Meeting date 10/14/25@ 6:30pm
Meeting location: Elementary School library
Unfinished (Old) business
New Business/Funding Request
Partnership with CLS
Future Discussion
Adjournment
Hoosic Valley Parent Teacher Organization
Regular Meeting Minutes: September 18, 2025
Location: Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Attendance:
President: Liz Ruepp
Treasurer: Carolyn Gifford
Secretary: Shannon Hansen
Members (in-person):
Lisa Meehan
Erika Bates
Deb Van Valkenburg
Stacey Kyea
Jamie Pollay
Kelli Siracusa
Jessica Garner
Kimberly Macic
Called to Order: 6:34 PM
Treasurer’s Report:
Caroline is currently working with the PTO accountant to collect tax paperwork for our tax year. (Aug 1 to July 31).
Unfinished (old) Business:
School Supply Kits-update – 58 kids ordered the school kits. Everything went well except we need to remember to go in and prep the kits after they get ordered. A volunteer came in the day before school to organize. So far have not gotten any feedback so assuming all children received what they needed.
New Business:
Yearly meeting dates: Group chose the second Tuesday of every month at 6:30pm, except for November
Money Minder: Our accounting software subscription is coming up due. Lisa Motioned to pay for the annual software subscription. Caroline seconds All in favor – Yes; None opposed
Set Dates and Committee Volunteers:
School Pictures – October 20/21 Monday and Tuesday; Chair will be working to find volunteers for picture day. Typically there are four or five helpers for fluffing and prepping the kids for the photos. PTO will be able to provide an initial list about who showed interest.
Chair – Jessica Garner
Volunteers – Erika Bates, TBD
Trunk or Treat – Friday October 24, Chair will be organizing volunteers and helping to plan who will be providing the “trunk” portion of the treat. Caroline will help guide the chair since she has done this in the past.
Co-Chairs – Jessica Garner/Deb Van Valkenburg Co-chairs
Volunteers – Lindsey Donovan, TBD
Book Fair – Will be the week of October 20, Chair will work on set up and finding volunteers to help out. This is one where help will be needed everyday for portions of the day. Reach out to Liz if you would like to help with this event.
Chair – Liz Ruepp
Committee – Erika Bates, Jessica Garner, Jamie Pollay
Conference Night Potluck – Thursday November 6, Chair will be looking for volunteers to cook and bring the food to the school the night of November 6. Cash donations to purchase food will also be accepted. Take out containers are provided to the teachers well. This is a chance to support the teachers who are staying late for parent-teacher conferences.
Chair – Shannon Hansen
Volunteers – TBD
Festival of Wreaths – Kick off December 5th to have the wreaths hanging. Send out notification for volunteers tentatively 11/12 and have them due by December 3rd. This event is PTO’s most consistent fundraiser, bringing in 800-1200 dollars
Chair – Liz Ruepp and Stacey Kyea
Committee – Caroline Gifford
Ornament Painting Night – December 5th; Chair works to determine how many kids plan to attend and then they reach out to buy supplies and go pick them up.
Chair – Katie Teal would co-chair, looking for another chair
Committee – Caroline Gifford, Jessica Garner
Yearbook – End of April it will be due; Chair organizes getting photos from the different activities and organizations. TreeRing is currently the website in use to put the yearbook together. It is an easy website to use with great customer support. Typically the hardest part is understanding who to reach out to and get the photos. Please send any photos from different events to secretary@hoosicvalleypto.com.
Chair – Shannon Hansen
Committee – Jessica Garner, Jamie Pollay, Specific to 6th Grade Baby Photos (Deb Van Valkenburg & Stacey Kyea)
If you see a committee you are interested in please reach out to any of the PTO emails which can be found on the website.
Dues: Even if you paid dues last year please sign up and pay your dues on our website(it will go through cheddar up).
Funding Requests:
Speech Department asking for a color printer and ink: the request was read at the meeting. For awareness – John Harris is our Questar technology rep. The members discussed whether this is a district issue because everyone needs access to a color printer. It was also questioned who would buy the color ink going forward. Ultimately the members question if this is really a bigger conversation that needs to happen. *Also discussed the receiver should have directed the requester to the website where teachers can put in a funding request.
A member questioned the use of a stipend. It was discussed and determined this is the preferred method because people can come back and it will not be a one and done. Additionally, people end up buying things that don’t make sense because they feel they need to spend their stipend.
Future Discussions:
Color Run – The question was raised why the color run was not currently scheduled because it was such a positive community experience with a lot of participation. The members discussed the giant undertaking and 90% was done by one volunteer last year. This included daily prize drop offs and a daily checklist provided from the vendor. Additionally, the vendor we used will not work with a club so if the Color Run was under the PTO umbrella we would not be able to just give a club money. The topic came up about doing the run not as a fundraiser, someone even suggested selling the powder packets to the parents to throw at the kids. The kids would not get daily prizes or T-shirts. The group discussed if the NJHS kids (~30) could organize the event. There would need to be a plan not to have a repeat of an issue which occurred last year with some helpers. Right now this is tabled but the best option would be spring and volunteer to organize would be needed.
STEAM Elective – STEAM elective was removed from the elementary school curriculum. A member questioned if teachers in the school were able to pull supplies from the STEAM room to conduct mini lessons if they chose. This was confirmed to be a yes. Many different options were discussed on how to keep these types of activities available for the students.
NYS Employee Mentoring Program – A member identified state workers can be involved in a mentoring program for grades 3-5. Information is being gathered on how to make this happen. We want to open up the conversation on how can the PTO help improve career development in the school district. Some other schools such as Tamarac have had success with career days.
