CPA Board Meeting – April 14th, 2011, 6:30 p.m. Tina Marohn’s home

In attendance: Ginger Everhart, Sue Wilson-Schimtz, Tracy Hannuksela, Pam Gaspers, Tina Marohn, Maya Shinn, Tina Raghu, Lisa Flynn, Jenny Cain

Introduction of new board members

Board transition planning – current board to connect with incoming new board on an individual basis over the next two months.

Calendar items:

School board meetings –  Pam has been able to get a few parent volunteers to sign up to attend the meetings, but still needs more volunteers.  This is a great way to build a stronger presence for the gifted program in our district. Meetings are twice a month, Tuesday nights at 6:30. The next meeting is April 26th.

CPA to follow up on invitation to Legislators for Festival of the Famous

Ginger to create a press release about Young Authors’ Day.

Superintendent roundtables – Another good place to have us seen and heard and we encourage parents to attend.

CPA general meeting – May 5th – Stephen Martin will be speaking and CPA will have Festival of the Famous costumes for rent.

CPA Bylaws vote – May 18th, 6:30 at Terrace Park library

Coffee chat this month is canceled due to conflicts. Next one will happen on May 7th.

Treasurer report (Tracy Hannuksela):

We came in a little over our fundraising budget this year.

The only change in this recent budget (see attached document) is that we are half way through the grant money. There is a $100 outstanding grant request from Mrs. Kutrich for a field trip to Islandwood Summit. Tracy is to follow up with Mrs. Kutrich on this.

Tracy sent an update email to teachers on how much classroom money they have left to spend for this year. She would like to have all receipts turned in by beginning of June.

Summer picnic – CPA needs to reserve a picnic location soon and that will get taken out of this year’s budget.

Gifted Education Day net expense is $36 (which includes $150 for next year’s rental of capital room). We actually made some money from t-shirts sales and only have 2 shirts remaining.

Good that we are ending the year with more than we expected. This will help with transitioning in Middle School faculty and families next year under the support of CPA.

WAETAG support from the district budget for next year is not known at this point. CPA may want to give teachers a choice to use their $300 grant money to go toward supporting them in attending WAETAG. We need to first decide how much we can budget for this item for next year and wait to see what the district can do to support this as well.

Grants going forward – We may have less money available for grants next year. One suggestion is to set 1 or 2 deadlines for grant requests. There may be more requests next year with budget constraints and with the inclusion of Brier Terrace Middle School. Request and appropriate choice from Mary Freitas to have a CPA board member attend the weekly Friday morning Challenge faculty meeting to communicate this to teachers.

Fund drive participation rate for Challenge families is somewhere around 30% (there are currently 227 families). To help get people more involved maybe change fundraising amounts and give options for submitting small monthly payments.

Brier Terrace Middle School – A key focus for next year it to communicate with families how important this parent group is for supporting professional development for their Hi-cap teachers.

Bylaws status with state of Washington –  We are unincorporated with the state currently. CPA  stopped receiving renewal notices every year when we became unincorporated with the state, just before Tracy became treasurer, therefore she was not aware that CPA’s status became inactive. Tracy is contacting the state corporations department to reactivate our standing. Ginger ordered a certified copy of the articles of incorporation that were sent directly to Renee McFarland to review in context with the proposed bylaws revision. The current bylaws state that Terrace Park PTA is the beneficiary of CPA assets upon CPA’s dissolution. After the revised bylaws are voted in by the membership, the board needs to make sure we have a beneficiary named that would not favor the families of one school over the other (examples to consider would be a statewide gifted programming advocacy group or a districtwide non-profit, such as Edmonds Public Schools Foundation).

Authorized checking account signature changes from current board to new board must occur before July 1st.

Maya and Tracy will meet soon to begin the transfer of treasurer responsibilities.

President’s Report (Ginger Everhart):

Met with Mary Freitas and reviewed status on bylaws revisions.

Ginger drafted a pre -photo release that was sent to parents of identifiable children in photos from Gifted Education Day that we wished to include in press releases about the event. Ginger and Mary concluded going forward that an ‘opt out’ choice on future CPA forms, will make it easier to use photos for press releases or other digital communication. In addition to press releases, we should also plan to send copies of pictures that included the legislators and students to the legislators.

