Linda Lucier nominated Tobey Dillon for the position of Co-President. Maria Larose seconded the nomination.

Linda Lucier thanked Kelly Regan for organizing the Summer Kindergarten Play Date

Linda Lucier mentioned that the PCC Board provided a back-to-school teacher breakfast on Monday, August 29th. Ms. V reported that school was delayed and then cancelled that day due to Tropical Storm Irene, but about 80% of the staff showed up and appreciated the food since many of them didn’t have power.

Linda Lucier thanked parents and PCC Board members for providing the hospitality at today’s general meeting.

Deposit and Expense Sheet attached

Student Directory – Committee Chairs did not attend the meeting or provide an update.

Fall Fundraiser – Karin DePaolo reported. Handouts for the Fall Fundraiser will be going home with students on September 16th. Packets are complete and in the classroom for delivery. There is a kickoff assembly that will be held on Friday, the 16th and Jeanine Fundraiser representatives will run it. Karin and Corinne Donaghey will speak if necessary. Samples of the Fundraiser offering will be provided for parents attending Curriculum Night. Students in the top selling class who participate and their teacher will win a chance in the money booth. There will not be a limo ride this year.

Keller Family Drive-Up Theatre Night – Lois Eppihimer reported. Drive up theatre night is being held on Friday September 23rd. Fliers will be going home today. Soda, drinks, trinkets, and candy will be sold. The rain date is Sunday, October 9th. Maria Larose has volunteered to do check-in at the event. Lois has a previous engagement for the night of the rain date and will need someone to cover if it falls on that night. We still need to pick movies. “Despicable Me” and “Rio” were offered as suggestions. Lois said we will come up with a list that the committee will narrow to three. She will go around to the classrooms and take a hand count vote of what movie to play and the kids will find out the winning movie the night of the event.

F.A.C.E – LeAnne Haba and Lois Eppihimer reported. Money from fundraising goes to support 1 field trip and 1 to 2 in classroom visits per grade. Last year we spent $15,849 and received $950 in grant money. They are still researching 1 good all grade assembly.

Bottle/Can Drive – Linda Lucier reported for Lynn Waples. The Bottle and Can Drive will be held on Saturday, October 22nd.

Beautification – Carie Scagliarini reported. In the spring, we used 17 yards of mulch and it was a big undertaking. The town only cut ½ the grass so it has gotten out of control. She thinks having a Fall Cleanup would be a good idea. There is a branch down and much to be done. She is looking at a date of Friday, October 21st starting at 9:15 to give buses time to clear out. Trucks are needed and volunteers should bring rakes, shovels, and bags.

Open Committee Positions – Linda Lucier handed out signup sheets for the open chair positions and asked parents to volunteer if they can.

Street Sign Monthly Signups – Linda Lucier handed out the monthly signup sheet to maintain the Keller Street Sign. Carie Scagliarini added that she would appreciate the help.

Winter Bazaar – Linda Lucier asked to go around the room and get feedback on whether or not to have a Winter Bazaar. At this time we do not have chair people. Both Jen Sheehan and Laura Carlow, our past chair people were present to offer opinions. Linda noted that we know vendors are an issue. Lois Eppihimer stated that vendors that offered items with $5-$10 price points would do well. The items set up for kids to buy did sell well. Good choices to sell are mugs, candles, inexpensive jewelry, and ornaments. Laura Carlow stated that the items they put together on the kids shopping table were sold for $1-$5. Laura suggested it should definitely be a bigger shop event with no vendors. She thinks we need to do it for the kids.

PCC Website – Linda Lucier asked Ms. V for an update on the Keller Website. Ms. V reported that we are switching companies. We currently use Quicksite. We are in a holding pattern for the new platform. New teachers are not being trained on Quicksite so those pages are not being updated. The new format is available to view on the Franklin High School and Remington pages. They were the test schools for the new program and are fully converted. Once the final glitches are fixed we will be able to update. The new platform should be in place by November, but for now the PCC can update the existing Quicksite.

Curriculum Night – Linda reminded parents that curriculum night is on Thursday September 15th. Per the agenda, Linda mentioned that Grades K-2 is from 5:30-7 and Grades 3-6 are from 7:15-8:30. (Noted by Recording Secretary Lisa Costa in minutes: agenda was incorrect, and error was not caught at the meeting. Actual Curriculum night times are Grades 3-5 from 5:30-7 and grades K-2 7:15-8:30).

Direct Donation Letter – Linda Lucier inquired whether or not she should distribute a letter this year asking for direct donations. Parents agreed they thought it was a good idea. Lisa Costa asked Karin DePaolo if a direct donation request was going out with the fundraiser packet this year. Karin said it was not included yet, but still had time to pull it together. Lois Eppihimer offered to send Karin the electronic version of the file used. Maria Larose mentioned that the double request of Linda’s letter and the fundraiser had a substantial return last year. It was decided that another letter should go out.

Keller Wear - Linda Lucier reported that as a PCC we are currently looking for a new vendor for Keller Wear. As a board, we are hearing that the vendor we use now is not organized and does not have much variety. Ms. V reported that our current vendor is who she used to order t-shirts for the staff. Tobey Dillon inquired if any changes will be made to the Keller Hawk. Carie Scagliarini brought up that parents thought the wording on the hawk should include “Elementary”. Ms. V said there would not be changes to the hawk itself, but that the words Elementary School were added to the shirts she ordered. She also mentioned that the pre-ordering in bulk may have been the issue with the current vendor and if we took orders a couple of times a year we could make a substantial amount of money. Parents suggested we name the Keller Hawk and to use it as a way to make money. Ms. V suggested that the student council could run that. Amy Donovan mentioned if we do go with a new vendor there is typically a fee to put your graphic in with them. It can be over $200. Ms. V said that was one of the reasons we stayed with the current vendor. Amy Kaufman mentioned that ECDC tried selling spirit wear in bulk and by orders and taking orders was definitely more profitable. Dory Seremetis suggested we have a sale on the inventory we currently have. Parents suggested that we sell leftover inventory at Curriculum night and Movie Night. Amy Donovan, Betsy Humes, and Denise Shanahan all volunteered to co-chair the Keller Spirit Wear Committee.

