September 19th, 2011 at 9:30 am

The meeting was called to order and Laura Fox introduced herself as PTA President, welcomed everyone back to school and to our first PTA meeting of the year.
A request that the attendance sheets be signed was made.

President’s Report – Laura Fox:

Mrs. Fox is very excited and honored to be in the position of President. Mrs. Fox looks forward to working with all of us this year. Mrs. Fox thinks of Old Bethpage as a very special school, and PTA plays a major role in supporting our teachers and bringing enriching programs to our children. Tonight, we will hear about some of this year’s Arts and Education programs and a new program “WOW” – Working on Writing. We encourage all of you to get involved and to feel at home in our school. Whatever time or support you can give, even if it’s just an hour the whole school year will be greatly appreciative and it will make a difference in our children’s school experience.
Mrs. Fox introduced the new Executive Board: First VP Jill Schecter, VP Arts and Education Sylvia Accovelli, VP Communication Heidi Beattie, VP Finance Jenn Hilber,VP Membership Maria Pascarella, VP Ways and Means Donna Lupia, Treasurer Michele Betz, Recording Secretary Christine Farrell, Assitant Recording Secretary Chrissi Canino, Corresponding Secretary Marni Gordon, Historian Ellen Harchut, Council Delegates: Barbie Silverstone, Jenn Frisch, Gail Soffer, Adria Kaminsky, Chari Nacson, Council Alternates: Suzanne Colon, Lisa Mintz, Marcy Villavicencio, Cindy Chen, Elysa Wigler; Grade Captain Coordinator: Hetal Shah Metha.
This year our school will be going “Green”. No flyers will be sent home. Communication will be via email and our school website.
We have new PTA bulletin board in the school. Please check this bulletin board for information on school events. Thank you to Ellen Harcut for chairing the bulletin board and Lisa Mintz for the art work on the bulletin board.
We are collecting used shoes for the “Soles for Souls” charity. Please bring in your used shoes to the schools and drop them in the collection box. If you have any questions, please direct them to Chrissi Canino. Thank you Chrissi for your work on this charity event.
We will have the Class Representative lottery tonight. If you want to be a class representative, please fill out the forms and get them to Hetal Shah Metha, our Grade Captain Coordinator, before our lottery begins.
Mrs. Fox welcomed Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Hoffman and thanked them for joining us tonight.

Report of Officers:

Treasurer – Michele Betz, Treasurer – our beginning balance is $12,571. Copies of this year’s purposed budget have been distributed at this meeting. Please review.
Membership – Maria Pascarella, VP Membership. Encourages everyone to join the PTA. Please note that all Class Representatives must be paid active PTA members. PTA dues fund the Arts / Education programs. This year PTA is selling magnets for $2 along with membership dues. If a family has both parents join the PTA, the magnet is free. We are taking memberships tonite and will accept cash and checks. Please join. Current membership is 184, however, will had another 50 + parents sign up at tonight’s meeting. Please see me to sign up. Membership cards will be distributed in October. Please see me to get your magnet. Thank you.
Cultural Arts – Sylvia Accovelli, VP Arts and Education. Your PTA dues support the Arts & Education programs. Several programs have already been scheduled for this school year: Mad Science will come to the school for two assemblies, WOW week will include two authors Brian Hinds and Orel Protopospescu presenting writing workshops, the National Circus Project will come to our school. We will have a family night on January 27^th with Mad Science program: Fire and Ice. On March 23^rd, PTA will sponsor a family game night in association with PARP week. There will be specific assemblies for our 1^st and 2^nd graders. Information on this programs TBD.
Communications – Heidi Beattie, VP Communications. Thank you for sending in your contact information over the summer. We were able to complete the school directory for back to school night. We are selling pocket sized directories for $3. This year, PTA is going “green”. You will receive weekly emails from Laura, our PTA President, and all PTA correspondence will be via email. We need your email information in the system to receive PTA emails. If you have not done so yet, please provide us with your information. Thank you to Hetal for assisting in making our website more useful.
Ways and Means – Donna Lupia, VP Ways and Means. Thank you for signing up and volunteering to help with our PTA events. If you haven’t signed up for any events and would like to do so, the sign-up sheets are in the back of the room. This year we discontinued some fundraisers and added new ones. The gift wrap and candy fundraiser was discontinued, it was a huge money maker. It will be replaced by the Scripts Card fundraiser. The Scripts Card fundraiser is a catalogue of gift cards. You can purchase these gifts cards for yourself and as gifts. The school will receive 2% – 12% back from the purchase of the cards, depending on which card is purchased. We are looking for a chairperson for this fundraiser. If you are interested, please see me. This year, we are also phasing out smencils / smens. The kidstuff books went out to grades 1-3 on back to school night. The books cost $25, and the school receives $12.50 back. If you would like to purchase the books, please send in your money in the provided envelope. If you don’t want to purchase the book, please return the book to the school. We need to return the unsold books to the Company. Last year, a number of people did not return their unsold books to the school. This damaged our reputation with the Kidstuff Company. Let’s keep in good standing this year, and return the books not purchased. This year’s Picture Day, is on a prepaid basis. Please return your order form to the school by this Friday. We are in need of a co chair for Wingo. Our chairperson Marian La Gatto is a fourth grade parent and will be moving to Matlin next year. Our Box Tops fundraising in ongoing, please submit all your box tops to the school. Pretzel sales dates are TBD and information is coming soon. You will have the option to prepay for your child’s pretzels.

