Sunset P T S O

Sunset PTSO August/September Meeting Minutes

8:30am, Sunset Library

Attendance: President Sarah Tycast, Vice President Shannon Ilas, Secretary Heather Goodrich, Treasurer Katie Norquist, Volunteer Coordinator Liz Jacob, Principal Michelle Wilson, Instructional Coordinator Willow McCormick,Caitlin Scales, Scott Scales, Emily Guerreno, Amanda Callahan, Laurie Hurley, Dana Midles, Lana Tucker, Darcy Peak, Mai Sorenson, Emily Gilbo, Sarah Duffin, Claire Riley, Jenny Frank, Stacy Barger, Lucie Shook, Bettina Jacobs, Linda Ta, Jenessa Dixon, Michelle Toney, Allison Lorenzen, Amy Varga, Jessica Lew, Cheryl Landazuri, Karen Compton, Stephanie Tomlin, Caitlin Rychel, Patty Dawson, Noy Bunn and Jacob Faust from Eco-School Network.

Meeting called to order by President Sarah Tycast at 8:25am.

Welcome and Introductions

The group was welcomed followed by brief introductions. The June 2017 minutes were reviewed and approved after a motion from Darcy Peak and a second from Laurie Hurley.

2017-2018 Calendar Review

• PTSO Meetings
  • Most monthly PTSO meetings will be held at 6:30pm in the evening, with the August/September, December and May meetings at 9:30am.
  • The PTSO has a website with the current calendar, meeting minutes and other helpful items. Go to https://sunsetptso.org and sign up on the lower right hand side to follow the blog. Any calendar changes will be updated here.
• Back to School Picnic
  • Will be held on September 15th behind the gym on the covered concrete area. Families should bring chairs and we are hoping the school will also put out tables.
  • Flyers will come home with children about the event and offering a pre-pay option for dinner. You can also pay at the event or bring your own dinner.
• Fall Fundraiser: Fill the Jars
  • We need a chairperson for this fundraiser- let Sarah or Liz know if you are interested. Can be a single person or a group of people.
  • This fundraiser is a check writing campaign. We want children to bring in checks, cash and change. The goal is to raise $4000 and we are still deciding what the money will go for. The last couple of years, funds from this fundraiser bought non-fiction books for classrooms.
• Chairs for Fundraisers
  • Liz made a list on the calendar where we need event chairs:
    • Fall Fundraiser: need a chair or co-chairs- NEED NOW!
    • Barn Blast: Need a co-chair with Sarah Liddell- NEED NOW!
    • NW Children’s Theater Performance: Need a co-chair with Susie Morgan
    • Winter Movie Night: need a chair or co-chairs
    • Family Breakfast: need a chair or co-chairs
    • Fun Run: need a chair or co-chairs
    • Staff Appreciation Week: need a co-chair with Frances Araujo

Financial Report

Treasurer, Katie Norquist, handed out the Sunset PTSO 17/18 annual budget for review. Everything is similar to last year’s budget. The following was discussed:

• Items to be changed if voted (later in meeting):
  • Moving money from tax accountant to staff appreciation luncheon
  • Moving money from Popsicle Palooza- moving 200 to “Beaking” fundraiser

• We still have money left over from the Fun Run. It was dedicated to the Artist in Residence project last year which designed the tree and the mosaic in the new school. After paying the artist, we still have funds to be used towards the arts (since that is what we said we would do with the money when we raised the funds).  Sarah suggested putting some of it towards the NW Children’s Theater. We are switching from Missoula and it will cost quite a bit more. If we dedicate some of the leftover funds, the cost per participant will be similar to last year. It was also discussed to use part of the money for art literacy in the school and supporting an art literacy parent or parents.

Center for Earth Leadership: Eco-School Network Presentation by Jacob Foust

Eco-School Networks are composed of parents leading projects at elementary schools with a goal to introduce sustainable practices and raise eco-awareness with the children. This presentation was to introduce himself and the network to the PTSO and build an opportunity to work together and develop initiatives with the new school.  

It was suggested that Sunset let parents know what type of sustainable practices were put into the new school.

For more information, contact Jacob Faust at jacob.faust@gmail.com or go to http://ecoschoolnetwork.org/

Fundraising Overview

At Sunset Primary, instead of selling things to raise funds for the school, we have two donation campaigns: Fill the Jars and Fun Run. The Fall Fundraiser still needs a chair and will be previewed at curriculum night. The Fun Run will be a Star Wars theme: May the 4th be with you.

