Edison Regional Gifted Center
PTO Meeting
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Officers Present: Jessica Mason, Chrisie Burke, Kim Smolen, Cat Murray, Brandi
Garcia, Donna Oberhardt, Eva Moon
The meeting was called to order at 3:05pm.
Welcome and Introductions
Review of Minutes from October meeting- A motion was made to approve the
minutes, it was seconded and the motion to approve the minutes was passed.
President’s Report – Chrisie Burke
Game night- Put on by K. A few families felt like they did not know about the
event far enough in advance. K bought too much food but everyone that
attended had a great time.
Spirit wear update- Beth Whitney, a 2nd grade parent will be taking over spirit
wear. We will still be using the same system that we have been using. The store
is open until November 22.
Directory- We are still waiting for a few blanks to be filled. It is due out soon in
electronic form.
Yearbook- Elizabeth MacManus is taking online orders. She needs photos.
Please send the photos to her. There is a tab on the Edison website that links
you to the yearbook.
The teacher luncheon at report card pick up was put on by 3rd and 4th grade.
Mrs. Drinkwater brought 2 new drums from PTO funds.
Box tops submitted for the November due date netted $60. There was a
proposal for a Valentines Day box top collection.
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Track-a-thon review – 41K raised but with the last minute submissions we may
have 44K. About 95% of the school participated in the fundraiser. Winners will
be announced at school during intervention. Class prizes will also be
announced.
Big Thank You to:
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Thank you to Kim Perlman and Heidi Steiner for heading up the effort!
Brandi Garcia, the PTO point person and park liaison.
Vera, the park supervisor at River Park who waived the fee for our permit
and helped expedite the whole process;
 Sarah Colella for coordinating food and drink donations;
 Whole Foods Sauganash for donating bottled water and 4 boxes of
beautiful fruit;
 Mariano's Fresh Market (Elston and Harwood Heights locations)
 Walgreens (Lawrence & Pulaski)
 Target (Peterson and Harwood Heights locations)
 Ann Karakowa for sealing the deal with Whole Foods and
 Cat Murray for picking up and delivering the Whole Foods donation;
 Susan Hine brought some water and candy to the park.
 Kathleen Zeimer for setting up volunteer spot;
 Mike at Propaganda for giving us a great deal on the t-shirts and patiently
dealing with all our last minute changes;
 Corporate sponsors – Chicago sports commission, Monty Gael’s and On
the route bicycles
 Our security team who helped with loading and unloading all sorts of stuff
beyond their job descriptions;
 The APMA administration and faculty tolerated a lot of turmoil and
craziness that afternoon and let us use their megaphone;
 Mike Nowicki for serving as our first aid station.
 Teachers for collecting forms & envelopes and leading the classes day-of;
 All the day-of volunteers -- set up, chaperones, hand markers, food and
water distributers, clean up and the many, many parents cheering the kids
on.
Amazing effort from everyone!
Barnes and Noble Book Fair – Jenna Scott
-Friday December 6th. Teachers need to get wish list going and submitted.
Performances are from 4pm-8pm and the drummers will close out the event.
Volunteer spot will be put up a few weeks ahead for sign ups. Volunteers are
needed to help set up the scavenger hunt and an art project. You can shop all
day to benefit Edison. We are having an issue with the number of drummers.
There are 32 drummers. Should they go in shifts or make another plan to
accommodate the group?
Principal Report – Donna Oberhardt
- Thank you for track a thon! 7th and 8th grade flag football won the city
championship! A school wide celebration is planned. There is a structural issue
on 3rd floor. The issue is with the masonry. The school is in the process of a
structural engineering assessment. There is nothing that will fall down and there
is a beam in place. Hopefully this is an isolated incident.
Teacher Input –
Trying to put the T back into PTO. We are looking at having a few teacher reps
and we need to know what that means. We need to figure out if that means a
communication liaison or is it a rep that sits in on all the meetings? The PTO is
open to suggestions. Mr. Crame volunteered to be a teacher rep.
We are thinking that ideally we would have a teacher rep for older and younger
grades. A teacher rep would not be able to vote due to our not for profit status
and our conflict of interest. We have had wish lists from teachers in the past.
We are looking onto ways to find out what the teachers need and to have some
back and forth between the PTO and the teachers.
Question- Are the teachers interested in electing someone or do you just want a
teacher to self-select for the rep position? That is something the teachers need
to decide amongst themselves. The teachers would like to hear what role the
teacher will have on the PTO before they decide who will be their rep. The
teachers can define what they would like the partnership to look like. They need
help scheduling the teacher rep to be able to attend the PTO meetings.
There will be some changes to the by laws to accommodate a teacher rep.
Suggestions from the teachers- Mrs. Nicholson is happy with the PTO and their
abilities to meet her needs and any requests that she may have. There is a need
for meetings to be at a more accessible time – after school vs. during the school
day. Lunch meetings? Morning recess meeting? Maybe a 3:15 meeting time?
The after school time could work for teachers. Do the teachers want one person
or can the rep position be interchangeable? A suggestion was made to have 2
teacher reps and a proxy as a possibility. Another suggestion was made to have
the 3rd quarter PTO meeting at report card pick up. Teachers seem to think this
is a good time.
The PTO is trying to skip a December general meeting. The next meeting will be
in January and we can try out an afterschool time.
New Business
 Legacy 2014For the year we have an 80K goal, so we will still have some money to make at
Legacy. In January we will be looking for people to help run the event. Donna
and Karen volunteered to help. We already have a checkout volunteer. We are
asking if anyone has any ideas of spaces or anyone has a contact that can help
get a space for 200 people. Does anyone have any ideas of how to secure a
corporate sponsorship?
A suggestion was made that as a teacher appreciation gift you could buy your
teacher a ticket to Legacy.
Sock hop February 11 and there is no school the next day.
Meeting in January TBD
Library Art show TBD
Meeting adjourned at 4:06pm