Treasurer – Jeff Thrush



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President, Renee Henry, called the regular meeting of the Middle Paxton School Association to order.

Members Present: Dawn Durham, Kellie Flickinger, Cassie Moyer, Shannon Scott, Stacey Tinsley, Kathy Conway, Renee Henry, Carla Hagy, Jeff Thrush, Joe Novak, Jr., Deb Crissinger, Mel Crissinger, Sharon Marsteller, Missy Baird, Carol Lopez, Ashley Bullers, Laura Updegrave, Kim Heck, Dana Lomma and Joann Atwell-Knapp.

Guest Speaker

Dave Seaman – Executive Director of The Partnership for Hope

The Partnership for Hope has started Get Up! Get Active! The program is a way to help kids who are at risk for obesity. The program is currently working with Mountain View and Linglestown Elementary schools and would like to offer the opportunity to Middle Paxton students. The program uses a nationally respected fitness curriculum called SPARK that’s provided by Highmark, Inc. as part of their Healthy High 5 initiative, a nutrition component provided by The Salvation Army, and mentoring aimed at helping kids’ self-esteem led by volunteers from local churches and students from Messiah College. The initiative was created by The Partnership for Hope, a non-profit collaboration between like-missioned community and faith-based organizations started by New Hope church in Harrisburg. The elementary schools in the vicinity of New Hope have provided bus transportation and staff who work with parent teacher organizations to provide the program. New Hope provides its multipurpose are, ball fields, classrooms, kitchen facilities, volunteers, and healthy snacks. And the Partnership for Hope provides leadership and recruits, manages, and pays Messiah interns, PE teachers and support staff. Aside from a $20 registration fee for eight week, two day-a-week sessions, the program is free. Thanks to grant funding managed by The Salvation Army, The Partnership for Hope has been able to extend the program to new schools. In order to run the program, facility space would be needed from Middle Paxton or a local organization willing to donate space. The nurse fitness evaluations are used to evaluate those students who would benefit from the program. The nurse would identify those who are most at risk for childhood obesity and make the initial contact with the parents. The program is open to any student, but preference is given to the students who are most at risk. The fee can be waived for those students who are in financial need. It runs two days a week for three hours and they try and keep the limit for enrollment to 36 students. Length of program runs 7 to 8 weeks. The grant money was used to provide transportation from the other Central Dauphin Schools to the program facility and Central Dauphin buses were used. Mrs. Lopez indicated that the school would not be able to offer any space because the Dauphin Athletic Association uses the gym in the evening. The program would run after school, before the Dauphin Athletic Association would need to use the gym; however, according to Mrs. Lopez, there may not be anyone in the school at that time. Follow-up with Mrs. Lopez will be needed.

Recording Secretary – Carla Hagy

September Meeting Minutes - Motion to approve the September 2010 Meeting Minutes was made by Joanne Atwell-Knapp and seconded by Shannon Scott. Motion stands approved.

Treasurer – Jeff Thrush

September Treasurer’s Report: Motion to approve the September 2010 Treasurer’s Report was made by Cassie Moyer and seconded by Sharon Marsteller. Motion stands approved.

Report From The Executive Board

Kathy Conway has been working in the PTO software with the “Two Hour Pledge Program” and would like to find money in the budget to pay for the software. Everyone listed in the Student Directory who provided an email address, has been entered into the PTO software. Individuals should not go online to sign-up for an event. Committee chairs should just go into the PTO software to view the volunteers who signed up and try and obtain your volunteers using the information. If enough volunteers are not obtained from the list of those who signed up to volunteer for your event, the entire list of everyone who signed up can be given to you. The software was used to obtain volunteers for the Book Fair. We can save money by using the software because we would be doing less copying by using the electronic software. The software will show whom already volunteered, so that committee chairs aren’t asking the same individuals all the time. It will also track those volunteers who have completed their Two Hour Pledge. Seventy-eight (78) parents have completed the pledge form so far. The pledge form only listed activities for the first half of the school year. Anyone who signed up to volunteer for an activity and they aren’t asked to volunteer due to overwhelming response, will be asked to look at the volunteer opportunities for the second half of the school year and commit to volunteering for one of those activities. In mid November, Kathy would like to send out an email with the volunteer opportunities for the second half of the year and ask parents to take a look at what is available.