The other fundraisers are ongoing throughout the year and include:

• “Beaking”- People would purchase a set number of Eagles and choose a yard in the community to be the recipients. It would promote school pride. Since Sunny the Eagle is our mascot, the idea was to call it being beaked.
• AmazonSmile- When you shop on Amazon, if you go to smile.amazon.com and select Sunset School PTSO, a portion of your order will come back to the school.
• Box Tops- Collect “Box Tops for Education” from the tops of hundreds of products and send them to school with your children. The school receives 10 cents per box top collected. Box Top flyers will be going home the first week of school.  Amber Duncan is the Sunset Box Top Coordinator.

Sarah brought up an idea that was brought to the PTSO last spring. Kids Kreations is an art fundraiser where kids make high quality art in their classroom and the company will make a variety of products with the kid’s art on it. Items include water bottles, cards, Tshirts, blankets, etc. The school receives a percentage of the profits and it doesn’t cost us anything but time for the kids to create their art. We are hoping to get the art created in the next few weeks so that ordered products can be received in time for Christmas. If there are any parents who would be willing to teach an art class, let the PTSO know.

Items for Vote

Sarah brought the following items up for a vote from the PTSO:

• Move $200 from Popsicle Palooza to “Beaking” Fundraiser startup costs.
  • Popsicle Palooza was overfunded and will not be over budget with this move.
  • Darcy Peak moved and Liz Jacob seconded the motion. It was approved to move the funds.
• Increase Staff Luncheons/Appreciation budget to $1300 by moving funds from the tax accountant line item.
  • Current treasurer, Katie Norquist, can prepare the taxes.
  • Karen Compton moved and Laurie Hurley seconded the motion. It was approved to move the funds.
• Addendum to bylaws: extending board membership to 3 years- vote to drop temporary addendum
  • In 2016, an addendum to the PTSO bylaws was added to extend maximum board membership from two to three years. This was due to no interest in PTSO positions, so those who had already served two years stayed a third year. Since there is much more interest, Sarah asked to remove the addendum.
  • Laurie Hurley moved and Darcy Peak seconded the motion. It was approved to remove the addendum.

Principal Update

New Principal Michelle Wilson gave an update to the PTSO. Her goal is to build a culture of cooperative and contributing citizens with a strong connective sense of community. She spoke of new procedures, like the five point scale to help children be aware of themselves and others.  She also thanked the PTSO for the back-to-school lunch the previous week and the Popsicle Palooza.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:25am.

Respectfully submitted by Heather Goodrich

SUNSET PTSO June Meeting Minutes

6:30pm Sunset Library

Attendance: President Sarah Tycast, Secretary Heather Goodrich, Treasurer Becky Wilson, Volunteer Coordinator, Amber Duncan, Principal Lisa Hawking, Shannon Ilas, Tyler Toney, Michelle Toney, Katie Norquist, Liz Jacob, Kelly Manning and Grady Manning.

Welcome and Introductions

The group was welcomed followed by brief introductions. The April and May meeting minutes were reviewed. Lisa corrected the May minutes to state that school will end at 11:10 on the last day of school, not 11:20am. After a motion from Lisa and a second from Becky, both the April and May minutes were approved with the time correction.

Financial Report

Treasurer, Becky Wilson, gave the financial report, which included:

• The last PTSO event- Pizza Bingo- was very successful. We budgeted $1700 for the event and brought in $1791. This is not a money making event so we were happy to be close to even.
• Teachers are still turning in expense reimbursements.
• Purchased non-fiction books with the money raised from the Fall fundraiser.
• From the Spring fundraiser, we paid for the artist- specifically the tree and part of the mosaic. We have funds in reserve to hang the mosaic in the new school in the Fall.  
• We raised $16,000 less expenses during the Spring fundraiser. The artist was $6,000 and we still have $8000 or $8500 that needs to be allocated to art (since that is what we said we would do with the funds from the Spring Fundraiser).
  • We will figure out something to do for the new school in fall.
  • If you have any ideas, please forward to Sarah Tycast.
• We made $30 from AmazonSmile. Remember to go to AmazonSmile and choose Sunset Primary when you shop on Amazon.

PTSO Board Elections 2017-2018

Sarah sent nomination forms home with children for the 2017-2018 PTSO board. We received nominations for each open position and Sarah Tycast was nominated to serve as President for a second year and Heather Goodrich was nominated to serve as Secretary for a second year.

