PTSA Board Meeting Minutes, 1/16/25
Date/Time: 1/16/25, 6pm
Location: Table Public House
Facilitator: Stacy Berger, President
Board Members Present: Stacy Berger, President; Amy Miller, VP; Liz Mogno, Secretary; Allison Kahlich, Communications; Lara Pomprowitz, Fundraising Chair; Sarah Callaway, Volunteer Coordinator
Community Members Present: None
Next Community Meeting: 1/31/25, 7-8:30pm, Lincoln Elementary School, Innovation Space
Next Board Meeting: 2/20/25, 6pm, Table Public House
Lincoln PTSA Meeting Minutes
Call to Order: Stacy called the meeting to order at 6:26pm.
Action Items: Amy motioned to approve last meeting’s minutes, Liz seconded, all in favor, last meeting’s minutes were approved.
*Shout outs:
Stacy recognized Amy and Sarah for the organization of the end of year teacher gifts.
Lara and Amy organized the PTSA closet and it looks amazing! Plans are to start inventory of the items for ease of use and knowing what we have and what we need.
Agenda Items
PTSA Check In
End of the Year Review:
Teacher + Staff Appreciation gifts
CO Gives Day
PTSA Committee Updates and Reports
Upcoming Community Meeting
Events
BASH
Talent Show
Science Night
Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week
Other Business: Fundraising, Teacher Grants, Budget
Closing/Next Steps
End of Year Review:
Teacher and Staff Appreciation Gifts
Amy: Zeffy has been extremely easy to use and helpful; streamlined; She developed a spreadsheet to organize and categorize teacher gifts for end of year; developing the spreadsheet was a lot of work but once that was done, it was pretty easy to put together and she has a better idea of what works and what doesn’t; great team effort
Stacy: due to good amount of money raised, we were able to give nice gifts; we should try to start earlier with planning and organizing to ease the end of year load
Ideas for personalized teacher gifts going forward; let’s talk about it more at the next meeting;
Stacy was able to send a thank you email through Zeffy to people who donated which was fairly user friendly/easy to do
CO Gives Day:
not as successful this year
struggled with the amount of communication put out re: it
we were down a sizeable donation that had been a regular gift for many years
difficult also due to the timing and multiple asks at that time of year
PTSA Committee Updates and Reports
Membership committee (Stacy, Liz, Mackenzie, Conor Gleason)
Discussed why people join/how to promote membership
Launching a campaign in the fall: Why I PTSA
Once we get people in the door, how do we follow up; keep them engaged and keep the communication going
Increasing outreach to current members
Setting goals for membership
How can we get the PTSA to better reflect our school’s racial demographics
What’s the package we’re promoting through our campaign: access to Shelley at quarterly meetings; a sense of pride and volunteerism; breaking down the budget for more tangible and personal ties
See the Membership Committee Meeting Minutes here: Membership Committee_Meeting Agendas
Finance Committee: (Lara, Amy, Stacy, Doug)
Talked about calling the finance and audit committee
Doug had not yet closed the books so we don’t have final numbers; he will report back.
