PTO Meeting
Jan 18, 2022 
Updates from the principal:
Happy 2022! 18 days in now. Hope all is well and everyone enjoyed the snow

Tomorrow we will have a 2 hr delay. Students may start to enter the building at 10:45

Covid 19/Quarantine/Contact Tracing: a few documents have been sent out but the most important part to know is that the quarantine is now 5 days. The school is also not required to notify everyone when there are positive cases, just when there is a cluster.

Q2 is about to end on Friday, meaning on the 24th there is a teacher workday and the 25th is the first day of Q3 and Jan 31 the Q2 report cards will go home. 

Ms. Hager has a meeting with the engineer for the new building coming up and will be posting notes as soon as they have that meeting

Nikki Prenoveau:
There is a new sign up genius for cafeteria helpers for January and February. Ms Gadsen is still in need of three reading buddy volunteers (there is a form for this as well) Both parents and grandparents can volunteer for this role.

Restaurant Spirit Nights:
$135.50 was the profit for Hungry Howie's Spirit Night in November. $41.50 was collected from white duck taco. The next night is February 24th probably at City BBQ on Monroe road and Galleria Blvd. More details to come on that. 

Book Fair:
Kids will be able to visit during their media time February 14 - 23rd with the last day ending around lunch. We will need volunteers to set up the fair. More info to come about the delivery of the books (probably Feb 10 or 11). Also need help to box up unpurchased items (probably Feb 23 and 24). She will probably try to send a sign up genius for these. This year is different. Previously it has been a little chaotic first thing in the morning, so we are considering implementing a rule stating that only certain grades can come shop before school. Teachers need to check that students visiting the book fair actually brought money to spend, so they’re not there just browsing or socializing. Courtney will send out some more info once she has the details nailed down. They will be pushing the ewallet process. Parents can set up the account and preload the money on there. This will limit things like checks and bags of pennies coming in. In the past, there have been some issues because students would sometimes end up with multiple accounts created by various family members. We have told that has been consolidated this year. Teachers can also create an ewallet for themselves and parents can load money onto their ewallet and  teachers can send out a notification about that opportunity. There used to be a jar, but there are not a lot of parents coming in anymore. There is also an opportunity to donate for kids that are in need of books. There is also an online bookstore that will be running from the 14-27th and anyone can go in and order from there. We needs to see what the shipping process would be. Used to be that they would come to the school, but last year you could earn free shipping to your house with a large enough purchase. Ms Hager is concerned about parking in the morning. We may have to keep parents from coming in. Courtney said they are considering doing a few evening events that parents can attend. Katie Austin said its been good for her having the kids shop alone during the designated media time. Shes okay with doing it during the normal school day. Nikki said there won’t be a “breakfast and books” event like previous years either. We still have time to iron things out. Courtney feels like there used to be a lot of parents that came in the morning because of drop off. Parking has also been an issue with other events in the past.
PTO Budget:
















Nikki Prenoveau:
Other events coming up:
Ms Harris said that we are rescheduling the IB night of kindness for a later date so we can do outdoor and in person preferably.
The IB bucket filler week will still happen February 7 - 11 The theme is and “Peace and kindness begins with you.” Ms Harris is in charge, more information to come, but the focus is on helping students to learn coping skills on inner peace, conflict resolution, etc. 
Maggie McGlone: Students will wear a different shirt and read a different book each day of the week. They are also be doing some community outreach like delivering cards to senior homes. The focus is handling emotions, since there have been 2 years of not being able to interact normally.

Daddy Daughter dance is on the schedule for March 11th Lindsey Scheumeister: the theme is “to the moon and back” being reused from a cancelled dance 2 years ago. There is no charge to use the room at the church. Frank Crawford is going to be arranging the clean up and everything there. The gym is very large and very nice so there will be enough room for social distancing. There is an option to have it outdoors as well. We can push out info about the date through parent square. There is also a calendar option on parents square that will send reminders. The turn out before has been about 300 people, with 150 of them being the little girls. We have also sent out a flier. Siri said she can make a square link to take payment. Everyone is allowed to go. Not only limited to girls. Ms Hager wants everyone to have an open mind about having events or having to cancel them because of COVID in the furture. If this event was tomorrow we wouldn’t be able to host it, but hopefully everything will be alright by March.

Career Day:
Currently scheduled for Mar 18th. Jasmine Cornett is going to be in charge. Last year it was on zoom. This year it's going to be in person, just one day. Speakers will come into the classroom to talk about their careers. The students loved it last year and everyone is welcome to be a part of it. Doesn’t have to be a parent. Traditionally, It might be a ~20 minute presentation on the career. 

Announcement for Teachers:
There are certain deadlines coming up from sprout kids, so it's time to start thinking about what needs to be on the lists.