Sarah motioned to approve the new proposed board and Heather seconded the motion. The approved board for 2017-2018 is:

• Sarah Tycast, President
• Shannon Ilas, Vice President
• Heather Goodrich, Secretary
• Katie Norquist, Treasurer
• Liz Jacob, Volunteer Coordinator

Thank you to all who stepped up to serve on the board next year.

Preliminary 2017-2018 PTSO Calendar

Remember 7:50am in the new start time next year.

• August 24th @ 2:30pm: Open House and school supply drop off.
  • Doors won’t open until 2:30
  • 5th graders will go in first so that they can give tours of the new school to the Preschool-4th graders and their families. They will be wearing name tags to show that they are there to help.

• September 8th @ 5:30pm: Back to School Picnic
  • This is the day after curriculum night. Becky confirmed that this is NOT the same back to school night as Rosemont. Rosemont’s is September 1st.

• December 1st (maybe): Movie Night
  • The school used to movie night in gym. Families would bring chairs and wear their pajamas.  
  • The PTSO would like to try this again. We will find somewhere in the budget to put it in so that is is a fun, free event for the entire family. We hope to sell popcorn and possibly hot chocolate.

• January 26th: Family Breakfast
  • There was a discussion that with a 7:50am start time, there might not be enough time if we start the breakfast at 7am. It will be held in the multi-purpose room since the new school doesn’t have a cafeteria.
  • It was decided that we wouldn’t start earlier this year. If there isn’t enough time, we will look at moving the start time earlier in following years.

• April 14th- very tentative date! (Saturday): Pizza Bingo
  • This event is usually on a Friday and has been very successful. Previously, it has been held in May, but with the Fun Run, Staff Appreciation Week and Kindergarten Open House, we decided to move it to April.
  • There was a discussion of moving the event from Friday to Saturday night due to Spring sports. Lisa and Sarah will look into what is involved on holding it on a Saturday.

• Monthly PTSO meetings:
  • The new board will figure out meeting times and dates for 2017-2018.

Fundraising Ideas

The PTSO would like to look for additional fundraising opportunities for Sunset. We will keep our Fall and Spring Fundraisers because between those, we have been consistently raising $20,000 per year.

The goal is to not have the children sell items that people don’t really want. Ideas that were presented at the meeting were:

• Pottery Painting Night
  • Sunset used to do this and we are thinking of putting this as a station at the Back to School Picnic. We would only have to buy the paint because the school has a kiln.
• Flocking Fundraiser
  • People would purchase a set number of something (Eagles, Flamingos, etc.) and choose the same number of yards in the community to be the recipients. Since Sunny the Eagle is our mascot, the idea was to call it being pecked or beaked.
• Kids Kreations
  • Kids Kreations specializes in transforming original works of art into personalized gifts and keepsakes.
  • This would be something to do at the beginning of the year and built into school curriculum. Every child that wanted to participate would be sent special paper, create their artwork and send it back. Parents would be able to order things like cards, bags, etc. to arrive in time for Christmas.
  • The school that Amber works at has done it and it was very successful.
• Snap Fundraising
  • Tyler Toney suggested this because it has been successful for the high school football team he coaches.
  • Each class or the whole school would make a video of what the funds raised would be for. Children would have the opportunity to bring in email addresses of people outside the household and/or it could be shared on Facebook. There would not be a minimum for each child for emails, but the competition could be between classes on how much was raised.
  • The school gets to keep 90% of the money raised. Snap would film the videos and there would be no cost from our end to get it up and running. It was suggested to tie in with the Fall Fundraiser.
• Tiles for Sunset
  • Children would buy a tile, put their name on it and it could be put on an exterior wall of the new school. Lisa will talk to the District about the possibilty of doing this and where to do it. .
• Restaurants
  • Other schools partner with restaurants to earn a percentage of profits on a night. We would like to look more into this.

Children’s Theater

We have made the decision cut ties with Missoula. We are going to use NW Children’s Theater. It will be similar to last year with the entire event lasting a week- including practices and performance.They can take 50-75 students and it will be a traditional musical production. Susie Morgan has volunteers to be the chair for this event. The cost is $1100 more than Missoula, so the board will look at where that money will come from the budget.