No Effort Fundraisers – Linda Lucier encouraged parents to participate in the “no effort” fundraisers. We currently do GM Box tops, Ink Cartridges, Target Credit Cards, UPromise, and Stop and Shop. She will be re-registering us for Stop and Shop. Katie Marino suggested that other schools do much better with the Stop & Shop program because they register parents for them at school events. She recommends that we set up a table and register them at curriculum night. Parents agreed this is a good idea.

Capri Sun – Linda Lucier brought up the subject of recycling Capri Sun bags for money. Ms. V said this is a program that she has been a part of and it can be very profitable. She believes it is called upcycling and you get back a penny for every item you bring in. At her previous school the recycling commission in the town helped by donating containers to put the recyclables in. If there were containers in every class room, she believes most items the kids brought in could be recycled for profit.

Fundraising

Mark Spanek – Mark suggested that we look into buying gift cards at a discount to sell in the school for profit. Parents discussed the different programs that other organizations in the town (Franklin Panthers, Lacrosse, etc) do and the stores they might consider buying a gift card for. Mark also suggested ways to make more money through the Bottle and Can Drive. He wanted to know if we had contacted local area restaurants to collect their bottle and cans on collection days. He also thought we could get a company like Eagle Leasing to give us a bin to collect on a regular basis. Mark is going to contact Lynn Waples to see what she has tried in the past.

Lorraine Schratz – Lorraine mentioned that when she chaired Community Service she ran a program to collect Halloween candy. Parents could bring in excess candy. During Book Bingo night kids would decorate bags, the candy would be put in them and Lorraine would deliver the bags to Wrentham Developmental Center. Book Bingo is typically held in early November. Lorraine is going to contact Jenn Finley regarding Book Bingo and Jamie Tighe and Allison White from Community Service Committees to try and re-start this program.

Maria Larose – Maria suggested that we start advertising the Coins for Keller program now so that kids can save up for the month of May. Lisa Costa explained for new parents that Coins for Keller was run for the first time last year in the month of May. Large jugs were put in the lobby and collection bottles were in each classroom. Children competed by grade to see who could save the most money in one month’s time to win a Popsicle party. The program made approximately $4400. Ms. V suggested they compete to win an extra recess and have Popsicles there. Lisa explained that we worked with the lead teacher in the winning grade and that it was celebrated exactly like that. Parents requested that Carie Scagliarini put an on-going reminder in the e-newsletter to start saving coins for the month of May.

Amy Kaufman – Amy gave examples of 2 new fundraisers she ran at ECDC. The “mixed bag” fundraiser offered all sizes and patterns of reusable bags that were great Mother’s Day gifts or could be used as beach bags. Amy also explained the “Flower Power” fundraiser. Bulbs and root plants were sold in the spring. Orders are taken and submitted to the company. The bulbs and roots were delivered directly to the customers with complete instructions for planting. Turnaround time from order to arrival was perfect timing to plant. The fundraiser had a 50% profit margin. There were 200 kids in ECDC and they made about $1700-$1800 on the fundraiser. Amy volunteered to chair this fundraiser in the spring and Connie Tomaino offered to help.

Parent Social – Lisa Costa asked if parents thought we should have another Parent Social. Parents said they did not think it was profitable enough to have again. Lisa asked parents to offer alternatives to the social since last year parents stated they didn’t want to do another auction. She stated that we need to make between 12K and 15K in the spring and that bulbs and Coins for Keller would not cover that. Ms. V suggested we think of doing a Basket Raffle or having classes of students decorate furniture for parents to bid on. Many parents felt this had been done in the past and that most of the work fell to the Room Parents and became very hard to support.

5k – Tobey Dillon suggested we do the 5K/Exercise-athon in the spring as a significant fundraiser. She ran in the 5K at Parmenter last year and said she paid $25 for her and her son to run. She has been in touch with Parmenter to get ideas on how to do it. Ms. V would like to be on this committee and will recruit for it. Parents were extremely enthusiastic about putting much of our efforts behind the 5K/exercise-athon.

Thank you – Ms. V thanked parents for coming and let them know that the power of the PCC is what makes an elementary school more than just a school.

Kindergarten Play Date – The kindergarten play dates were a big hit. There was a suggestion from parents that a letter go out at the beginning of summer asking all kindergarten parents to reserve all dates set aside for kindergarten play dates. Once the teacher letters go out in August, families can go during their appropriate time by class.

School Opening – Ms. V said this was a wonderful, yet the wackiest opening ever. The children handled it well and the delay may have actually made them more ready for school than ever. There were no tears on opening day.

Teacher Breakfast – Ms. V extended a thank you from the teachers for the breakfast provided by the PCC Board.

Playground Equipment – Ms. V reported that much of our playground equipment has gone missing. She said we are in desperate need of a locked container to keep items in. Connie Tomaino volunteered to go to Lowe’s to see if they would donate a container. Karin DePaolo said she had items she could donate. Ms. V said we definitely needed jump ropes and 4 square balls and more. She would get the specifics of what we are missing and if the Kindergarten playground was affected.