Working Meeting — budget asks, reserves, and advocacy priorities

Agenda:

Community Building Question: Where in your life do you feel a sense of abundance right now? (Kelly)

Review BLT budget "ask" (Carrie Sekijima Lam)

Budget group discussion. Inviting questions. Inviting ideas for how PTSA might support these asks through advocacy and other ways if we don't fund any positions (all)

Update on RET and progress on AA/NH/PI Heritage Month (Tracey Fugami)

Update on RET discussion re: possible classroom visit by SCPTSA Advocacy Chair Sam Fogg (to discuss student advocacy opportunities!)

National African American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID) update (Charissa)

Closing

Carrie Lam – summary of BLT (Building Leadership Team) meeting:

Met yesterday to go over possible budget scenarios and came up with two, majority voted for option A which allows for: ft intervention teacher/leavy coordinator, ft intervention teacher, .8 intervention+ELL, able to pay for Team Read (no need for PTSA help), fulltime Family Support Worker, and increase nurse from .3 to .4 (so nurse 3 days a week).

Student council requests- want more ways to help students calm down and more adults in classrooms

PTSA ASK: $3000 (to add to tutor amount), $6-8k for student school supplies, Raz kids subscriptions ($1585), IslandWood for 5th graders, Events, Classroom/field trip funds – so similar to what they have asked in past (and less than last year) and no salary position requests.

· Question about school supplies for students- should we organize to have families who are able donate (maybe $20/child)? Last year we spent $8k and recouped $2k from families for school supplies.

o Is this a good idea to start off the school year asking for money?

· News from legislative session- increased language access, increased funding for social workers, counselors, and nurses, not sure how much of this will trickle down to Kimball but SPS should have more money for these positions. So our counselor position is now fully funded by the state!

· Discussion about paying for staff positions

o Is paying for tutors technically paying for staff? Tutor position feels different from other staff. Are we just trying to avoid paying for core staff? Note made that Title I money helps fund tutors but cannot go towards many other staff positions.

o Maybe we approve the tutors this year with the idea we should have deeper conversations about staff support from PTSA.

· Using a big chunk of reserves this year to pay for Family Support Worker. At end of school year, we will still have $70k left in reserves, probably more like $80k. Recommendation is that we spend down reserves to $25k over next 5 years, which gives us $11k to use per year over next 5 years. Expected income for this year is $39k, most school asks actually come from reserves, not from our general budget. Something to be aware of as we think about all this.

o Question about reserves – how do we handle reserves in the future? What is a good amount to keep in reserves?

Tentative decision: we will match the ask from Kimball to fund, starting on the low end of $6k for school supplies with possibility to go higher. Plan is to personally reach out to others, with emphasis on hearing from BIPOC families, about this plan.

Tracey Fugami - AA/NH/PI Heritage Month for Month of May

Meeting coming up next week (Thursday, March 24 at 2:45 pm, In person meeting.) about this, hoping to engage others. Resources are also needed as a vision for this event begins.

Michelle Bradley- Sam Fogg visit

Advocacy team and RET – how can we bring advocacy education into the classroom? Learned that Sam Fogg may do a classroom visit about using your voice for advocacy for students.

Charissa Pomrehn- African American Parent Involvement Day

Next week, 7:30-9:30am for Black parents and parents of Black students. Please consider personally inviting folks. Ms. Pollard is the guest speaker.