and drinks at the sporting events like flag football
First Pretzel delivery this Friday - thank you to our family donor who purchased pretzels for the entire school this month. If anyone has allergy questions, you can reach out to Sarah (see PTO website). We’ve had good participation from families so far
Young Writer’s day is Nov 13 - authors, writers, storytellers come in and tell the students what they do, and inspire the kids.
final emails go to authors this week. 2 for first grade this year.
We could use a few more parent volunteers to act as escorts. (Ok if you can’t stay the full time)
Learning Express Fundraiser 11/16-20 - 20% of purchases will go to the PTO. Excludes legos and gift cards
Holiday Market 12/6 from 10-3. We have over 50 vendors signed up, application closes on 11/8. This year we’ll have Carmona mobile food truck as well. We’ll start sharing vendor info as we get closer. We still need volunteers to help with decorating/setup and running a kids craft table during the market
Book Fair week of 12/7. Family nights on 12/8 and 12/10 from 6-7:30. Every class will get the chance to shop during the school day. Will be sending info about setting up ewallets and volunteering
Dig Inn ‘Dine and Donate’ 12/11- will be tied to report cards being released. 30% of sale goes back to the PTO
1/18 - MLK day of service - need a co-lead! Mainly need help to coordinate with the service component
2/26 - In-person talent show (at Chestnutwold in the evening, exact time TBD). We have a chair but will need additional volunteers - start spreading the word!
Assembly and Club updates
Extreme Science 2.0 assembly - kids loved it (from what we heard)
Putting together ideas for spring assemblies now
Fall clubs are wrapping up this month. We are working on what will be offered after winter break. Would love to have more parent-led clubs.
Will have a new session of Wolf Pac, Spanish Exploradores, Chess club and Yoga club.
Chatter, Roots and Shoots continue into the winter
New winter clubs - slime-making, watercolor painting, bowling. Lego club will continue as well.
Additional Volunteer opportunities:
Arts in the Classroom - ongoing opportunity to bring any art/music/STEM-related skill to your child’s classroom.
If multiple parents sign up, you don’t have to coordinate - totally optional! Also if there are no open slots please reach out
Kids get super excited to have parents in and do hands-on activities
Teacher Appreciation - sign up on the website
Intra-District Council Updates - PTO reps meet with Dr. Hayes each month.
PTOs are now a ‘school-affiliated’ organization which should improve communication via the school. PTO will now need to provide additional info to the district (specific initiatives that PTO dues support, which will help show what are building-specific initiatives vs district-wide needs). Also looking to see where ideas are coming from (school vs PTO).
Legislative changes happening (bell to bell phone policy, 30-min recess requirement)
Board will be reporting on AI/Tech plan every other month at school board meetings (next one will be mid-December). Communication will be shared soon about school AI policies (ex. Pictures of students are never added to AI platforms) and guidelines for families
November IDC topic will be focused on AI/Tech - please reach out if you have questions you’d like IDC to lead. Other upcoming topics are Belonging, Counseling and Career Services, Beyond High School.
Detailed IDC notes will be shared in the blast
Principal’s Remarks
5th grade books and bagels this friday - 5th grade ELA teachers choose a novel to read along with parents. Socratic seminar where parents discuss the book alongside their child (mimics what is done in class)
Week of 11/16 - American Education Week - this year families will not be coming into the classroom to visit (district comms will be coming out soon about this)
11/23-25 - Conferences
Report cards come 2 weeks after conferences (week of 12/11)
First grade Teachers’ Remarks - Ms. Tallon and Ms. Bieter
Staff loved the snack cart - it was a huge hit and very much appreciated by everyone in the building
Teachers are excited for the pretzel fundraiser kick-off this week
As we start November, we wanted to share our gratitude for the many ways the PTO supports our teachers and staff
This year we’re focusing on 11 different executive function skills. What it looks for 1st grade:
Sustained Attention - staying focused/engaged on a task - we talk about what this looks like, do a read aloud.
Things we can do at home - have kids stop, look and listen to get full attention before giving a direction (we have a ‘direction director’ in the classroom)
Teaching kids to self-check if they’re starting to get off-track
Try to make sure they’re paying attention, try to do movement breaks, smaller bites of information at a time etc. - can try to practice this at home as well
Executive Function updates are coming in the Counselor’s Connection newsletter