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LYON /PLEASANT RIDGE PTA MINUTES

December 13 th, 2005

In attendance: Dave Work, Rosemary Lorenzo, Dr. Gerald Hill, Dr. Jill Engel, Chris Northwick, Sue Swaringen, Liz Price, Kristina Hourihane, Christy Crist, Debbie Berg, Denise Gross, Gretchen Rich, Miriam Biales, Olga Panagakis, Tammy Burke, Robin Hinrichs, Chris Coleman, Peggy Hopkins, Susan Krock, Kay Laurie, Lisa Dickholtz, Sandy Brennan, Kristi Carroll, Vickie Schurer, Beth Schmidt, Vanessa Podgorski, Kevin Dorken, Dr. Matthew Rich

I. Welcome - Chris Coleman

NEW PRINCIPALS ANNOUNCED FOR LYON AND PLEASANT RIDGE
Dr. Gerald Hill/Dr. Jill Engel
After a very thorough and extensive search process new principals were hired for Lyon and Pleasant Ridge. There were roughly 150 applications received for each position. The interview process included an on-line application, individual interviews and building committee interviews. Candidates were also interviewed by an independent firm, district administrators and Dr. Hill. Kevin Dorken will be the new principal for Lyon and Dr. Matthew Rich will be the new principal for Pleasant Ridge.

At this point the new principals were introduced to the PTA and both said a few words and entertained a few questions.

II. Secretary’s Report
November minutes were reviewed - motion was made to approve, seconded and passed.

III. Treasurer’s Report - Sue Krock
Cash balance in the account is $36,145.
Income from book fair - total revenue was $25,000 and net profit was $3,016.
We discussed conducting a pre-holiday sale of spirit wear next year. Chris C. will speak to Theresa Drouillard about this.

IV. Teacher Representative - Katie Konieczka
3 rd grade - native american unit, social studies and reading unit
4 th grade - doing elf interviews
5 th grade - finishing Ecosystems, next unit in science is sound and light, they love the 6 traits program funded through PTA last year
TREE - just started a new project - altruism - chose their topics
music - practicing for the holiday program
PE - looking for volunteer photographers for Jumprope for Heart (Thursday before President’s Day weekend)
library - 3 rd grade voting on state-wide Monarch award, 4 th - library survival field trip to Glenview Public library, and 5 th grade working on Caldecott a ward choices

V. Principal’s Reports

Dave Work - Lyon
-Everyone is getting ready for the holiday program.
-Thank you very much to the book fair people for an excellent job (Susie Feldstein and Mary Lou McDonagh).
-Thanks to the PTA for the laptops to support the wireless initiative. The teachers are using the laptops in the classrooms and the kids are very much at ease with them. Thanks to Tracey Murdach (Lyon technical expert) for training the teachers.
-Winter break starts next Thursday, December 22 nd. After break we will be doing reading curriculum based measures - this gives the teachers updated information on the kids fluency and progress in reading.
-Dave will be meeting with Kevin over winter break. There will be movement of some programs into Lyon school due to a district wide shuffling of space. Dave will work closely with Kevin over the next few months.

Rosemary Lorenzo - Pleasant Ridge
-The holiday show will be held Wednesday December 21 st at 9:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. - rehearsal will be held Tuesday the 20 th. Try to carpool as there is limited parking at PR. Rosemary is trying to look for a parking solution for the building.
-Pleasant Ridge will be aligning book fair and literature alive night with the spring open house. May 4 th will be the open house and will include book fair and literature alive night, poetry café and authors. Two authors are scheuled to be here that night.
-Thanks on behalf of the staff for the six traits of writing - the kids are writing and reflecting more and keeping journals.
-Thanks for the stackable folding chairs and for the new tables in the staff lounge.

VI. President’s Report - Chris Coleman
Chris encouraged everyone to attend a school board meeting. The minutes are posted on the website - www.glenview34.org. You can sign up to be a key communicator and receive the e-mails. We discussed the need to know what goes on at the school board meetings. Lisa Dickholtz, Beth Schmidt and Tammy Burke formed a committee to discuss information dissemination from the school board to our PTA. The budget reduction task force spent 28 hours doing a review of the budget. The school board discussed a lot of critical financial information that people need to understand for future funding requests.
There is a recommendation to move two programs - early childhood NSSED and Wesley Kindergarten daycare from Henking to Lyon and 2 programs will move to Henking from Westbrook - ELS bilingual and and speech?

VII. New Business - Chair Reports

1 st Vice President - Chris Northwick
The website is up and running - please review and let Chris know if there are any corrections.

2 nd Vice president - Tammy Burke - no report

3 rd Vice President - Liz Price - no report

4 th Vice President - Eileen Grant - no report

Volunteers - Lisa Dickholtz
Lisa will be having a meeting to discuss revamping the volunteer process. Please give her any suggestions you may have.

Benefit - Kristina Hourihane
Everyone should have received the save the date pinwheels in their children’s backpacks. Kristina will check with Pleasant Ridge to make sure they went out.

Holiday Helper - Jen Wirtz and Deb McMahon
We still have 5 to 6 families left to sponsor. Gifts are due Friday,Dec. 16th and there will be a wrapping party on Saturday for any remaining unwrapped items.

Global Language
There will be a survey to identify ways to improve this program.

Parents in partnership - Vanessa Podgorski
The program was very successful - about 250 people attended. Stedmann Graham was very well received as the keynote speaker. They will be looking for a high profile keynote for next year. They may ask for more from each cluster to support next year’s program.

Environmental - Gretchen Rich
Waste Free Lunch is this Friday, December 16 th. Need a volunteer at 11:45 at Lyon. Sandy Brennan will go.

Cultural Enrichment - Miriam Biales
There is a storyteller assembly next Thursday at Lyon - at 9:30 and 10:30.
The shark assembly at P-R was a huge success.