Month: January 2020

Bryant PTSA Board Meeting Minutes – December 2019

Kathy Austin

December 10, 2019

Welcome / Approval of Last Meeting’s Minutes Whitney Griesbach Ann Sonnen
The minutes from November’s meeting were approved.

Region 6 Presentation Heidi Bennet, Region 6 Advocacy Director
Rescheduled for next meeting.

Treasurer’s Update Nick Barrett
Updates about the Annual Campaign:

  • $184k pledged, $157k collected. This is in line with what we raised last year, and covers this year’s budget.
  • We also had a high participation rate (7 classes got 100% participation). We did keep the campaign running longer to help several classes get to 100%. However, we did hear anecdotally students were mixed about the free recess—we may add additional incentives next year.

Additional treasurer updates:

  • We filed an extension for our taxes (officially due Nov 15).
  • Notable funds: instrumental music has raised $5000 and is targeting $8000.
  • Update on use of unallocated funds: from a starting point of $10k, $5400 have been now allocated (for multicultural night, teacher subs for teacher evals, math books, new embosser, and Quickbooks).
  • School supply funds need to be kept separated.

Principal’s Update, Heather Snookal, Assistant Principal
Thank you for the funding allocation for the teacher release. Kindergarten took ½ day Monday and went through every student with academic support, and first grade took second half of day. By the end of the week all grades will have received ½ day to work with academic support. There has been a very positive teacher response.

Recently contacted the district behavioral support department to help us for some situations where we’ve tried everything and it still is not working. We are therefore entering a 6 – 12 week partnership, beginning this Friday, with the district behavioral support department. They are going to help us with some targeted support for a case load of students, and these learnings can translate to other students.

The district has selected us to be a pilot for how to run the advanced learning program, specifically how we can help highly capable students who stay are their schools (since Bryant has a high population of such students). We’ll know more Friday. No timeline for implementation.

Art supply ask from Ms Whipple: $2000 (itemized list). This ask will be discussed further, both for how to do it this year and planning for next year (roll it into supplies? Art budget?). We currently have $4600 left in unallocated budget. Partial approval of the request: $1000 from unallocated to fund art teacher supplies was approved.
New traffic patterns are working well.

Committee Reports

  • Fundraising (Sara/Allison)
    No update
  • Membership (Tara/Rebecca)
    No update
  • Volunteers (Renee/Kathleen)
    • New leads found for several positions (yea!)
  • Advocacy (Sam/Adele)
    (Not present—at conflicting meeting with politicians)
  • Teacher Representative (Jessica/Chara)
    • Report cards are going to look different this year. Both content and format have changed.
  • Equity (Kim)
    • Four co-chairs. 25 other people have also expressed interest. Very early stages (no mission statement yet), but we want every family to feel like they belong and welcoming.
    • Bryant equity facts: 15% of families identify as
      multiracial, 14 languages are spoken, there has been a racial equity team (comprised of staff) for the past 3 years. We’re hoping to help bridge what’s happening at the building level with what is going on with families.
    • Thursday night there is a North End PTSA partnership meeting with other groups working in this space. We hope to bring back learnings from other groups for what is working. We’ll have a signup sheet at the Multicultural night on Friday.

LASER Update (from Kevin)

  • Discussions about repurposing the main LASER room. We serve 165 kids, with a waitlist of 60 kids, so hoping we can remain part of the school. Historically LASER has been around 90-120 kids, but we were able to bump it with repurposing.
  • District is projecting higher enrollment. Overall this is good. But this impacts the space needed for classrooms. This might not happen next year.
  • This will be discussed at January’s meeting.

New Business

  • Art Docent Program, Whitney Griesbach and Ann Sonnen
    The new website has been taken down and there are discussions happening at the board level.

8:25 Adjourn

Seussical Rehearsal Sign Up!

Kathy Austin

Greetings Seussical parents!
Please click on the Seussical Sign Up Genius to volunteer for rehearsal chaperoning. We need 3 parents each rehearsal, one to be with each cast as they rehearse and one with the crew. We need you from 5:55 until 8:10 (or until all students have been picked up and are out of the building), unless otherwise noted in the sign up genius. 
We very literally cannot do this without you, as the SPS required adult/student ratio is not adequate with only Seattle’s Performers’ staff. Sign up early and often! As a reminder, your student’s ability to participate in this extracurricular activity depends on each family committing to at least 5 volunteer hours– which works out to about 2 rehearsals. Can’t make the rehearsal times work with your schedule? Never fear! There will be more opportunities to volunteer as we go along, and we will add those to the Sign Up Genius and notify you via email.