SOPG Meeting Minutes 10/14/2009

Meeting start: 6:35 | Meeting end: 7:30

Kim: read a great book called "Through the Cracks" by Carolyn Sollman (Author), Barbara Emmons (Author), Judith Paolini (Author) -- which reminded her of our fabulous Optional Program.

Zangle issues: optional report cards aren't working right and no your children are not failing everything :( Parent-teacher conferences should smooth everything out.

October 19-23rd. Student Council will be making daily announcements and getting the kids involved in all the fun stuff.

TERESA: there are still issues with getting program fees. The first reminder was mailed out about two weeks ago. Teresa will mail out another in about 10-14 days. If people need help and/or extensions, they need to ask for help -- they should not assume.

Teresa and Genie briefly discussed getting cooperate / non-profit discounts for the teachers at Arctic Office or another office supplier. Teresa will make contacts again to try to get this set up.

GENIE: teachers sent out donation requests for community outreach which will run for for 6 weeks starting OCTOBER 27 from 2:15 - 3:15. This year's theme is "Kids Helping Kids." We are making comfort bags for foster children in transition. Our vision is to provide a child with a decorated bag of art supplies, a kid-made coloring book and/or journal, a kid-made T-shirt pillow, and a fleece hat. If you would like to help out with this project we need some supplies. If you would rather donate money to purchase supplies that would be great too. We need:

* White t-shirts in children¹s sizes (4 7/8 years)
* Batting for stuffing shirts
* Fabric crayons, paint, and markers
* Fleece in bright colors and patterns
* Fabric glue
* Crayons
* Colored pencils
* Baggies
* Small paintbrushes
* Sewing needles
* Alcohol swabs

If you would like to come and help out with projects we will be rotating students through different projects each Tuesday for six weeks starting October 27th. We would love to see you here! (Ms B's email has been plagiarized for these minutes.) Genie is not completely sure, but feels that it would be easiest to have money donated that way the teachers would have more control (at least she would) over the products they really need.

Children in Transition program grew by 38% last year. Kim discussed how our "sister school" had provided money cards which were then provided to families that ended up in transition situations / foster care, etc. The sister school received a thank you letter and those children in the sister school really loved knowing that they were positively impacting the lives of other children less fortunate. Nan thought it might be a good idea to do something like this and there appeared to be no objection from the parents in attendance tonight.

PACT recap: it was great! Thanks to Ryan for making this such an interesting topic for the children and to Kris B for setting this up and making it such a success.

NOV 13th is our next PACT and our next PACT speaker will be Scott Thompson, wildlife Artist. As always, we encourage lots of parent involvement and help. Parents were very positive about the way this last PACT went and felt more at east.

Lucky us, we have April Nye who is going to be the PACT coordinator! Thanks, April!

SOPG DIRECTORY: it's almost done. Nan is doing it.

THANKSGIVING FEAST is November 20th: we need a coordinator. Search around for somebody to help with this. Genie has the book on how it runs.

PROJECT DAY IS DECEMBER 4TH: there are three people signed up so far but it works best to have at least six (6). This is a Friday morning and the kids absolutely LOVE this event. It's really good energy and a positive event. Please consider donating some time for this event.

//Jamie Lang, SOPG Secretary