Old Business

Fundraiser - We have earned $16,486.00. Our goal was $20,000.00. We had $600.00 in online sales. There is still $235.00 in uncollected checks and parents have been contacted. The three highest sales were: Tyler P. from Mrs. Bangert’s AM class sold $382.50, Austin F. in Mrs. Bangert’s PM class sold $352.50 and Lance T. from Ms. DiCola’s class sold $322.00. Randy & Josephine R. sold a total of $543.50. Stacy Tinsley would like to get approval to get some $5.00 gift cards to raffle off. There were three (3) classes that did not achieve the 50% class participation in order to get the ice cream party (Todd, Price & Brumfield). Since we did not meet our projected budget, we can do a smaller fundraiser next year. Suggestions for smaller fundraiser are a Zumba Thon where we would charge a fee to anyone who wants to participate. Typically anyone participating in Zumba must sign a waiver. There is Zumba for adults and there are also classes for children. The kids could obtain pledges and the adults could pay a fee to participate. We would need to look into this further, if this is something that we would be interested in doing. We could also do a Walk-A-Thon, where people donate money to a child who participates in the Walk-A-Thon.

Grandparents Day - Volunteers will be signing in grandparents and helping them with their grandchildren’s schedules. Hospitality will provide coffee in the morning and water in the afternoon. Hours are 9:30 until 2:30.

Family Fall Night – Is scheduled for this Thursday. We were not able to get the hayride. Thanks to Kellie, Dawn, Laura & Shannon, activities will include a scavenger hunt, the fire truck will be here, fall pumpkin guestimation will be revealed and there will be a corn box. Shawn Moyer has agreed to make soup for us to sell. We will also have soft pretzels and hotdogs to sell. We will provide popcorn, cider and water free of charge. Sand toys will be needed for the corn box. Each child will be able to pick a pumpkin to decorate and there will also be stands that the kids can put their heads through and pictures can be taken. Rutherford’s in Halifax donated a lot to our school. A few individuals have volunteered to come in and set-up, but if anyone is available, set-up will begin immediately following school on Thursday. If anyone is coming to the fall night, please bring a flashlight. A reminder email will be sent out to everyone with additional details included.

New Business

Carla Hagy asked about an Election Day bake sale at the request of a Middle Paxton family member. This falls under Hospitality and is an optional event and does require a lot of work. The Board will take this under advisement.

Mrs. Lopez:

• Working together publication from the Summer 2010 is available if anyone would like to look through it. It includes information regarding the Task Force for anyone who is interested in joining.

• Today interim-progress reports went home to third, fourth & fifth grade parents. Teachers enter the grades on their Teacher Access Center, which becomes the Home Access Center. Parents can go online to view the information if they choose to. Kindergarten, first and second grade parents can go online to the Home Access Center to see attendance and discipline.

• Dibbles reading survey was given September 7th through the 17th. Four-sight test was given to third, fourth and fifth grade students. This is a mini PSSA test.

• Teachers have a data session this Friday to create skills groups. They will see what skills children are deficient in and place them in programs that target those deficiencies. Skills groups begin October 12th and run days three, four and five for a half hour each day.

• October 29th, parade begins at 2:30 and parties begin at 2:45. The children have been informed about weapons not being brought in to school or look a like weapons with their Halloween costumes. No spray painted hair. A statement will be sent home.

• Mrs. Lopez will speak to Mrs. LaPlant in regards to setting up Student Counsel for this year. She will suggest setting up monthly Spirit Wear days where the students and teachers wear their Middle Paxton clothing. A suggestion was made to have students vote for their fellow students who are interested in Student Counsel, just like a real election process. Mrs. Lopez will email Renee regarding her discussion with Mrs. LaPlant. If Mrs. LaPlant needs help with Student Counsel, Helping Hands may be able to help out.

Committee’s

Book Fair – (Tara Truskey & Ellen Wenrich) – Book Fair is going on this week. Nothing further to report.

Eagles Nest – (Shannon Scott) - Deadline for the first Eagles Nest submission is October 8, 2010. Committee members, students and teachers can submit an article to be published in the Eagles Nest.

Fifth Grade - (Kim Heck & Barb Beleski) – Will be setting up a meeting in the near future. Nothing further to report.

Helping Hands – (Dana Lomma) – There are 35 kids in Helping Hands and they have made 250 pins to be handed out to grandparents on Grandparents Day. They have also made posters to be hung up. There was a garden theft of 7 gourds.

Historian – (Harriet Bull) – Nothing to Report.

