TPES PTA Meeting Minutes: February 2020

PTA Meeting February 4th

Piney Branch Elementary School

Minutes

 

Upcoming Events &  Announcements

FEBRUARY

Feb 7-14: TPES Scholastic Book Fair

Sun, Feb 9: Dine-Out 11am-10pm @ Ellsworth MOD Pizza to benefit PBES PTA

Wed, Feb 12: PBES STEM Night 7-8pm

Mon, Feb 17: Presidents Day – no school

Wed, Feb 19: African American History Night (6-8 pm) @ PBES Cafeteria

Thurs, Feb 20: Parent Input Night with Board of Ed @ Eastern Middle 7-9pm

Fri, Feb 28: Early Release for all Students; Dismissal at 1:20pm

MARCH

Wed, Mar 2: TPES Readathon until April 2.

Tue, Mar 3: TPES/PBES PTA Meeting @ PBES

Fri, Mar 6: PBES ESOL Book Club 6:30-7:30pm (pizza provided)

Thurs, Mar 12: PBES International Night & PBES Spring Photos

Mon-Tu, Mar 16-17: PBES GeoBowl

Wed, Mar 25: Wellness/Community-Building Night (more details soon!)

Fri, Mar 27: Early Release for all Students; Dismissal at 1:20pm

 

Advocacy Representative:

Hilary Stevens- Delegate from TPES to the MCC PTA.  This is an organization that brings together every PTA in the county.

  • 13th is the Montgomery County and Maryland PTA Day in Annapolis. Advocate for funding and attention to education more broadly
  • Boundary Analysis – hired a consultant group to look at where students live and where they go to school. Looking at capacity and resources to look at how equity and distance.  This has been a very touchy subject with a tortured history.  Some meetings when very off the rails, people were upset, inaccuracies were rampant, etc.  Those open meetings are now finished.  They are continuing outreach to targeted communities.  There are lots of information available at the BOE website.  This study won’t make recommendations on changing boundaries but instead will be looking at the data and what is happening on the ground.  The data didn’t show accurately how crowded TPES and PBES really is.
  • No matter the analysis- PBES and TPES is still overcrowded. We need to be vocal about this fact and to be vocal about how we need a new school SOON not 8 years from now.
  • Go to the BOE meeting at Eastern Middle and vocalize these concerns
  • Meg the TPES PTA President announced they are working on a meeting in mid-March to meet with city council and others about the build
  • Fred and Chrissy announced that you can reach out to him with more questions and he will send out ways to get involved.
  • The group interested in school safety passed a resolution on gun safety, can raed more on the website
    • On Feb. 9th at Wheaton High there will a town hall on bike and pedestrian safety given recent accidents involving students.

 

Treasurer’s Report

  • Amy from PBES- if you would like to see numbers there are handouts. We are in a strong financial position, we’ve met all our fundraising goals so far.  The rest of the year is spending the money we made.
  • TPES reports we exceeded the dolphin goals 13,875- 875 OVER our goal! Thank you to all that contributed.  There are handouts out there.  We raised over the goal for literacy and that will carry over for next year staff support.  We

 

Book Fair/Readathon

Shivani – TPES Book Fair starts on Friday!  Working all next week so come out.  She still needs volunteers- please check out the sign up genius and help out.  The proceeds go back to the school in the form of books and materials for the media center, classrooms etc.  Next year was very successful so let’s keep it up!

 

Sarah the chair noted its Feb. 28 – March 26th.  Kids read the month of march and record their minutes.  Last year they raised over $17,000 so it’s a very important fundraiser for the school.  Look out for an email!

 

TPES/PBES Basketball Game – happening in May, we will share the date when its done.  This is a really FUN family event.  It’s a game between TPES and PBES with parents and teachers on each team.  There is always a lot of excitement!  We need volunteers for many things including the doors, refs, half time fun, etc.  Consider it, more information to come.

 

PBES STEM Night- Matt Goupell reminds us that its next week!  Its double the size of last year, lots of fun groups from the outside.  NASA, the Washington Nationals, there may even be a REAL HUMAN BRAIN!  Whaaaat. There will be 15 PBES teachers leading events.  So much fun stuff coming.  They do need volunteers to help teachers run the events.  Please let him know, you can email him or Sarah Goupell.

 

The meeting then transitioned to the PEP Program where we all became much more encouraging parents and our kids now do all we ask!