Met with Dr. Tony Byrd and discussed success of Gifted Education Day and received some budget updates.

Possible CPA expansion discussion meeting – Principal Kevin Allen has 5 Hi-Cap teachers at Brier Terrace. Mary Freitas recommends we continue to hold CPA meetings at Terrace Park.

Incoming Families Information Night – There was a huge attendance with many questions from parents including topics such as…transportation, homework, and making family connections. Ginger was able to add lots of parents to our email list and give them information on our summer picnic. CPA needs to connect with Nancy again on advertising that to new families. A lot of new older grade students are coming into the program next year.

Shoreline Parents’ Group – They have a contained hi-cap program consisting of 2nd – 6th grade students in 2 schools. Two parents from each school are trying to put together a parent group for their program.  Some members of the CPA were there to help answer questions and give them an idea of what our group does. We extended an invitation for them to attend any of our parent meetings for support or ideas.

State Budget Update – In the Senate’s work on their version of the budget, hiring and firing protocols are changing.  Teachers and administrators who do not receive good reviews (regardless of tenure) are moved to the bottom of the list for rehires.  The Senate has not yet released its version of the budget, but funding for gifted education made it through the House’s budget process.

Bylaws committee report – Renee McFarland did a fabulous job in reviewing and revising the bylaws! Ginger has sent out the revision to CPA members to review meeting the requirement of 30 days notice for approval. It is an almost complete revision and we will have a vote on the revision on May 18th at Terrace Park. We will also be amending filing with the state.

Main additions to the bylaws were:

Expansion of CPA to cover Brier Terrace.

New position “Officer at Large”. Ideally we would have at least one person from each school doing or sharing a co-position in the existing officer structure. But if that isn’t possible, an “Officer at Large” from either Brier Terrace or Terrace Park (whichever program is unrepresented in the board makeup) would be the liaison between the two schools and between the board and the principal of the school they represent.

All positions with the exception of Treasurer can be co positions.

Change in the requirement for communications to be written notification.  We can now legally use email.

Support to review and revise every 3 years has changed to “as necessary” review and revision.

Upon approval of the revised bylaws, VPs to convene a nominating committee to nominate an “Officer at Large” from Brier Terrace Middle School for next year, with the vote to occur at the first CPA meeting in the fall. This vote will include membership from both schools.

President’s Report (Sue Wilson-Schmitz):

Hi-Cap Task force meeting:

CPA bylaws are being reviewed by this group

The CPA umbrella expansion immediate goal is to help fill in with additional targeted Gifted Ed and Twice Exceptional training and support opportunities for the new Hi cap teachers as those needs are identified and requested.

Terrace Park Challenge teachers and EWHS IB teachers have begun to, and will continue to, connect with Brier Terrace teachers for guidance on curriculum goals, appropriate student placement, and for support in working with gifted and twice exceptional students to help create seamless transitions across the K-12 continuum.

Current Hi-Cap students from Terrace Park, Brier Terrace Middle, and EWHS IB addressed district heads at a recent school board meeting.  They did a fabulous job speaking about their experiences.

There is a focus on working to get all potential gifted students identified within the district. Outreach was greatly expanded this year and record numbers of students were tested and accepted into all Hi Cap programs for next year.

Vice President Report (Pam Gaspers):

Festival of Famous – Pam has a few costumes collected already. Next few weeks there will be a big push to get donations. Mail chimp & website push and Wednesday packets

Communicate through the 4th, 5th, 6th grade teacher newsletters home to parents.

Costume rentals at the May 5th general meeting.

Boxes in pods E2/D2 and the office are for costume collections. Megan Hicks is helping in the collection.

They need items such as suits, wigs, lab coats…

Summer activities:

Park dates: Does incoming board want to take this on over the summer? The past two summers we’ve chosen one day a week with parks in different locations for families to meet. Good idea to send out weekly reminders via the email and website. Wear TP or CPA shirt.

CPA back to school BBQ – Proposed date is Sunday, August 28th.

Summer Volunteer Tutor program concept (Dan Everhart’s idea) – Students coming in 4th, 5th, 6th grade level may need some help to get up to speed with math tutoring. See if parent volunteers are interested in helping kids get caught up before starting the program. Mary Freitas thought it would be an appropriate program for CPA to sponsor.

Adjourn: 9:00 p.m.