Hospitality – (Missie Thrush) – In September this committee provided snacks for Back-To-School Night, which consisted of a rice krispie and fruit tray along with lemonade & ice tea. Nutrition Inc. also donated bottles of water and cookie trays for this event.

October Events – Quarter Days start Wednesday, October 6 and runs through Wednesday, November 3. The snack schedule is as follows: Oct. 6th – 5th grade, Oct. 13th – 4th grade, Oct. 20th – 3rd grade, Oct. 27 – 2nd grade and Nov. 3 – 1st grade. Dawn Durham will be running Quarter Days and Jill Brua will be helping out every Wed. except the 1st week.

Grandparents Day – Will be held on Oct. 6th. Coffee will be provided in the morning and bottles of water will be provided in the afternoon.

Dads & Donuts – Will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 19th & Wednesday, Oct. 20th. Invitations were sent home with all students last week and replies are due back Wednesday, Oct. 13th. This week, I will begin contacting the volunteers that are registered on PTO Manager that indicated they want to help out at this event.

At this time, there are no scheduled events in November for this committee.

May Fair – (Renee Henry & Kathy Conway) – Nothing to Report.

PAC – (Pat Conway & Jeff Thrush) – First PAC meeting was held. The MPSA website has a link to the PAC webpage. Anyone who has questions to present to the School Board, should email Jeff or Pat at least a week and a half before the next scheduled meeting, so the questions can be presented to the Board ahead of time and they can be answered at the meeting and the group can discuss. The Community Task Force, which is groups of parents, students, teachers, Board Members and tax-payers, who are interested in looking for ways to cut costs within the schools. If anyone is interested in signing up, please contact Shannon Leib directly

Publicity – (Carla Hagy) - Need a few more committee descriptions to post on the website. Committee chairs should email their committee description to Carla. The committee descriptions that have not been done will be emailed to Renee. The school directory was emailed and the hard copies will be sent home in the next few days. This year 110 copies had to be made. There were a lot of people who wanted hard copies, but they also provided email addresses. Carla suggested that if they provide an email address, they not also get a hard copy as we are trying to cut down on costs. The only issue with that would be that some individuals are not able to print a hard copy themselves as they do not always have printing capabilities with their email. There are a few individuals whose directory came back as undeliverable through email. Calls were made to those individuals, but calls were not returned. Another email will be sent out with any changes to the directory.

Santa’s Shop – (Cassie Moyer & Steph McClune) - Cassie will be looking for another person to head up the committee next year. Steph will not be able to work on the committee with her work schedule and Cassie would like to help, but be the co-chair next year. Stacey Tinsley indicated that she could help out since she will not have a fundraiser next year.

Scholarship – (Kathy Conway) – Nothing to Report.

School Spirit - (Shannon Scott & Kellie Flickinger) – Classroom lists will be passed out for the fall guestimation and the pumpkin will be displayed in the lobby. Classrooms can come down and estimate the weight of the pumpkin. The unveiling of the pumpkin will be done at the fall family night. Thinking about having the Spirit Wear sale in the spring, but others suggested that we might want to have one before Christmas for anyone wanting to get gifts.

School Store – (Joanne Knapp) – First school store will be in November and notice will go out to students when the date will be.

Special Events – (Deb Crissinger) - A teacher luncheon is coming up and volunteers are needed to cook and bake. If anyone brings dishes, they will either be in the refrigerator or sitting on the counter in the teachers lounge. Teachers will have a guestimation in October.

Student Achievement/Bug Club – (Laura Updegrave) – Laura will email all the teachers to let them know what was decided at the September MPSA meeting. Marking period is over November 5, 2010. The teachers then do the report cards and give them to Mrs. Lopez. Teachers should let Laura know which students get a certificate and then Laura will give the certificates to Mrs. Lopez to sign and distribute to the teachers. The award should be attached to the certificate. Renee will let Laura know the amounts of the reward are.

Ways & Means – (Stacey Tinsley) – See Old Business Above. Delivery of fundraiser items is November 9th. The fundraiser pick-up will be scheduled for conference day. Any parent, who picks up on time, will be entered into a raffle drawing. A display will be in the lobby during conference day directing parents to pick-up their fundraiser items. A notice will go out to parents with pick-up dates and times, when the delivery date and time is confirmed.

Next scheduled MPSA meeting November 1, 2010 at 7pm.

Minutes submitted by Carla Hagy, Recording Secretary

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