PTA Meeting Notes for MAY 2024

May 16, 2024

Members Present: 16

Principal’s Report: Corey Hafey

• Small but Mighty!!! Thanks for being here today!

• BIG Thank You to our PTA! You guys are AWESOME!!!

• Panorama Study – Our kids believe in our school, they feel connected. Usually in the 99th percentile nationally – The atmosphere here is good and the students love Appleton.

• Teacher Appreciation – WOW!!!!!

• Thank you, ladies, for the amazing work during the week. We appreciate you so much.

• Field Day – Everything is ready to go!

• Games are set, everything has been bought – Thank You PTA!

• Troy Behrens, Appleton Parent – Donated a $2,000 professional photo booth. He will work with Camille to get it set up and ready to use. They will try it out at 5th Grade Graduation

• Thank you to our teachers – Todd & Corey have been talking to teachers and there were so many changes this year – New curriculum, talking classes, etc. Our teachers are constantly learning and training.

• We will have a great finish to the year!

• No staff changes at this time.

Financial Report: Brooke Bray

• We had some expenses come in. At $44,000 right now – Good standing at this time!

• Art Night – Didn't really make any money. We spent about $700 for this Community Event.

• Difference? No Silent Auction this year

• Summer Reading Program prizes have been bought. Should be around $3,000

• We may need to revisit our Line-Items for next year because things have been more expensive this year.

• Question – Colorado PTA – Do we need to pay into this?

• Brooke will look into this.

• Corey - HMH (New Curriculum) requires Smart Boards – We couldn’t teach without them! Thanks to our PTA for purchasing them for every classroom

• Corey - Appleton is about 40% Free & Reduced Lunch. Other schools that meet 50%, get money through “Title Funds.” We rely on our PTA for additional support.

• April F. - Business Partnerships – More people may want to be a part of the Appleton Tee-shirt sponsorships next year.

• Joe K – In charge of the Business Partnerships.

• We restructured the partnership tier system this year.

• We can reach out to businesses early on next year. Please let Joe know if you know of someone who might be interested in a partnership

• Joe wants to send out an email/video to all past sponsors

• Facebook – We need to revamp our system and figure out our “Admin Accounts” – Who can add things to our FB?

• We have two different accounts – Appleton PTA and Appleton Elementary

• We need to make these better! There was some conversations about how to improve our social media presence.

Vice-President Vote:

• We did not elect a VP last month.

• Is anybody willing to be the VP for next year?

• Venessa Bradley – Will be gone in November next year, but otherwise is willing

• April F - Motion to elect Venessa for VP

• Brooke B – Second

• All Agree; No opposed!

• New Appleton PTA Vice President – Venessa Bradley

Restaurant Nights: Krisi Gustad

• Graff Dairy – May 22nd 9:00 a.m.- 9:00 p.m.

• Just mention “I’m with Appleton!” and we will get credit

• This is Field Day – So go for an ice cream after a busy day!

• Next Year – Changing to one per quarter. Just do a select few and hopefully they will do better.

• Krisi will continue to organize these this for next year.

• Question – Have we talked to Panda Express?

Summer Reading Program: Krisi Gustad

Where: Mesa County Public Library

When: Thursdays; 4:00 – 5:30

• May 30, June 13 & 27, July 11 & 25

• Info at appletonpta.com

** Can we get the flyer into the parent email next week? Corey will!

** We need volunteers to sign-up and help each check-in night

** Krisi may need help hauling stuff to the library

*Venessa Bradly can probably help!

Next School Year:

• Back to School Night – August 6; 4:30 – 5:30

• PTA Table set up to get parents to sign up – Maybe not needed?

• Sell Tee-Shirts! Maybe set up in the library or lunchroom (out of the hallway!)

• Corey will work on this to have it set up

*** Jackie Keogh – We need an inventory of tee shirts!  Todd will talk to her!

• Push Business Sponsorships

• Could there be a QR Code for parents to scan? It could go to our PTA website and then direct parents to the donation site.

• Jared & Joe will look into this

• Joe – Get a poster board to advertise the tier system for business sponsorships – Include a QR Code?

• Final Summer Learning Check-In and prizes

• Kindergarten tee-shirts – Such a great gift!

• Parent Information Night – August 15th ; 5:30 – 6:35 p.m.

• Have a table set up to share PTA information

• Teachers could share the QR Code for sponsorships this night also

• Joe & Jared will work on this.

• Carnival – Friday, September 6th; 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

• Katie Johnson – Helped a bunch last year. She would rather not coordinate the Silent Auction. We need a “Silent Auction Coordinator!”

• Amanda & Lacy – Pick up donations once they are secured

• Corey has a list of parents to help with gathering auction items. Picking them up and bringing them in.

• Venessa Bradley – Has a list of contacts

• She can take control of this and work on it.

• Hillbilly Grill – It’s worked great in the past

• Jared thinks she is holding this date

• PTA paid for staff to eat in 2023. They will do that again for us this year. 😊

• Jared will coordinate with Hillbilly Grill & will provide music outside

• Moving Karaoke to the music room – It was too much with the Silent Auction and karaoke all upstairs.

• Looking Ahead -

• Have a PTA Board+ Meeting in July to set up carnival

• Invite anyone involved in the carnival

• Tuesday, July 23rd at 4:10 p.m.  – Appleton Library

Other thoughts, Ideas, Etc.:

• April F. - We need to figure out Volunteer Participation in PTA. This is hard because it’s the same people doing all of the same things. Don’t know what the answer is, but we need to do something to get more people/families involved.

• Jared – This year for carnival, we had an on-line sign-up and that worked a bit.

• Liz G. - At the first BIG PTA meeting, we could have posters with all of our main events listed. Parents could sign up right then and give us their information.

• Corey – A checklist at Parent Info Night for parents to sign-up for specific events. April – We have a list already!

• C. Crone – We need to build relationships better and get more people that want to participate. We need people to buy-in to better our Appleton community.

• Corey will work on this for the beginning of the school year. We already have a list that can be used as a starting point.

• Our school/staff uses a committee system to run our school because Corey & Todd can’t do it all. We need to work toward this for PTA.

• Jared – We can make a video to tell people to “Get Involved!”

• We have a “Get Involved” tab on the website. We need to get people to sign up and then have a way to follow-up with them.

• April – That’s some good ideas

• She will reach out to another school and try to figure out what they do to bring in more volunteers.

• Vanessa B – We need information out ahead of time so parents can decide if they want to or can help

• Corey – Everything takes a champion!  We need a big push at the beginning of the year to get people involved.

• Nikki – Maybe a hi-bred PTA meeting  in person and virtual so parents can join in wherever they are. If they connect with us online, they may decide to help out in other ways too.

• Jared – Communication is vital – If parents sign up to help, we need to reach out to them right away to connect.

• Also, we need a way to thank parents for their “service” and share with them what they were a part of – highlights of the event.

• Corey – This is a system where we can improve!

Corey –

• Thank you to Venessa for jumping in to support PTA as VP!

• Thanks to everyone for their work this year. Appleton is a great school because of our amazing PTA!