Other Updates- Principle Hawking

• Sunset has ordered an e-book subscription that teachers can use with classrooms and families can use at home. With this format, you can choose to have it read to your or you can read it yourself. It has 246 books with it and will be coming in the Fall. It is similar to Tumblebooks, but has more non-fiction books.
• CampFire was selected as the Before and After school care for Sunset Primary. They will be at five out of the six Primary schools in West Linn for the 17-18 year.

Meeting adjourned at 7:47pm..

Respectfully submitted by Heather Goodrich

Sunset PTSO May Meeting Minutes

9:30am Sunset Library

Attendance: President Sarah Tycast, Vice President Susie Morgan, Secretary Heather Goodrich, Treasurer Becky Wilson, Principal Lisa Hawking, Kelly Manning, Katie Rasouli, Liz Jacob, Jessica Nazario, and Michelle Toney.

Meeting called to order by President Sarah Tycast at 9:30am.

Welcome and Introductions

The group was welcomed followed by brief introductions. The April meeting minutes will be reviewed with the May meeting minutes at the June meeting.

Financial Report

Treasurer, Becky Wilson, gave the financial report, which included:

• $16,039 was the final dollar amount raised from the Fun Run.  

• • Samantha Houston was the individual with the highest donations and will get to be Principal for the day.
  • Ms. Nofsinger’s class raised the most with the most children participating. They raised $1240 total.
• Teachers have been turning in their supply receipts. The PTSO gives each teacher $200 per year.

• The PTSO is going to donate a $50 grocery gift card to the 5th grade family that lost their family member. This money will come out of the PTSO discretionary fund.

• The PTSO sponsored the 5th graders tuition to BizTown and in turn, the 5th graders wrote notes of thanks to the PTSO. The thank you notes were passed around the meeting with an overall theme that adulting is difficult.

Staff Appreciation Week

This first week of May is Staff Appreciation week. Frances Araujo and Katie Rasouli chaired this event and we thank them for creating such a great week! Bus Driver appreciation is also this week and a sign was created for students to sign and on Friday, desserts will be sent with bus drivers.  

Upcoming Event: Pizza Bingo

Pizza Bingo will be held on May 19th with Noel Dahlby and Kelly Manning chairing the event. Darcy Peak will be the bingo caller and an email will go out asking for volunteers to help collect money and serve food.

PTSO Board Recruitment 2017-2018

Sarah is going to send out a letter and a PTSO nomination form for board positions and event chairs.

The Sunset PTSO bylaws state that each position is a term of 1 yr and the same person cannot serve more than two years in a row for the same position. President and Secretary have served one year, but all other board positions need to be filled by someone new. Voting will take place at the June 7th meeting.

It was decided that we will not fill the Fundraising Chair, since it isn’t an official board position,  instead asking for separate fall and spring event chairs.

There was a suggestion to create a SurveyMonkey survey asking parents what they would like to see from the PTSO, how to create better participation at meetings and how to get more parents involved with volunteering for events.

Community Building

Sarah brought up the topic of Community Building at Sunset. This would be a time to build community, meet other parents and down the road- add raising money for events. It was agreed that we should start with smaller parent social events rather than focusing on asking for donations.

Ideas included parent socials, poker nights, destination events such as wine tasting or going to entertainment type events.

Ideas for future fundraisers included auctions, online auctions, silent auctions, etc. Other schools have been very successful with auctions for fundraising and building community at the same time. It was also suggested to offer childcare to get more participation.

Children’s Theater

There is a new contact at the NW Children’s Theater. More to follow next meeting.

Other Updates- Principle Hawking

• Lisa  thanked the PTSO for Staff Appreciation week. A HUGE thank you to Katie Rasouli and Frances Araujo for all their hard work in organizing the event this year.
• Without a field to have Field Day in, all students will go on a field trip to the Oregon Zoo on June 19th.
• The 5th grade celebration will be on June 15th with the 5th grade party afterwards.
• The end of the year assembly will be at 8:25am on June 20th and all parents are invited to attend. Remember, school that day is a half day with children getting out at 11:10am.

Meeting adjourned at 10:20am.

Respectfully submitted by Heather Goodrich

Sunset PTSO April Meeting Minutes

6:30pm Sunset Library

Attendance: President Sarah Tycast, Vice President Susie Morgan, Secretary Heather Goodrich, Volunteer Coordinator Amber Duncan, Principal Lisa Hawking, Darcy Peak, Emily Goodwin, Katie Norquist,, Katie Rasouli, Frances Araujo, Jenny Frank, Ginger Fitch, Dylan Hydes, Trey Maust, Regan Molatore, Grady Nelson and Mike Taylor.

Meeting called to order by President Sarah Tycast at 6:30pm.

Welcome, Introductions and March Meeting Minutes Approval

The group was welcomed followed by brief introductions. The March meeting minutes were approved after a motion from Darcy Peak and second from Susie Morgan.

Financial Report

The April Financial update was deferred until the May meeting due to Treasurer Becky Wilson being unable to attend this meeting.

Darcy Peak let the group know that the Fun Run met it’s goal of $16,000 with the total amount raised being $16,039. A big thanks to the families that donated and to Darcy for championing such a great event.

Guest Presenters: WLWV School Board Candidates

There is a Special District Election on May 16, 2017. The West Linn Wilsonville School Board has three open positions with two candidates running for each open position. All six candidates were present to talk to the PSTO about their reasons for running and what they hope to accomplish if elected.

Position 1: Regan Sonnen Molatore and Michael J. Taylor

Position 3: Dylan Hydes and Grady Nelson

Position 5: Trey Maust and Ginger Fitch

The main message presented by all three candidates was for everyone to VOTE! May elections during an during an off-election year often have low turnout. School board positions are very important to the future of our children’s education. Take the time to read about each candidate in the Clackamas County Voters’ Pamphlet that will be coming out later this month and make sure to VOTE!! The PTSO thanked all the candidates for taking the time to come to our meeting.

Upcoming Event: Read to Us Week

Read to Us Week will be held next week April 10th- 14th. Read to Us Week is where community leaders and parents come into the classrooms for a half-hour to read a book to the class. They can talk about their careers and/or community involvement, and the importance of reading. As Chairs of the event, Emily Gilbo, Mai Sorenson and Jenny Frank have been working hard to arrange readers, schedule with the classrooms and find volunteers to walk readers to the classrooms.  Jenny was at the meeting to update the group.

Upcoming Event: Staff Appreciation Week

Staff Appreciation is the first week of May. Frances Araujo and Katie Rasouli are chairing this event and handed out a flyer on what will be happening each day of the week:

• Monday
  • Coffee and Pastries: Parents will be asked to bring baked goods and someone will pick up coffee from Starbucks for the teachers and staff.
  • Doors will be decorated the Friday before with flowers that will be sent home for each child to color. Parents will be asked to help decorate the doors on Friday, April 28th.
• Tuesday
  • Breakfast Bar: Granola, Berries and Fresh Fruit will be set out for the teachers and staff. A parent will be asked to volunteer to set this up.
• Wednesday
  • Catered Lunch: a parent will be asked to pick up lunch boxes from a restaurant and deliver it to the school.
• Thursday
  • Snack Cart- snacks will be provided to teachers and staff. A parent will be asked to volunteer to set this up.
• Friday
  • Dessert Bar- the Kindergarten and 1st grade parents will be asked to bring in desserts (instead of the usual lunch).

In addition, parents will be asked to donate bottles of wine and little gifts will be given to each teacher. Gratitude jars will be set up so that parents and students can write messages to teachers and staff.

Thank you to Katie and Frances for creating such a great week!

As of 4/28, there are still a few volunteer positions open. Please go to

https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/30e0f4eaaae2ba2fe3-sunset

to sign up. Show the teachers and staff how much they mean to you and your students.

Upcoming Event: Pizza Bingo

Pizza Bingo will be held on May 19th with Noel Dahlby and Kelly Manning chairing the event. More updates next meeting.

PTSO Board Recruitment 2017-2018

Sarah let the group know that we will have open board positions next year. Vice President Susie Morgan, Volunteer Coordinator Amber Duncan, Treasurer Becky Wilson and Fundraising Chair Darcy Peak’s positions are open.  If you are interested or if you know of a friend that would be, please let Sarah or the PTSO Board know.

Children’s Theater

Sarah has been trying to get into contact with the NW Children’s Theater. Katrina Edwards has done research for us because she has an educational theater background. She has identified 5 choices to explore and we will hear more about those next meeting.

Count Me In Update

The West Linn Wilsonville Education Foundation gave us an update of their Count Me In Campaign. The goal for Sunset Primary is $5,000 from 50 families. As of this meeting, Sunset had met 6% of the goal from 9 donors.

Other Updates- Principal Hawking

Lisa Hawking thanked the 2nd and 3rd grade parents for the wonderful staff lunch they provided in March.

Meeting adjourned at 8:00 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Heather Goodrich