Talked about systems and moving everything over to zeffy for everything; moving away from venmo and stripe- we’ll save money by not using stripe
Hard stop end of Jan for venmo
The only leftover thing will be merchandise, moving it over
Nominating Committee:(Allison K, Sarah Rothman, Kate Gotter)
Talk to Liz and Doug to write up a blurb about why we joined and our positions
Have some ideas on people to reach out to for filling those positions
Upcoming Community Meeting
Jan 30th
7-8:30pm
childcare will be provided
Business pieces: second semester calendar, teacher grants, committee reports, BASH, recruit more committee members at next public meeting; community corner: school choice/tour feedback- how to promote Lincoln (talk to friends, yard sign, etc.); Shelley to talk about budget hopefully; school focus
prepare the community for the budget and school funding -lead in to why we do the BASH
student leaders/council has come back into formation and student leaders are working with the BIPOC group- we should highlight this
Dessert bar: Allison K (gluten free), Sarah Callaway, Liz, Amy, Stacy
Lara will get snacks for kids and sparkling water for adults at the meeting
Amy to reach out to the CCL’s to announce our upcoming public meeting; we’d like either the CCL or a parent classroom representative to attend the meeting
membership email going out to members from Allison
Events
BASH (Lara Pomprowitz):
need help figuring out location and timing
we have confirmation that we can go back to Public Offering if we’d like
Tentatively looking at Friday, April 25th
Andrew Schmidt has several connections that he offered to reach out to as far as vendors and people to reach out for donations; no current update from him
we’re 3 months out currently
concerns about getting things in place in time
our biggest hesitation in going back to PO is that we’ve been there the past two years, the space isn’t ideal and the acoustics aren’t great however we can’t beat the price anywhere else
this year we’ll hire an auctioneer which hopefully will increase successful fundraising at the live auction
wanting to send out a BASH specific email on 1/28/25
wanting to launch teacher experiences earlier in the year requiring us to get this information planned and out sooner
teacher experiences are due 2/7 and kick off the experiences on 2/18
plans for year round experiences to be released at appropriate times and linked to other fundraisers
looking into renting a better sound system and stage/riser system for presentation and auction
multiple ideas for BASH themes
Talent Show
Michelle and Katy D. are off and running
Asked for Sui to reach out to see if any sound/AV needs.
Sarah C reaching out to Nicole N/other photographers about photography support
no additional volunteers needed at this time
Science Night
School is taking more of the lead this year; Amy will reach out to Shelley/Ms. Algoe to learn more about what they are thinking and how PTSA can support
Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week:
First week of May 5-9
Sarah C is working with Sarah Forbest to coordinate around the teacher/staff appreciation week; will connect with Marlon to coordinate/align with last year’s effort
Stacy will talk with Shelley during the 1/23 meeting to learn if there are any needs/desires she has to bring to the week of appreciation for the staff
5th grade continuation
Ms. Algoe has asked PTSA to support the 5th grade continuation ceremony at the end of the year
Amy will meet with her to get a clearer sense about what’s needed
Other Business
Fundraising (Lara):
hard to know when donors submit checks and when we need to follow up with promised donations; system isn’t built for all to have visibility
Idea: have the treasurer take a picture of checks when going to deposit and send a photo to the board/Lara/donor manager(?) for donor relationship tracking/management
Teacher Grants (Amy):
Ms Heidi would like a rug
supplies for the wax museum
Ms. Wright would like a free standing white board
Ms. Holtzmann would like decodable books for the library
Shelley would like us to focus on the innovation space
need to do a walk through with facilities
sound dampening panels for various points around the school; possibly peel and stick option
we approved all teacher grants except for the sound proofing as that’s a bigger project that may fall more on infrastructure vs teacher/learning tools
Budget (Stacy):
Shelley is rethinking how to do the budget and then we will partner with her to support her vision/budget
working on right-sizing the budget/payment system and timing
it seems best practice to use our reserves to catch up and get on track and use our new funds toward the following year
Shelley has not received the budget yet but is supposed to get it this Friday
look at the enrichment budget line item and the field trip line item
meeting with Shelley and her budget liaison
Closing and Reminders
Closing/next steps
Will pick up this topic at our Feb 20 meeting. In the meantime, Stacy will ask PTSA Board Members to come with some ideas to share with the group.
Desire to reschedule the movie night; movie permit goes for a year so there’s a way to coordinate this to cover three potential movie nights over the course of two years.
Stacy mentioned that we should be thinking ahead to the start of school and doing a free, PTSA-organized, community event to start the year to set the tone for the year; a family picnic in Wash Park was floated.
Action Items: Stacy made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9pm, Amy seconded, all in favor. Meeting was adjourned.
Next Board Meeting: 2/20/25, 6pm, Table Public House