Townwide PTO Meeting Notes - April 11, 2008

Guest Speaker: James Redmond, representing the Life Long Learning Committee of the Andover Historical Society, presented the many educational opportunities available at the society. Along with those programs, comes a need for more volunteers. Jim asked the PTO/PACs to spread the word about the Historical Society’s programs and help recruit volunteers from the parent community.

The Society has helped Wood Hill with their Victorian Days and the Society will work with 5th graders at West EL and High Plain to study Andover’s foods in historic times and based on what crops were available, the students will create cookbooks. With Expanded Learning Time being studied at several schools, the Society could create some enrichment classes for those extra hours. One of Jim’s ideas for the future is to offer a chance to explore the old farms in town.

Current and upcoming programs are:
Main Street – An Architectural Workshop: for 6th – 8th graders during April break.
Magical History Tour of Main Street: Saturday, May 31st
Main Street Memories Exhibit: an exhibit on the history of Main Street businesses
Andover At Work: the traditional 3rd grade field trip during which volunteers dress as 1830s Andover citizens and show their work as housekeeper, shopkeeper, printer, and fire fighter.
2nd Annual Farmer’s Market: Saturdays mid-July through mid-October.
Car Raffle (1981 Mercedes Benz 380 SL coupe convertible): drawing June 15th.

Budget Discussion: Dennis Forgue, new member of the School Committee, gave us an update on the school budget negotiations. There is still the $2.1M gap. The override is not a good option but there is still hope that money from the Phillips and Stabilization funds could be used to close this year’s gap. The School Committee has gone back to look for things that can be trimmed from the school budget. It is unlikely that any agreement will be reached before the April 30th Town Meeting.

Going forward, Dennis stressed that it is extremely important that parents continue their advocacy efforts and that the town boards revive their long term strategic planning work because next year’s deficit is already projected to be $4M to $5M. The strategic planning meetings are open, public meetings and parents should attend in small groups even over this coming summer. Marj asked for a posting of these strategic planning meetings and Dennis will ensure that happens. If we need an override next year, then starting the campaigning work now and getting that override question on next March’s ballot saves the town the cost of a special election after the spring 2009 Town Meeting.
Diane C provided us with a flyer for distribution out to parents before April vacation. The flyer states the reasons why it is important to attend this year’s Town Meeting. An additional flyer will be handed to voters on April 30th with voting instructions… which warrant articles are to fund the school budget. The electronic version of this flyer has already been distributed to the Townwide PTO distribution list of PTO/PAC members. The flyer has been approved by Dr. Bach and stamped copies were given out to attendees.

Townwide PTO members need to network as much as possible in the next two weeks. Forward the flyer to any of your personal networks. Preschools have been approached by the Citizens for Education group to inform those incoming kindergarten parents of the importance of their votes at Town Meeting. Fact remains… only 20% of Andover households have any connection to the schools. How do we convince the other 80% that the proposed cuts are drastic and damaging?

2008-2009 Officers: Townwide PTO is looking for a moderator and a secretary for next school year. If interested in these positions, please email Debbie Begos (dbegos@comcast.net). Denise Nash suggested that Debbie should continue as moderator another year for continuity. Debbie is willing to stay on but she would like others to have a chance to lead the group. Suzanne has already served two years as secretary.

Communications from PTO/PACs: Members needed to leave before we could go around the room for school updates. There was mention of West El’s very successful auction and West El’s Sue Ferronetti has provided the following report:

“The West Elementary PTO hosted an auction last Friday night, April 4th, at Salvatore’s in Lawrence. Two hundred and thirteen parents attended. Thanks to the dedication and commitment of our co-chairs, as well as a committee of over forty parents, we were able to raise $53,000.00!! The money will be spent on a slide for the third grade playground, new racks for the paperback books in the library and technology equipment.

We have one more social/fundraising event remaining this year. Our ice cream social will be held on May 15th. If this event raises the budgeted amount, we should come in right on budget for the 2007/2008 school year.”

From Bancroft, I can report that our Expanded Learning Time committee has invited parents to participate in focus groups on April 15th (K – 2nd) and April 17th (3rd – 5th). An electronic survey is available to parents too. I completed the survey and it asked questions about how my children currently spend their before and after school hours and from a list of possible expanded learning courses and activities, which ones would I rank as my preferred five choices. Bancroft will be hosting their annual Father/Daughter dance on Friday May 2nd and our Science Fair (open to 2nd – 5th) will be Thursday May 8th.

Next Townwide PTO meeting: Wednesday, May 21st at 7pm Notes by Suzanne Hornick

Attendees:
Dennis Forgue, School Committee/Shawsheen Richard Collins, School Committee
Debbie Begos, West Middle/Moderator Marj Andresen, West Middle
Suzanne Hornick, Bancroft/Secretary Denise Bordonaro, AHS
Denise Nash, High Plain Diane Costagliola, AHS
Cindy Cromer, South/Doherty Salina Shah, South
Carol Lowenstein, Sanborn