February 25, 2010

Week of March 1-March 6, 2010

Monday: 3/1/10

• 3:15-4pm Living Stations Practice, 8th grade
• 6:30pm First Eucharist Class

Tuesday: 3/2/10

• 8:30am Smokey the Bear visits 1st grade
• 3:15-4pm Living Stations Practice, 8th grade

Wednesday: 3/3/10 No activities today

Thursday: 3/4/10

• 1:00pm Sister Marietta and Sister Regina visit today
• 3:15-4:00pm Living Stations Practice, 8th graders

Friday: 3/5/10 No School – Staff Spiritual Retreat

Saturday: 3/6/10 Happy Birthday to Sarah Woodley!

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March Menu

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March Calendar

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Benefit Breakfast

Sunday, February 28th 8 am – noon

St Mary School Cafeteria, Stayton

• Ham, Eggs Hashbrowns
• Cinnamon Rolls Applesauce
• Orange Juice Coffee
• $6.00 12-Adult
• $3.00 ages 5-11
• $24.00 Family

Benefiting the Santiam Vicariate Youth Group

Franciscan Youth Conference Steubenville, OH

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Family Lenten Info 1

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Family Lenten Info 2

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Scrip Order Form

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SCRIP Notes

We have a few SCRIP items left from Christmas inventory that we would like to sell as soon as possible. If you shop at these locations please help us out by stopping by the school office or sending in a note with your payment to purchase.

• Fred Meyer – overstocked on both $20 and $50 cards
• Great Harvest Bread – 1 $10 Card available
• McGrath's Fish House – 3 $10 Cards available
• Oil Can Henry's – 2 $35 Certificates available
• Pier 1 – 1 $25 Card available
• See's Candy – 4 $13 One Pound Certificates available ($16.10 value)
• Shopko – 1 $25 Card available
• Subway – $15 Cards available (will be changing to $10 cards soon)
• TJ Maxx – 2 $25 Cards available
• Walmart – overstocked on $100 cards

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Stations of the Cross this Friday

FYI, there will be Stations of the Cross this Friday, February 26 at approx. 2:00 p.m.

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We have two tables of lost and found items (mostly clothing) outside the school office. They will be there until March 9th. So if you’ve been missing anything, you may want to check the tables for your item.
After that date, the items will be removed and donated.

Thank you.

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Santiam Marketplace

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Parent Club Meeting Minutes

Thursday, February 18, 2010

In attendance: Debi, O'Bryant, Dana Peters, Mona McMullen, Sheri Nees, Maria Schmidlekofer, Rick Schindler, Stephanie Jorgensen, Patty Fery, Tina Quigley, Janell Dickey, Kristi Frith, Jennifer Schumacher, Monique Ierardi, Cadie Fery, Ross & Mary Scrocca, Dean Christiansen, Amanda Banning, Anne Ferguson, Kari Childers, Janna Adams, Clare Bentz, Tonya Dolby, Diane Wavra, Elaine Blish, Jane Lulay, Kevin & Annette Joyce, Kelly Rush, Jennifer Ditter, Melanie Brown, Joni Lorenz, Anthony & Kristan Hoke, Ken Adams, Nikki Voltin

Welcome and Opening Prayer – Debi O'Bryant

Photo Wall Display:

Back in September Rick made the announcement that he would like to have some volunteers start creating a photo wall. This wall would be at the entrance of the school, and the wall would display bright, colorful pictures of the St. Mary students.
Tina Quigley and Sheri Nees volunteered and took a trip down to O'Hara School in Eugene to see their photo wall. It was very warm, inviting and it gave the school a sense of community.
Tina and Sheri brought some of the prints to show the parents what the photos will look like when they are mounted on the foam board.
The photos will be put up in the entry way this summer, so when the students return to school in September a new entry way will be created to welcome them back to school. Tina and Sheri would also like to take the all school photo and blow it up so that it is a focal point on the photo wall.
At the end of the school year (June 2011) all of the photos will be taken down and put up on the walls of the cafeteria. The photos will go above the wood paneling and will be grouped by the school year.
If parents have good quality photos of students please send them to Tina Quigley at e-mail address to come.
Q. Can these photos be of alumni students?

