CPA Board meeting 11/04/10 – Ginger Everhart’s home

In Attendance: Sue Wilson-Schmitz, Ginger Everhart, Pam Gaspers, Tracy Hannuksela, Tina Marohn

Treasurer’s report (Tracy Hannuksela)

We have raised $5,326.00 in funds for the Fall semester.

At this point we are unsure if a semester fundraising schedule is working out. We may need to boost up our advertising for the next one in March.

Teacher expenses from the WAETAG conference are coming in and some have bought supplemental materials not offered previously at the conference.

Sue & Ginger will be talking about teacher inservice speakers with Mary Freitas. We would like to make these speaker meetings available to other district teachers in order to further communicate the needs of gifted students.

There is a concern, however, about the amount of funds we are able to collect this year to cover things like speakers. If we do not have enough for this year, we may have to wait to invite speakers for next year. We are still expecting to be able to cover teacher grant requests for this year.

Tracy would like to be able to send donor tax receipts online. We will need to make sure we add a column for people to include their email address.This may need to be sent out as a PDF with the treasurer’s signature and tax ID number. Pam is going to look into that detail.

Grant money:

Currently this allows Challenge teachers to purchase supplemental educational materials for their classroom to use as well as sharing with the pod. Sue is going to talk to Mary Freitas about her thoughts on expanding it to include helping cover supplemental learning experiences. But for this year, we need to see how we do with our two semester fundraiser.

Vice President Report (Pam Gaspers)

Festival of the Famous Committee.

Pam is chairing this and will be looking for a co-chair who has direct experience with this event.

Treasurer transition:

Pam will be asking Kathleen Pratt to help work with Tracy for the remainder of this year. CPA does have the ability to vote in a co-treasurer.

Co-President Report (Sue Wilson-Schmitz)

Sue attended the Middle school transition meeting and discussed “seamless transition issues of concern”.

Sue talked about the need to accommodate all gifted kids in the high school. As of now, the IB program is not focused on arts…

Beyond Challenge – Maren Halvorsen, from the UW Robinson Center for Young Scholars, and Kathy Ludgate, director of IB at EWHS, are going to come out and speak about what’s required and what kids need to pursue. Mary emphasizes the importance in parents planning and looking ahead.  The two speakers’ powerpoint presentations are updated this year.

The latest Superintendent roundtable meeting focused on the question on how to fund the arts and sports when there are so many cuts in the budget.

Dr. Tony Byrd is invited to WAETAG and would like to extend the invite to Kevin Allen.

Parent group for middle and high school? At this point, it makes sense to provide our CPA support to the middle school as well as Terrace Park.

Gifted Education Day

Michelle Toshima has volunteered to help.

Ginger to check with Barbara Poyner on scheduling tours for the group.

Mary Freitas is talking to 4th grade teachers about making this a field trip for the classes.

In lieu of all students writing letters this year to legislators, we may change our focus on having the higher grade students create something that communicates the importance of supporting gifted education. Ginger will be discussing this with Mary.

– Ginger is looking for people with access database skills to help keep track of parent information.

December general meeting “Beyond Challenge”

The presentations will be different this year. This is open to families with kids in all grades, but the emphasis will be on the 4th/5th and 6th grade students. We want to encourage parents to attend in order to start planning for the next stages for their students. Summer programs for 5th and 6th graders will also be discussed.

Teachers will be asked to Include the announcement for this meeting in their class newsletters

We plan on using the same flyer as last year and will try to get it in next week’s Wednesday packets. We will also supply flyers at Math Night.

Website and Mailchimp:

There is concern over sending out too many postings and emails

CPA will be posting items that directly pertain to supporting gifted education and events

We will have a link to the PTA website, but will not be posting their events on the CPA site in order to reduce confusion and excessive emails.

We will add the following links to the website:

Terrace Park PTA, Edmonds School District, IB Program, Brier Terrace Middle School

We need to think about how the CPA website will be affected if this group expands to include Brier Terrace Middle School

CPA mission statement should be on the front page somewhere. Ginger will evaluate what’s on the site currently.

T-shirt sales

Pam suggested we include information about t-shirt sales on our flyer, email and web posting for the next meeting. Pam will tack a sample shirt on the board along with information that they will be available for purchase at all of our meetings. We will further promote the sale of shirts when we get close to gifted education day.

Other agenda items

Mary Freitas received the Distinguished Leadership Award in WA State. CPA is planning on celebrating her achievement at the next CPA general meeting.

Ginger will be contacting Kevin Allen about expansion of Middle School program under CPA.

Classroom Representatives: Need to check with PTA on where this stands and it may help to detail the exact responsibilities this position entails.

Ginger is looking into whether or not we still have the commons scheduled in January. We may take that opportunity to promote gifted education day.

Sue to check with Tony about designated elementary nights and conflicts for challenge parents to attend our meetings.

Sue to follow up on A/V needs for our December guest speakers.

Nominating committee for next year’s board…Ginger Everhart, Ruth Kenney, Bret Hagen, Marilyn Hall, Mary Freitas and Megan Hicks. No meetings are required for this only email communication. We are looking for suggestions of good leadership for next year. *All members voted and approved of this nominating committee.

Meeting adjourned 9:20 p.m.