Mrs. Gray’s Report:

Mrs. Gray thanked Mrs. Fox and welcomed everyone back to school at Old Bethpage.
Back to school night was an exciting start to the school year.
This week, we had an unplanned Fire drill during lunch. The students handled the drill very well.
Also, due to the incident in Wantagh this week, the students experienced a lockdown drill.
Mrs. Gray would like to take this opportunity to introduce the new Old Bethpage Assistant Principal Jennifer Hoffman. Ms. Hoffman has come to our school after working in the Lawrence school district for seventeen years. Ms. Hoffman thanks everyone for being so welcoming. Ms. Hoffman is very excited to be here.
Mrs. Gray reported that Mr. Richmond is now Director of a Birth to Nursery JCC School. We wish him the best in his new position.
As reported at our June 2011 PTA meeting and at back to school night, we have a new report card that will be distributed three times a year with both academic and social grades. The report cards will be distributed in December, March and June. Parent / Teacher conferences will occur in December and March. Please note you are always welcomed to schedule a meeting with your teacher anytime during the year as well.
Our Culture / Climate report is complete. Old Bethpage did well in comparison to the District. We did score “neutral” is some areas. We will be working on these areas this year. We will share the feedback at the October PTA meeting.
We have a new Liberian joining our staff this year, Ms. Curtis. Ms. Curtis is very excited to be here. Mrs. Curtis is exploring creating blogs and book clubs this year.
Congratulations to Caroline Bock on her new book LIE. Ms. Bock is a parent in our school community and the chairperson for WOW – Working on Writing. Her book LIE is our new book club pick. We will be discussing her book at our school book club, October 20^th at 7:30 pm. Please come and join us for a great discussion and night out.
October 14^th is the Fall Festival. Mrs. Gray hopes to see everyone there. Please come out and support your PTA.

Committee Reports:

Picture Day – Christine Farrell. Picture Day is Wednesday, September 28th. The photographers are Marty Hyman. The Order Forms were sent home with the students. Please note there was a change to the payment process this year, all orders must be prepaid. Please submit your order forms and payment by this Friday, September 23^rd. The Picture Day class schedule will be posted on the website tonight.
Fall Festival – Laura Fox. A fun family event scheduled for Friday, October 14th from 5 pm – 7 pm. There will be Pumpkin decorating / Crafts, Guessing Games and a DJ. A Bake Sale will take place at the Fall Festival. Please consider donating a dessert. Free admission for Old Bethpage children that bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to Island Harvest food pantry. We need volunteers to assist at the individual events for 30 minutes time slots. Please sign up to volunteer for the Fall Festival, sign-up sheet is available in the back of the room.
Principal / PTA Book Club – Marcy Villavicencio. Welcome back to school and to our Principal / PTA Book Club. We invite you to come to this year’s book club to socialize and discuss with other parents and staff from our school. We read non-fiction and fiction books. Our first meeting of the school year is October 20^th at 7:30 pm in the Library, we will be discussing “1-2-3 Magic” by Tom Phelan, a book that was announced in June at the end of the school year. This book will be discussed for the first 15 minutes. Then we have a special treat, our book choice is LIE written by Caroline Bock, a parent in our school community. Congratulations Caroline on your new book. An email reminder will be sent out regarding the book club. Hope to see you there for a great night out.
WOW – Caroline Bock. Working on Writing week will be November 14^th – 23^rd. This event is the writing companion to our PARP week. This week will focus on writing and making it fun. Folders will be provided to the students with fun writing assignments for students and parents. Two noted local authors with a long great history of working with children will present assemblies to our students: Brian Hinds will present to the 3^rd and 4^th graders and Orel Protopospescu will present to our 1^st and 2^nd graders. After the assemblies, the authors will be going to each classroom for one hour to continue with writing workshops. Please sign up to volunteer for this committee, sign-ups sheets in the back of the room.
Philanthropy – Chrissi Canino and Lisa Hindi. “Soles for Souls” event is going on now. Please donate your used shoes. A box will be located in the school main hall way for donations. At the Fall Festival, please donate non-perishable food items for Island Harvest. Last year, we collected around 800 lbs of food for Island Harvest. We hope to do that again this year. Lisa Hindi spoke about the family that became homeless this past spring. Lisa is the liaison between our community and the family. The family is very grateful for the support that they have received from our community. Lisa shops and cooks for the family several times a week. The help needed now for the family is for volunteers to assist in cooking and donations of fall clothes for the children. Sizes needed are girl 6-8 and boy size 12. Thank you to all for your support.
Fun Books – Jill Schecter. Please send in your Fun Book money, or return your book to the school. PTA receives $12.50 for every book sold from our school. This money is used to fund our Cultural Arts programs for the students.

New Business:

A vote was taken for the approval of the June 2011 minutes. A motion was made by Heidi Beattie to approve and second by Jenn Frisch. All were in favor, no one opposed, and no one abstained. The minutes stand approved.
Mrs. Fox made a motion to adopt this year’s budget and was seconded by Randi Schiebel. All were in favor, no one opposed, and no one abstained. The proposed budget was passed. Please see attached copy of budget.
Mrs. Fox asked those attending for a vote of confidence, which would give her the authority to speak on behalf of our unit without first taking a vote. This authority will only be used to respond in a circumstance when something about our unit comes up that unit has not addressed before and then she would have the authority to ask questions on behalf of our unit and then bring the issue back to our unit. A motion was made by Jen Biren for the vote of confidence and second by Maria Pasqueralla. All were in favor, no one opposed and no one abstained. The vote of confidence was passed.
Mrs. Fox asked for the authority to ok expenditures up to $100 without first getting a vote. A motion to approve this authority was made by Heidi Beattie and second by Yvette Fiesel. All were in favor, no one was opposed and no one abstained. The vote was passed.
A class lottery was conducted by Hetal Shah Metha, the Grade Captain Coordinator. Please see attached for listing of selected Class Representatives and Class Representatives responsibilities.
A motion to adjourn was made. Motion was seconded. All approved and the motion was carried.

Correction: