General Meeting: Garden, Leadership, and Budget Planning

a. finished up some MAP make-up – at 98% complete

b. 6/12 PD green day. We are still going to have a PD day – Mr. Ruthruff is out but we have a lot of volunteers. On 6/13 is field day – looking for some more volunteers. Everything will start. 11:30 for set up, 12:30 for K-2, 3-5 until 2:10 – placing volunteers tomorrow.

d. Reports coming home

f. Students take their bookbags home on the 18th so they begin to take things home.

School garden update

A school-wide garden initiative had expanded through grants and curriculum.

b. Youth educators and farmers so they built curriculum and went into 12 classrooms from PreK all the way up to 5th grade.

c. School wide survey on what young people wanted to do with the food – earth day event – gave up their specials on a Friday. 5 stations – planted seeds, took them home in the cup. Survey showed all the food wanted to be given away – so the fresh produce will be given away to Duwamish tribe.

d. Looking for volunteers to help water this summer – building trellises. A lot of the crops will still be going in the fall so those will be ready when they come back. Pumpkins! Cherry tomatoes!

e. Also thinking about running a farm stand for kids to give away

f. Students are staying out of the garden and lots of learning

g. Equipment: soil, straw, compost – those would be great to have without having to pay.

h. We would love to be able to do a lead test as we don’t know where the dirt came from - we got fill dirt and put compost in.

i. Roots to Fruit program that Mr. Ruthruff created: dance, golf, basketball and gardening. Budget for external folks to come in – trying to figure out how to make this more sustainable moving forward

j. Looking at getting an outdoor lock box – a structural trellis that can be moved around. Water spigot has been a challenge as it’s very enticing

k. Wondering about the dollar amount, could PTSA be involved in grants (pass on to someone who could do the grant writing). Orca; they do fundraising to fund the garden program. Wondering if that is an option.

m. Best time for 24/25 recruitment? Right now looking at what people’s capacity is. They can continue that list of interested parents. In an ideal world we would build the hype in Febrkuary and then March would be talking to kids. March to May is the big push with capping of Earth month in May

PTSA leadership structure and sustainability were discussed.

The stated goal was flexible, defined leadership.

5. Budget:

a. We may not get the Move-a-Thon $$ until next year’s budget

After-school staffing costs were discussed; the program would include payment options.

c. Kimball Kitchen paid for the Multicultural night – a wash

d. We haven’t done the email campaign – we might want to talk about it.

e. Maybe we put out a donation box for Lunar year, Multicultural night etc – for those that can’t pay PayPal etc.

f. Next year instead of 2 events we are going to cover 4 including Volunteer Appreciation – it will come out of our budget.

g. Using a lot of tech for translation so not using those funds

h. Didn’t use a lot fo the School Supports lines: Assembly, student directory, warm weather clothing, testing snacks, translation/interpretation

i. PTSA Support: well within budget

j. Special Funding: supporting Team Read, Raz Kids, Ilia Math, School Supplies: They are asking us to cover half of what SPS is ordering. So about 13k. So far we are getting donations because starting early

k. Asking for RET training be approved for next years budget.

l. Questions: What is our fiscal year? July thru June

m. Budget needs to be set by July - but with the knowledge that not set in stone.