A. We would like to have current students displayed on the wall. In the case of the 8th graders who will be leaving the school at the end of this year, photos of them will be okay to display.
Q. Should these photos be of school activities?

A. Yes, all photos should be of school activities. So, good quality pictures from a sporting event, classroom activities, the carnival, Halloween, All Saints Day Mass, Outdoor School, etc.
Q. When should these photos be turned in by?

A. All of the photos should be received by the last day of school. It does take some time to get the pictures mounted on the foam board and it will take some time to get them all hung up properly.
SAC Update:

The Regis Board of Directors attended the last meeting. The discussion was around the St. Mary and Regis merger. Questions were answered and a lot of good discussions took place. Rick did not go into the details of the meeting.

Treasurer's Report:

As of the end of January we have $35,000 in our account.
The profits from the Carnival are $6,590 to date.
Total profit from SCRIP is $7,300.
Total SCRIP inventory is $33,000.

Carnival Update:

Looking at when to hold the Carnival next year.
Looking at possibly holding it in June, which would take the place of the field day.
There will be things they do not do for the next Carnival:
No door prizes
No cash prize
Won't print as many raffle tickets. This was an unexpected expense and Becky and Cadie have reached out the Shangrila group to get the tickets printed up for next year.

Q. How do parents feel about holding the Carnival in June?

Comment: Felt the Carnival was geared more toward smaller children. Possibly get more things for the children in the 8 – 12 age group.

Comment: There is a lot going on during that time frame. There are a lot of graduations being held, sporting events, etc. By that time of the school year many parents are done and looking for a break.

Comment: What about the end of September, or the beginning of October? It could be a welcome back to school for the students and parents.

A. There is the Harvest Fest in early September and then the Oktoberfest in the middle of September. It would be difficult for Becky (co-chair) to add another event during this time.

Q. What about adding a silent auction? The carnival used to have one.

A. The co-chairs would like to bring back the silent auction, add bingo, and quite possibly have laser tag in the gym.
The co-chairs are also looking to send a survey home in the Thursday Folder to get more ideas and feedback on the Carnival.

Bellies, Babies and Beyond Update:

The next sale will be held on Saturday, March 13th.
There are only 2 commercial vendor spots available, all other spots have been sold.
If you are interested in volunteering your time, they could use your help on Friday night with the set-up and Saturday with sales. If you would like to help contact Brenda Chamberland or Janna Adams.
Any donations you might have can go in the room across from the cafeteria.

Auction:

Items are coming in and procurement letters were sent out.
The caterer contract has been signed.
A teacher donated 3 digital frames, 2 will be used for the Kindergarten classes and 1 will be used for the 8th grade class. Sheri Nees will be asking the parents of all 8th graders and Kindergarten students to submit quality photos to her so that she can put the photo frames together. All 3 of these frames will be put in the silent auction.
Reece Carr will be creating a digital yearbook for the auction backdrop. This will be available for purchase.
Need responsible 7th grade students to help serve the meals.
Need more items for the Man Table.
Q. Are guns an acceptable item for the auction?

A. Yes, of course they would not be loaded and would be kept secure.

The following items were discussed as possible Parent's pick:
Build a covering that would extend part way down the sidewalk (by the cafeteria entrance). No quote for this yet.
Finish the staff lounge – chairs, table, cabinets, etc. About $10,000.
Two rooms left to finish with new windows and ceiling. $10,000 per room
Purchase Smart Boards.
Have the main hallway painted by a professional painter. The quote was not yet received on this item.
Reader board in front of the school. Approximately $10,000.

Q. Past classes have given money to the school for a reader board. Where is that money?

A. The money was put back into the school, but was not specifically saved for a reader board.

We could do a combination of things like, finishing the staff lounge and having the hallway painted.
With the loss of 2 staff members this year, finishing the staff lounge would be a great way to let the staff of St. Mary know we appreciate them.

Q. How many Smart Boards do we currently have?

A. We currently have 4 smart boards in the lower grades because they work better for them. The upper grades use interactive slates. Rick would recommend not having the Smart Boards as one of the options to select from.

More discussion and the decision will take place on the Parent's Pick at the March meeting.
Rick's Update:

Change in pick-up time for Friday, February 19th due to a funeral taking place.
PK – 2nd and siblings of these students will be released at 11:45 a.m.
3rd – 8th will be released at 12:00.

