PS 130M - PARENTS ASSOCIATION
Minutes to PS 130M General Meeting September 21, 2023
Attendance: Mr. Renny Fong, Ms. Thomas, Ms. Samphaoron, Lisa Wong, Yvonne Moy, Gloria Tsang, Karen Ma, Amy Hu, Joseph Li, Alice Chen, Lily Wai Lee, Ana Fung, Michelle, Sally, and 30 other participants (see sign in sheet, in person)
Meeting Commence: 8:52 am
Translator: Karen Ma – Chinese & Ana Fung - Spanish
Parents’ Association opening & Review. Joseph Li – Co-Presidents
Good morning, everyone, this is our first meeting of the year. Welcome back from summer vacation. Thank you for supporting the PA and coming to our meeting. I know you’re all here because you care about your kids, and we care about your kids too. I know you’re all in a hurry too, so let’s get started.
Here is Mr. Fong to announce our current PA Board members.
Mr. Fong – Meet the PA Board Members – Our Co-president – Joseph Li
Our Co- Treasurers – Gloria Tsang & Alice Chen
Our Co - Secretaries – Amy Hu & Lily Wai Lee Our Event Coordinator – Lisa Wong
Our Parent Coordinator – Diane Chong
Without our PA support we wouldn’t be here, thank you!
Joe – These are our board members, but we are open every day except the weekend. We are here for you; we are your voices, and you can let us know what you need. The PA room is 101, once you come in the front doors, go to the right, we are pass the playroom.
We are here for chit chat, or you can come in from the rain to keep dry. Everyone is welcome to step up and volunteer, we are volunteers ourselves.
Back to fundraising, the PA does a lot of fundraising. We are the friendly faces with the thick skin to ask for funds for fundraising. We would like you to help us, ask your employers to help donate.
Here are some of the things the PA does to help fundraise for the Art programs.
1. PA _Fundraising for 2023-2024
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- Bake Sale
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- Candy Sale
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- Annual Ask
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- Photo day
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- Scholastic Book Fair
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- Spirit Clothes
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- Holiday show
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- Benefit Gala
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- Mother’s Day
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- Handmade Bead Sale
If any parents have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know.
We have a form, by the PA room and in the back of the auditorium at the end of the meeting. These are signup sheets for upcoming events we need volunteers for. If you want to learn how to do some arts & crafts come by the PA room to learn these crafts, they go towards our fundraising events. I learned how to make handmade beads last year.
- - Cherrydale catalog – 9/22/23 to 10/25/23
- - Bake Sale – Wednesday 10/11/23
- - Photoday – Tuesday 10/17/23 & Wednesday 10/18/23
- - Book Fair – Monday – 10/30/23, Wednesday – 11/1/23, Friday 11/3/23 and Monday 11/6/23.
We need volunteers for photo day and the Book Fair, please sign the signup sheet if you can volunteer for those events, thank you.
3. Review of the minutes & Treasury reports from our last meeting in June 2023.
These are the minutes for review and to be approved from our last meeting in June; 4 people approved the minutes, minutes are placed on record and will be posted on the PA blog site. Thank you!
This is the treasury report for review and approval; 4 people approved the treasury report. Thank you! This will be posted on the PA blog site.
Karen – any questions? Parent – what time do the volunteers need to be here for Photo Day? Karen – we aren’t sure yet, but we will let you know when we do.
4. More Fundraising
Joe – One of the PA’s biggest fundraiser is our annual banquet which is usually in the month of May. This allows us to have one of the biggest Arts programs. All that we fundraised goes towards all our Art programs that cost an estimate of $10,000 for each program. We as parents don’t have to do research to introduce these programs to our children. This is a start for our kids to try and learn programs they could like. These programs enrich our kids that we fundraise for so all our kids can enjoy and explore.
Our Art Programs
They’ll learn from all these special programs; we"ll have these wonderful shows that our children will perform for their parents. You’ll see where all our hard work fundraising goes to. Please join us at our PA Annual Gala/ banquet if you can, we will be showing casing all the hard work our kids have put into and learned from the art programs. If you have any suggestions, please come by the PA room, and let us know how we can help mold our kids to be better.
