King PTO

Attending:

Deb Rothenberg

Jill Roland

Pandika Pleqi

Susan Thompson Brown

Sue Carlson

Jennifer Southard

Susanni Douville

Eric Altholz

Eva McVicar

Jonathan Nolan

Mary-Jean O’Reagan

Ellen Pompenoe

Ed Suslovic

Dave Grant

Item 1 :  Advertising for the PTO at the parent-teacher conferences. 

We reviewed Pandika’s handout and discussed other ways to get the message out.  Decision:

The handout will include the kingpto.wordpress.com link, mention of the 2nd Tues of each month regular meeting time; an invitation to contact David Grant at King for more information, and a sign up sheet available in the front hall for parents to sign up directly.  Mary-Jean volunteered to coordinate having PTO reps at the table.  David Grant agreed to have the docs ready for teachers at conferences. 
Item 2:  Silent Auction

May 1, at 6 pm
Last year’s talent show made about $2k;

Things that sold well:  restaurant certificates, museum memberships;

Eva McVicar volunteered to be the main communicator with Sue C;

Ellen P volunteered to coordinate the food for the event;

Pandika volunteered to coordinate publicity;

Jonathan talked about Longfellow’s database, and business contributions.

How about a “What was it worth?” bucket.

Raffle idea was discussed for baskets. 

Classroom projects were auctioned at other schools, such an auction was discussed for King’s Silent Auction.  Good idea for King?

Sue expressed her intention to pretty much run the event this year, and readiness to hand it over to the PTO for next year.

The group also discussed the possibility of a letter-based campaign asking King families to make contributions to the school irrespective of events like auctions, talent shows, etc.
Item 3:  King’s Celebration of Learning

May 8 during school hours at the Portland Expo

Group discussed having businesses support the Celebration through the publication of a document, handed out at the COL, with advertising from supporting businesses.
Item 4:  Our King Community — Our PTO Community

The group acknowledged the aspiration that the PTO could better represent the diversity of the King student body.

Ideas to attract a more inclusive population to PTO meetings included having the PTO sponsor educational or community events at the school.

One suggestion was a “How we have built an inclusive and supportive community at King” event hosted by students for the community, where the kids do the talking and the parents get to learn.

Another suggestion was to have kids present something at PTO meetings.

Our next meeting will be on April 8 from 7 - 8:30.