Spent the day with the 6th graders at a Vocations Rally in Portland. 8 other schools were in attendance.
Allison Ierardi won the essay contest
Makayla Traeger won the poster contest

Discussion about fundraising and whether the parents want to continue with all of our current fundraisers, or possibly raise tuition and eliminate some of the fundraisers. Rick gets a lot of feedback from parents who are burned out from fundraising and volunteering.

Comment: Raising tuition shouldn't be an option. Eliminate smaller fundraisers and really look at the big ones and how we can improve them.
Comment: Can't afford tuition to go up. It would have to go up by $500 per student in order to break even. Sally Foster is probably the easiest fundraiser we have because it only takes 1 person.
Comment: Too many fundraisers grouped together. Not every child needs a packet sent home with them. We should really look at sending 1 packet home per family. This would eliminate each child feeling the need to have their parents purchase from them.
Comment: We are a community within our parish and town. By doing away with fundraising we are doing away with the community connection.

Comment: Fundraising need to be ruled by common sense. We need to focus on a few things and do them well as opposed to adding more.
Comment: Jane Lulay and Elaine Blish will be co-chairing the green sale.
Comment: From November to January parents get bombarded with fundraising. We need to space out our fundraisers better.

Comment: It's hard when you're not part of the community. More apt to give money when they know where the money is going. Like the auction; they know the money goes back into the school.

Comment: Why are parents not volunteering? Are there other issues?

The fundraiser chair people need to look at asking more parents. For the Auction, Kristi has gotten a good response from those individuals she has asked. She focused on individuals talents and what they are strong at doing and what they enjoy doing.

Comment: Where are we with Share Hours?

The Share Hour statistics were given:
137 total families.
9 total families that have only Pre-school children so no share hours for them.
42 families are done with their share hours.
35 families have hours documented, but have not completed all of their hours.
51 families have no recorded hours.

Comment: Have some kind of sign-ups for the teachers who decide to do in class fundraising. This would eliminate 2 or 3 teachers holding fundraisers during the same time.

Comment: We need to have a shadow system in place for the chair people. This way we are constantly bringing up a new person to replace the outgoing chair.

Comment: There should be a folder kept of how the event went with contact information, etc. This would be nice to give the new person coming in as the chair person.

Comment: An idea was brought up about having the grades grouped so that each grade would learn about a portion of an event. Example: For the Carnival have Kindergarten and 1st grade be in charge of food. The 1st grade parents would teach the Kindergarten parents what to do, so there was always one grade teaching the other grade learning. This would maybe help the fundraising chair people.
Comment: Look at the families that haven't logged share hours and tap into that group for the upcoming fundraisers.

Sheri will be sending the list to Kristi Frith and Janna Adams.

Comment: Raising the tuition to get money from those families who aren't volunteering. More than likely parents are spending more money on the fundraisers than a tuition increase.

Comment: We have to find ways to drive more families into these events.
The consensus from the parents is to continue holding our big fundraising events. We need to focus on what makes them successful and do them well. The event chairs need to make direct contact with parents to get them more involved. Keep tuition where it is and not have an increase.

The SCRIP program will be changing in the next couple of months and more communications on the changes will be coming out. Knowing that it will be changing, what do parents think of having a buy out option? Example – if your family does not participate in the SCRIP program then you would pay $100 to the school.

Comment: Unless the school starts having some kind of accountability, having a buy out option will not work.

Comment: What are the reasons why we can bill parents who do not volunteer? In the past the parents were told it was because of our Archdiocese, but that is not the truth. Rick will need to look into what we can do, and if we can bill parents then we should.

Rick will call the Archdiocese and see if we can legally bill parents.

Comment: We need to educate our parents and let them know that volunteering at our fundraising events is a way to keep tuition low. Without volunteering and getting involved the tuition may increase.

Comment: Clarification was needed on why we focused on SCRIP as a buy out option?

With the upcoming changes to the program it was used as an example. There would be different levels of a buy out option.

Consensus from the parents was to not move forward with the piecemeal buy out options.

The next meeting will be held Thursday, March 18th from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the cafeteria.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Thursday Folder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.