Thank you!
Parent question – Curious, what’s our goal for fundraising?
Joe answers – We raised $83, 000 last year from the banquet and there were about 600 kids in the school and this year we have less; the prices of each program have gone up as well. We have rollovers for rainy days but hopefully with our fundraising we can cover those rainy days; of course we would like to raise more money than we did last year. Maybe you as parents can bring in corporate donors to support us and our art programs.
5. Principal remarks –
Mr. Fong – Government funding this year is tight, the 3rd graders will start violin next month.
Oh, sorry, we have an expediated election to take place now.
6. Expediated elections
Joe – we have two positions open on the PA executive board. We have a VP and Co-President position up for election. Anyone can self-nominate, or someone can nominate you for these open positions.
Jennie – nominates Karen Ma for Co-president.
Joe – She was Co-President last year. Anyone else want to run for the position? No response
Joe calls for a vote – 17 people voted Karen Ma into the Co-President seat. Joe – Next position up for election is the vice president seat.
Amy nominates Ana Fung for the position.
Joe – She’s great, she speaks Spanish and can be a great help with our new families. Although we would still need a Russian translator for some of our new families. Let’s start the voting for the Vice President position. 24 people voted for Ana Fung into the Vice President seat.
We welcome you to the board and congratulations! The election is now closed.
Joe – Thank you and back to Mr. Fong.
7. Principle remarks:
Mr. R, Fong – Thank you to the PA. I’ve been here since 1997 and this is my 10th year as principal and 27th year here at PS. 130. I wouldn’t be here without our PA board and Ms. Thomas and Ms. Samphaoron our two Vice Principals.
I was also a product of the public school system attending school in Staten Island, Brooklyn Tech, and Columbia University. Growing up we didn’t have all these Art programs. We love the arts here because it helps our kids shine and I was a very shy kid.
Another thing that is very important to me is social emotional learning. I have a mood meter in the back for you. I have a 17year old and a 7-year-old and we started to use the mood meter, we started to it at dinner time to help each other. Mood impacts our kids and how they learn. The mood meter helps us communicate our feelings even when we are not ready to talk about it. We practice this and start practicing something I learned over the summer, to breathe better. We have a chime so if your kids talk about it, this is where it came from.
We shared a link on Opperoo, on Dance to Unite, they teach about social and emotional learning through dance, that we started 2 years ago.
Thank you so much with the PA for their support on all these programs. Like Joe said they cost $10,000 to $20,000 a program; without them and your support we wouldn’t be able to have these programs.
Parent question – What’s the funding like this year?
Mr. Fong answers – In the 10years I’ve been principal, our budget has never been so tight. Thank god we are Title I school.
For Title I, to qualify for it we must fill out the lunch forms, for years we didn’t have to fill out lunch forms, we were exempt from the forms but now we must fill them out in order to see if we can stay a Title I school. These will go out with your kids in their book bags soon if you haven’t filled them out online yet. With Title I there are 2 options to opt into; 1 is a targeted and the 2nd option is SWP (School Wide Program). We usually vote for SWP, we vote for everyone to be included like our art programs.
We hope to hold on to our Title I because it gives us $100,000 to use were we see fit, such as hiring more teachers or paras or adding more programing, such as cool culture which is offered to Pre-k to Kindergarten classes, where they can go to museums and the zoos for free.
Any question about Title I?
Parent – Title I is the best; it gives us extra funding.
We encourage open communication; we are here for you guys. Any issues please contact us.
Time goes by so fast, my son will be in college, hopefully next year... lol I hope we can help and support each other. So, your homework is to go talk to your kids. Selfishly, this is the last year I can really talk to my son other than him calling me for money. Lol. My wife went through some health issues, so it’s important to check in on each other.
Let’s have a great year! This went a little longer than usual.
Parent – asks about/who the administration is.
Ana answers in Spanish and points to who the administration is.
There are volunteer sheets in the back. Thank you everyone!
Closing time – 9.45am – next general meeting will be October 5, 2023.
