<p>Forest Avenue Home & School February Meeting Minutes – 02/04/15 FAS Multipurpose Room</p><p>Officers in Attendance: Duval Graham, Pam Linden, Tara Arnett, Cheryl Bendel and Alexandra Spritzer Principal: Matthew Murphy Board of Ed: Tracey St. Auburn Teachers: Jenna Tripsas, Jody Walsh HSA meeting started at 7:05 pm</p><p>Treasurer’s Report (Cheryl Bendel)  Operating budget unencumbered funds $5,891.14  $4500 Winter Discovery income  $3000 Food Days income  Special Enrichment money still available $7990.  Finally got our raffle license</p><p>Principal’s Report (Mr. Murphy)  Starting to talk about and look into the facility. Here are some things we are looking at and would like to address:  Main Entrance: brighter, cleaner looking. Seal brick and paint it in a way that it will last. Stair treads for safety.  Change flooring on 1st floor brighter tile and redo carpet  Multipurpose room – make it more comfortable with more 21st century tools. o Will look under drop ceiling and possibly restore cathedral ceiling. Change AC system to work more efficiently. o Will share info as it becomes available. o Going to get the old computer pod out. o Hoping for new computers, new items for inside recess – things that will enrich the kids on a day to day basis  IXL delayed. System is set up though. Developed FAS website to link to. Now helping teachers to set up their class list. o Launch material next week. Username, passwords, and instruction will be posted on website  Mrs. Perrotta will be covering for Mrs. Bendin over the next 7 weeks  Character building assemblies – focus was on fairness. Redefining fairness. We all have strengths and challenges and teaches that we all get what we need. “The Crayon Box that Talked”. Dressed up as crayons for the students. Every 6-8 weeks we do an assembly like that.  “Be a Smart Cookie” program with Mrs. Fagan  Friday, Feb 6 will be our first Firefly Spirit Day</p><p>Page 1 of 5 BOE Report (Tracey St. Auburn)  Reorganized, Betsy Ginsberg serving again as President.  Passed a number of new and updated policies that have been passed down from the state.  Budget coming up – March. Not likely to get any more state aid than years past.  Presentation on PARCC Feb. 24 RAS Auditorium. Urging everyone to come out if you have any questions.</p><p>Faculty Report (Mrs. Walsh & Ms. Tripsas)  Thank you for the planetarium. The kids and teachers really liked it.  Thank you for IXL.  2nd grade – will be learning about landforms.  Looking forward to 2nd grade promotion. Started interviews for the yearbook.  Reading buddies program started. 2nd graders come down to the 1st grade to read together, and some 1st graders read with K’s  1st grade – Black History Month, Women’s month, 100th day of school, Valentine’s Day. February always a very busy month.</p><p>President’s Report (Duval Graham)  Artware – Tiles to be displayed in a school in Nepal. For your child’s tile to go to the school, a $15 fee is necessary. $10 for production and $5 will go directly to the school.  Mrs. Burns has accepted frames that H&S had purchased a few years ago (60). o She will be using them for a 2nd grade project where the students will do portraits of themselves as heroes. The donation will help us put the grant money into other uses.  Linden Ave is working with a new company Montclair Chocolate Works. o Together we decided to do a little fundraiser for Valentine’s Day – 10% of sales will go to our schools. The Woofoo form says Linden, but they will share the profits with Forest.  2nd Grade – informally reached out to the teachers to see if they were interested in bringing back the Meteorologist  Teacher Wish Lists – setting funds aside for teacher’s requests. o Still working on the potential way of allocating the special enrichment money. Not quite sure how the process would work just yet, but working on this with Mr. Murphy. Also open to more conversation on the topic.  Giveback Event – Movie Screening at RAS auditorium on March 21. Small, free event and likely serving pizza.  