Montgomery Blair High School PTSA

Minutes of PTSA Meeting --- May , 2007

May 20, 2008 PTSA Membership Meeting

Facilitator: Dave Ottalini 
Time Keeper:  Bob Gillette
Recorder: Debra Reed-Gillette
Dave called the meeting to order at 7:40 pm.

The minutes for the March membership meeting were approved after corrections noted by Carol Smalls.

Treasurer’s Report:  Nancy announced that the paper work had been submitted and approved for registration as a charity and as a non-profit organization as required by the National and State PTSA.  After Prom had requested an additional $1000 to cover costs.  We also have enough money in the accounts from Painless Fundraising to again grant seed money to the academies to help with purchasing needed materials to get the academies started.  The academies are not funded by the Board of Ed so still need help in getting the programs up and running. The money provided by the PTSA last year was used to organize the academy fair with speakers and displays.  The total outlay would be $6000 for the 5 academies and the 9th grade academy.  Nancy presented an amended budget to the membership including these additional expenses.  The motions for AfterProm and the academies was approved unanimously by the membership.

Volunteers:  Beth Martin on behalf of the Blair Volunteer Parents Program of the MBHS PTSA received a check for $1000 at the Champion for Children’s Dinner. Congratulations to Beth for all she does to coordinate this large co-hort of volunteers.  A letter from the County Council, Nancy Floreen, was received in recognition of the work done.

Painless FundRaising:  Carol reported that Safeway is now beginning its summer marketing program.  Be on the lookout for email talking about this program from eScrip and Carol.  This is separate from the Safeway eScrip rebate that is done during the school year.

Principal’s Report:  Mr. Williams presented the following statistics for 3rd quarter Honor Roll:
Freshmen – 311, 67 with straight A’s
Sophomores – 306, 57 with straight A’s
Juniors – 271, 37 with straight A’s
Seniors – 302, 58 with straight A’s
Total – 1190 students on Honor Roll with 219 with straight A’s

Retirement celebrations will be held in June for Melba Battle, Ralph Bunday, Maureen Diodati, Phyllis Fleischaker, Tu Nguyen, and Nanette Dyas.

Newsweek ranked 6 MCPS schools in the top 100 in the Nation.  Newsweek uses the index developed by Jay Mathews and is derived from the number of AP or IB tests taken by all students at a school divided by the number of graduating seniors.  Montgomery Blair ranked 199 (# 7 in MCPS).  The top six were Richard Montgomery, Wootton, B-CC, Whitman, Walter Johnson, and Churchill.

An ESOL end of the year celebration and reception gave ESOL awards and recognized Joe Bellino for 34 years of service.

Official notification was received from the Commission on Secondary Schools of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools that Blair was granted accreditation.

AP exams have finished and HSA exams are being given this week and next.  A total of 31 modified HSA exams will be given. 

Summer school will not be held at Blair this year, except for some targeted summer school programs, specific to the Blair Cluster.  This is because of the technology refresh and modernization.  This will occur the first 2 weeks in July.

The targeted programs held at Blair this summer will be:  Blair Blast for incoming Freshman, a reading program, and a two week crash prep program in Algebra for middle school students who failed their final Algebra exam in middle school.

20-25% of Blair students still continue to be academically ineligible for extra curricular activities.  The majority of these students are LC failures (loss of credit due to attendance).  There are still too many 2nd and 3rd year freshman.  Transition issues for 9th to 10th grade will be addressed through advisory periods next year.  The staff is working on identifying and utilizing school resources to aid in helping students who struggle. 

SGA Report:  The spring spirit week was very successful, especially the new theme day called high school stereotypes.  Most of the SGA focus was on elections which were held in April and May for the SMOB and Blair SGA.  Q won the SMOB election, and Sybil Brown won President, with Jessica Arce winning Vice President of Blair SGA.

Chris Barclay was presented as special speaker.  Mr. Barclay is a member of the Board of Education and a Blair parent.  Mr. Barclay discussed budget cuts and the focus of the BOE on achieving efficiencies in the system.  At this time, a 4% increase was being given to faculty and staff according to the contract in place.  All staff will be held to the letter of the contract for the number of classes and release periods for teachers.   Expect to see central office positions cut.  The middle school magnet consortium and middle school reform for 6 schools will remain.  The BOE is also focusing on the issue of the HSA bridge projects.  There has not yet been guidance from the state on these projects.

Elections:  All present were reminded that only members of the PTSA could vote in the election.  Memberships were verified according the membership list.  The following slate of officers was presented by the nominating committee for election: 
President:  Robert Gillette
First Vice-President:  Pete Lafen
VP for Academic Affairs:  No Recommendations
VP for Administration:  Howard Kohn
Secretary:  Sudha Murthy
Treasurer:  Walter Mulbry

Nominations from the floor were taken.  Ron McClain was nominated by Ann Collins as the VP for Academic Affairs.  Ron accepted the nomination.  No other nominations were forthcoming.  The nominations were closed and then voted on by the membership.  The slate was approved by the membership unanimously.

Congratulations to the 2008-2009 PTSA Officers.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 pm.