AGENDA
Welcome & Housekeeping Nikki Prenoveau
Principal & New School Update  Ms. Hager
COVID Update Ms. Hager
Committee & Event Updates

• Dance Fit Report/Booster Courtney Farris
• Beautification Day Courtney Farris
• Mother/Son Event Julie Singh
• Restaurant Spirit Night s Courtney Farris
• Online Spirit Sale Courtney Farris 

Questions/Discussion All

Nikki Prenoveau: We will be using parents square for weekly communication. Be aware that you can change your settings to get notifications as often or as little as you want. Another great feature is that it's basically an archive of all school communication in one place.

If you have not been able to set it up or had issues, please let Ms Gripper know.
You can use the phone app or the desktop to access parent square. The settings are probably easier to adjust on the desktop version.

There are different options for notifications via texts, app, and email and you can change those notifications based on where they are coming from (the district or Lansdowne directly)

Room parents have the option to use ParentSquare as well and have their own instance. Teachers can set this up on their end and “select” the room parent.
PTO is still trying to encourage parents to volunteer in the school, particularly for lunch helpers to give the teachers a break. Thursday and next Tuesday is available for lunch duty

Question for teachers from PTO: Were they happy with the sprouts kit? because we need to sign a contract with them for next year.

Teachers mentioned they like the kits because it ensures that students are bringing in what is needed. Sometimes they are a little bit off (could be teacher error). Sometimes teachers may just be picking the wrong products for the list. Springtime would be a good time to review the list again.

Ms. Hager: Next Tuesday is the last day of school before the fall break. We are rocking and rolling with parents square. 99% of parents are engaged, only about 6 families are missing from the platform. There are some glitches, and teachers may need a little more training, but they will be working towards better knowledge of the platform.

New renderings of the new school are available and will be posted outside on the bulletin board as well as some inside photos. Everything is right on schedule. There is a lot of momentum right now. All set for the Aug 2022 school year if we continue to have good weather. They would also like to demolish the current building by that time.

The county’s COVID positivity rate has finally been at a consistent low. If the county shifts their mandate, that doesn’t necessarily mean that schools have the same rules. For schools this is just one part of the requirement to lift the district’s mask mandate.

The school is trying to find a way to do something special for the 5th graders who are going to miss the new school building

When the new school is done we will be taking in 200 more students (750 total) No numbers on additional staff yet.

Kids may love to be a part of the demolition. Some people may want to keep a brick or a keepsake. The school is trying to find a way to do something special for the 5th graders who are going to miss the new school building

Courtney Farris: Had dance fit in October that was a success, most of the kids enjoyed it. $42,613.92 is the final number for pledges and 94.7% has been collected. We are still working with Booster people to finalize our profits, but we are thrilled with the results so far. Thank you to parent volunteers and corporate sponsors. It was a lot of fun!

​Grade Level Winners:  Greenway1st, Gabel 1st, McGlone 2nd, Davis, M 3rd, Long3rd McCartney 4th Edwards, A 5th Istrefi Kindergarten, Albert Kindergarten, Johnson SBS.

The booster rep is ready to talk about the program for next year. This is Courtney’s last year at Lansdowne, and we need to see if the same time frame works for next year,. If the old school is demolished in august, then this would probably give us space, but everything may still be up in the air. Is oct still a good time?

Thoughts are that maybe we should wait until the spring for the fun run to be safe. The kids really want to do the fun run again so we won’t have to do the dance fit another year. Either way it’s a fun event, but the kids seem to like the fun run better.

When the school is demolished, there will still be a time without a green area, so Ms Hagar agrees that maybe we should hold off until the spring. (The kids will have a temporary play area with the exception of K and 1st, but the other grades will be playing in a temporary space)

PTO board will discuss this and talk to booster.

We had incentives for teachers to get people to participate and Courtney will be reaching out to teachers this week to let them know who that is.

Courtney listed out each grade’s winners.

These funds help us contribute to the school so we appreciate the effort. It was suggested that we swap out the fun run for the fall fest and move events around. This has been done in the past.

The neighborhood is also excited about the new school so maybe we could include them in whatever event we decide on so they can see the school.

We also had a beautification day recently and everything looks great! Thank you to everyone who participated in that.

There is a Mother/Son event coming this weekend Julie Singh said they are using the same place as last year - Boyce Park - will be setting up booths close to the picnic area, its very easy to see. The spots are first come first serve but we will have a table of our own as well. There are games planned but we don’t need a table for each of them. There are 4 games. If there are two or three people who are available to help, let Julie know. There are many more people signed up than last year. It’s okay if older siblings would like to attend to help as well.

Spirit night on Thursday at White Duck Taco Shop in Matthews. They will give us 10% of their sales for the dinner hour. Please spread the news. We made $198 from our last Hungry Howies. This is our last restaurant spirit night until February. You can do take out or dine in. You do have to mention Lansdowne when you order.

There will be an online pop up spirit store sale Nov 22 - Dec 5. More info to come on this event. This is a good opportunity for people to buy spirit wear with a couple new items like pajama pants, drinkware, a beanie. The intention is to have items ready for holiday gifts. You will be able to pick them up from the Cotton Gin printers behind Renfrow in Matthews or have it shipped to your home. The tentative plan is to open the school store come January for more spirit sales.