Box tops due February 23, first day back from break. Keep collecting over the summer months as well.</p><p>Page 2 of 5 Enrichment (Amy Meyers & Pam Linden)  Mr. Murphy has done an amazing job getting feedback from our teachers and parents were asked to give feedback in a survey that went out to parents to use in structuring our programs for next year (60 responses so far) Will keep it open for a bit longer.  Schedule is packed, but we could integrate a multicultural dance performance into the April 24 World Culture workshop. Mr. Murphy has agreed this would be a good addition. o Asking for $1,500. Vote: Cara Sweet makes motion; Jennifer Loeb seconds. All in favor: YES</p><p> Looking at ideas to help plan for enrichment spending: o Additional field trips . Mr. Murphy talking to teachers to see if they want this and if we have time. Pre – K nature center $500, 2nd grade to Natural History Museum $2200 o Teacher request fund ($200/each teacher=$3800) o Keyboarding class for 2nd graders next year $3700 o Non-enrichment items: . Proper sign in front of the school $2000-2500  Mr. Murphy has an issue with visitors not aware of which door is the main door to use  Nicole remembers we tried a while back and got pushback from the Historical Society  We have more due diligence to do before we can vote . Additional bottle filling station cafeteria level $1350  Not likely to be addressed by District any time soon </p><p>Q. What is the feedback from 2nd grade teachers on the keyboarding class? A. Ms. Tripsas – yes, very valuable skill especially preparing for PARCC next year. The more exposure the better. Some you can definitely tell. Mr. Murphy will be curious to hear feedback from 3rd grade teachers.</p><p>Feedback on Fieldtrips (from staff):  Costly (especially to the city)  2nd grade pow-wow yearly trip – various locations  Mrs. Walsh – We have had all-school fieldtrips to Turtleback Zoo and Liberty Science Center in the past. Mrs. Walsh liked the zoo.  Mr. Murphy – will have to look at safety which was a big issue when they went in the recent past. Will discuss with teachers as an agenda item.</p><p>Page 3 of 5  Suggestion by Anne Brown to investigate local opportunities: Art Garage, MAM. Garden Tour, Van Vleck</p><p>Dr. Seuss (Rennae Pelayo)  Teachers will choose 1 or 2 book/snack combinations. 15 to choose from. 6 are new from last year including returning favorites are back and those that were not well received were eliminated.  Cat in the Hat will make another appearance. Vote $750 for Dr. Seuss Week: Nancy Di Cicco makes motion; Julia Javier seconds. All in favor: YES</p><p>Spring Party and Auction (Michelle Militello and Kelly Sachter)  April 25 - Roaring 20’s theme, GRCC location, DJ booked, Jitney will be running.  Auction (Kelly) class mom email for auction items from parents and teacher items; soliciting from local businesses  Encourage friends and other parents to be creative and come up with fun ideas, more personal ideas; giftcard donations, wine wall (raffle specifically for wine); visiting author item (signed books)</p><p>Newcomers (Michelle Militello)  May 4 mom’s night  Dads night June 4 or 11  End of year summer fall ideas like move up day for parents; BTS night to help new parents get acclimated  Looking for Parent buddies for incoming 1st and 2nd graders</p><p>Spring Carnival (Julia Javier)  May 1, rain date May 8  3:15 start (2hrs) Ticket sales actually raised funds  Food sale and concession. Popcorn machine, cotton candy maker, bake sale, food truck. Carnival, bouncy houses  Will be looking for volunteers – Girls Group comes out, but need parental volunteers.  Budget to be presented next meeting</p><p>2 nd grade promotion (Nancy Di Cicco)  Interviews starting for the yearbook. Aligning photographer to come in and collecting pictures. Naunas giveback raised $485  2nd grade event – in the works  Flocking  Will need 1st grade parents tagging along so they know how it works for next year Approve January minutes Nancy Di Cicco makes a motion; Helen Ness 2nds.</p><p>Page 4 of 5 All in favor: YES</p><p>Meeting adjourned 8:19pm</p><p>Page 5 of 5</p>