PTG Meeting Minutes
Announcements
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PTG sign-up; working on getting people hooked up
to receive information via the list serve; if you aren’t already receiving
email updates and would like to, please send your email address to Tonya (president@lapham-marquette-ptg.org)
or just visit the PTG website and sign yourself up.
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Please attend the district-wide forum that will
be held Sunday 10/21 @
Anne Fisher – Affiliated Alternatives
§ Nice turn-out at the open houses at both Marquette and Lapham; the students are looking forward to making connections with the school communities; SAPAR students will be helping out with Marquette Mile
§ Still having trouble getting daycare set up for SAPAR; there are funding issues preventing the construction from happening. Looking into solutions.
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Question: what is the status of the Wee-start
daycare (needed for SAPAR program)?
Grant money will not fund construction projects. Of the estimated $90K it will take to get daycare
set up, the program has $30K through the
§ Very appreciative of details/care the programs are receiving at both schools
§ Thankful to have vending machines for the AA students at Lapham
§ Thankful for communication with staff at both schools
§ Work & Learn kids are getting out quite a bit now – makes the school quieter
§ Welcomes hearing parents concerns/thoughts to become better part of school community
§ For level 1 Work & Learn, we have 3 students that work in classrooms; going well
§ Question: Is it possible to have a student help as crossing guard at Lapham? Yes, this is a possibility. Will look into it.
Mike Hertting – Lapham
§ Fire Awareness day today with both a fire truck and ambulance present – very exciting day for kids; kids were very engaged in learning about fire safety.
§ Implemented instructional blocks for Kindergarten and 1st grade; a few kids from each class go to literacy and math in a different classroom to reduce class size; this is scheduled in such a way to maintain continuity with homerooms.
§ Completed fall assessments which helped make decisions for the instructional blocks.
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Working with
§ Hope parents have an opportunity to see the Alternative program kids; impressed with their respect toward K-2 kids. Currently have 3-4 students that work in Lapham setting and really impressed.
§ Question: concern about the pull-out instructional blocks and how the assessment results worked in deciding who was pulled out. We did not take the top or bottom chucks from the whole; hoped for mix of abilities and temperaments of kids; this gets class size down to 14 – kids seem engaged.
Andrea Kreft –
§ Sees school communities coming together: Marquette, O’Keefe, SAPAR (School Age Parent Program), LEAP (Landmark Elementary Alternative Program) – there is a lot of diversity that’s working well
§ Great open house; several string students played at entrance – very neat
§ Literacy Walk this past Sunday; Marquette had a team, but Cherokee ended up getting money with a team of around 100; will push registration a little harder next fall to improve our chances of winning the $1,000 prize to buy new books.
§ Marquette Mile (14 year tradition) will be this Thursday; a student designed the t-shirt. This is a fundraiser for the stress challenges (ie ropes course.) In the Challenge by Choice, safety is the #1 issue; students are presented with a challenge and must make decisions on how to get from point A to B; students must work as team and learn cooperative skills; this program is for grades 3-5
§ Lost .2 music teacher position, but still have Janice Baylor from O’Keefe; the district has been having a hard time getting subs to cover specials
§ School improvement planning is in progress with several teams established: positive behavior action team; math team; leadership team; Lapham and Marquette will work together on the math team
§ Question: glad to have new bike path along Yahara, but there is concern for students crossing Willy at Thorton since there is not a stop light or crossing guard. We are looking into getting a crossing guard; looking at safety issue; not sure how this will be resolved; the process to get a crossing guard is very long; suggest contacting TLNA & MNA for possible assistance. Several volunteers to follow-up on this.
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Question: does some fraction of PTG money fund
music teacher? No, there is some money for
choir/drama costs outside of the regular time, but not during district school teaching
time.
Matt Calvert - Advocacy
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Probably not looking at referendum this February
– not 100% certain, but feeling confident that the budget gap will be filled
for this year from TIF(Tax incremental financing) money. “Rainwater: Use
windfall to cover school budget gap.”
§ This will be a one time fix for this year; it will not be of assistance for next year’s estimated gap of $4 million
§ Some concern that referendum discussion should continue even though have one-time funds for this year.
§ Seems there isn’t any current “new plan” for funding schools in the future. Therefore can anticipate continued budget gaps.
§ For the 10/21 forum, there are 4 main issues that will be discussed: advocate for state funding reform; don’t close schools for budgetary reasons; look at district equity policy; and improve the budget process and communication with community. There was a meeting on 9/26 at which people discussed these 4 main issues; in addition safety also came out strongly at district-wide meeting (especially on the west side). The meeting on the 21st will look at these 4 main issues and what the board can do to address these.
Chris Rietz – Teacher allocations
§ The PTG annually gives staff at both schools some pocket cash to cover their expenses (this is a budget item for fundraising dollars raised); allocations to both schools will be equitable; we are trying to find out if the PTG can make checks out directly to teachers; allocations will hopefully be made in the next week or so.
Anita Krasno – Fundraising
§ Innisbrook is in progress; 50% of the sales come to PTG; orders are due next week Friday (10/19).
§ Be sure to enter school code when ordering so we get credit for our schools
§ Just coffee should be up and running; trying to figure out the most effective way to get info home to parents; problems with copying and getting into teachers’ mailboxes; not cost effective if the envelopes not used are not recycled.
§ The direct contribution letter will go out attached to directory
§ Still looking into volunteer parking opportunities at Badger games as a fundraiser; if we can’t get in this year, will try hard to park a game next year (other schools estimate $5K per game raised)
Laura Chern – Directory update
§ Still cleaning up data files; at least 200 yellow forms that still need going through; it also needs another round of proofreading
§ Target date for completion is October 31st
Other Announcements
The 4th grade lego group meets on Fridays in
Need to look into getting more teachers to the meetings; consider “monthly drawing” for gift certificates as incentives to get more teachers to meetings
Be sure to check out the Lapham-Marquette PTG website!
http://lapham-marquette-ptg.org/