Monday, November 6, 2006 7:00 pm

Welcome and Introductions (Kristin Cleveland)

Minutes from the October 10, 2006 PTO Meeting were approved.

Principal's Report (Mr. Mariucci): Mr. Mariucci and Mrs. Ochi-Watson will head for Washington later this week to accept the Blue Ribbon School Award for Capitol Hill. A group of Capitol Hill staff attended the NEGC conference. It will be in Minneapolis next year. The Sally Foster fundraiser raised enough money to cover field trips. The school has had to absorb almost $1,000 in returned checks during the past year.

Treasurer's Report (Julie Taylor): Both 1st and 3rd grade dinners came in under budget. Total account balances as of 11/6/06 were $14,010.38.

New Business:

Red Balloon books (Kathy Sundberg): Red Ballon has a program where anybody that buys books during the months of November and December can get their receipt stamped and turn it into the school to get 20% of the purchase donated to the school. She suggested giving half the proceeds to the Rondo Library and half to children at the Liberty Plaza housing complex near the school where many new immigrants live. She will make a flyer and distribute it and get some information in the next newsletter. Kids can turn receipts in to the office.

Band concerns (Patty Chervenak): Junior High A/B schedule is a problem, so elementary school kids don't know when band meets. There have only been two full Cougar Band rehearsals since the beginning of the year, and there are only two all band meetings scheduled in December. Communication has not been great and kids don't know when to bring their instruments. Perhaps communication through the web site would help.

Joint Rondo Playground Initiative (Mr. Mariucci): The three principals would like to have just one major initiative, which would include a STAR grant and district funds plus $50,000 in funds raised by the three schools. It would be good to have a playground design and fundraising goal by December.

Food Waste Recycling Program (Mr. Mariucci): The assembly was held on Friday, Nov. 3. One idea is that if kids are willing to volunteer to monitor that only the correct food goes into the bin for the pig, they could get lunch for free or maybe have a pizza party as a reward. Perhaps posters would help kids determine what goes into each bin.

Unfinished Business:

T-shirts (Camille Feng): Camille would like to send home a flyer and solicit orders for t-shirts by Thanksgiving for delivery by Winter Break.  The styles will be more winter friendly, with long-sleeve t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies. Setup cost is about $150. Shirts would be dark colors, asphalt and chocolate brown. There was some discussion about having special t-shirts for the junior high kids, but that might have to be a different project. Prices would range from $10 to $24.

Web Site Updates: Julie now has high-speed Internet so she's going to start revamping the 6th grade site.

Directory: Site Council list was late, but Ayesha Shariff was going to take it to printing services last Friday for distribution before Thanksgiving.

Direct Drive: The letter is ready to go. It just needs to be photocopied. A bulk mailing will go out soon.

Grant-Writing/Scholarships: Kristin has a couple of people who are interested in writing grants for things like Gamelan and puppeteering. A volunteer has offered to help PTO write a rubric for weighing different proposals for funding that come to PTO. It would help PTO be fair.

Carnival (Laura Park): A group of organizers will start meeting in January. As an incentive to help, note that Laura brings dessert to every meeting.  The silent auction may need revamping, although in its present format, it brought in more the $5,000. We may need to discuss this again at the December PTO meeting

Meeting was adjourned at 8:50 pm.