Meeting Adjourned: 7:49PM
Next Meeting Scheduled for Tuesday October 14 at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Reminder – any questions regarding the minutes can be directed to Liz or Shannon. Their PTO emails can be found on the website under contact us.
Hoosic Valley PTO
Meeting date 4/10/24@ 6:30pm
Meeting location: Elementary School library
New Business/Funding Request
Future Discussion
Adjournment
Hoosic Valley Parent Teacher Organization
Regular Meeting Minutes: March 19, 2025
Location: Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Attendance:
President: Liz Ruepp
Vice President: Melissa Kalbfliesh
Secretary: Shannon Hansen
Treasurer: Carolyn Gifford
Members (in-person):
Stacey Kyea
Tegan Kondak
Lisa Meehen
Kayla Gregoire
Tiffany Hurley
Deb Van Valkenburg
Called to Order: 6:34 PM
Review of Minutes:
Please read the January meeting minutes to determine if changes need to be made. Provide recommended changes during April meeting.
Treasurer Report:
Nothing to report at this time.
Unfinished (old) Business:
Yearbook – Gathering all the photos is continuing to be the challenge, but progress is being made by getting direct contacts. It was discussed how we should target more activities so if some get missed, this is ok. Liz/Shannon plan to go to the school one day to get everyday photos, students getting off the bus/etc. Three major actions need to take place before the next meeting: 1) Teachers need access to the link so they can start adding photos. 2) Need to inform parents/students they can start purchasing the yearbooks. 3) 6th grade baby photo flyers need to be posted and sent home with students.
Writing Olympics – A lot of progress was made with this event. A total of 111 students will have stories in the book, along with artwork from approximately 22 students. The number of students is on par with previous years. Author night is scheduled for Wednesday March 26th. Water and ice cream has been donated for the event. Tiffany recommended to the group to print the book from 2020. She found the electronic file which had the completed book, it just needed to be printed. Everyone agreed this was a good idea, students worked hard on their stories and COVID had put a halt to everything.
Bus Driver/Custodian Breakfast – PTO agreed on Friday April 11, directly before spring break. This also allows PTO to get access to the night custodians since our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday April 10. A google sign-up will be going out.
STEAM Night – Both nights were a success. People agreed splitting up the nights was beneficial to use more challenging experiments for the older kids. K-3 had a good turnout of approximately 50-60 kids. While 4-6 only had 10-15, they still appeared to enjoy the experiments. Making a boat and challenging each other proved to be one of the favorites.
Guptills Night – Approximately 60 kids signed up for this night, which is a good turn out. It is this Friday March 21st from 6:30 to 9pm. A cutoff date of tomorrow Thursday March 20 was decided so final tickets can be passed out at school on Friday morning. Liz will put a final reminder on parent square.
Learning Fair – We are going to try to get this to work again. We just need to figure out how to motivate kids to participate like writing olympics. An idea for the future is to mention it during STEAM night events. We would hold the learning fair on Tuesday May 20th, the night of the Budget Vote. It is no longer called a science fair because we are encouraging kids to come up with various ideas (4H topics, their writing, works of art, etc.).
Officer Elections – If anyone is interested in becoming an officer please reach out to hoosicvalleypto@gmail.com. The officer elections will be held in May.
Teach Appreciation – Last year money was provided to the administration for a picnic to be held for the Hoosic Valley staff which included yard games. While this was a great idea, it proved a challenge for elementary teachers to participate since the elementary school has a different schedule than the high school at the end of the year. The majority of the elementary teachers were working on closing up their rooms. We have done a couple of different options in the past including mugs, swag, food, a sunshine cart with snacks and treats, Chrissy’s etc. Please let us know your ideas, we spend about $1000 on the ~200 Hoosic Valley staff members.
New Business:
School Kits – We are trying to reinvigorate this for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. Teagan volunteered to lead this effort but is looking for support. Please reach out to hoosicvalleypto@gmail.com if you are willing to help. The first major action is to get the school supply lists for each grade before the end of spring break. Than we can work on sending out the reminder.
Bingo Night – Plan to do this again this year after the book fair. May 16th will be Bingo Night.
Spring Book Fair – The book fair will be the week of May 12th. Need to start looking into requests for volunteers to support.
Funding Requests:
2 Wobble Stools for 2nd Grade Classroom – These stools will specifically be used for the 2nd grade integrated room. They also have the potential to be used across the school. The two stools will be less than $500 total. Motion to agree by Lisa with a 2nd from Deb. All were in favor.
Manipulatives and flexible seating – this was requested for the K-2 communications room. The difference between the integrated room and the communications was discussed. Unclear what the real need is for these items so more information is going to be gathered for the request.
Future Discussions:
Meeting Adjourned: 7:38 PM
Next Meeting Scheduled for Thursday April 10 at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Reminder – any questions regarding the minutes can be directed to Liz or Shannon. Their PTO emails can be found on the website under contact us.
Hoosic Valley PTO
Meeting date 1/9/24@ 6:30pm
Meeting location: Elementary School library
New BusinessFunding Request
Future Discussion
Adjournment
Hoosic Valley Parent Teacher Organization
Regular Meeting Minutes: October 10, 2024
Location: Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Attendance:
President: Liz Ruepp
Vice President: Melissa Kalbfliesh
Treasurer: Carolyn Gifford
Secretary: Shannon Hansen
Members (in-person):
Kate Teal
Tiffany Hurley
Deb Van Valkenburg
Stacey Kyea
Lisa Meehan
Lindsey Donovan
Meghan Luskin
Jamie Pollay
Tegan Kondak
Kayla Gregoire
Kimberly Macica
Brandie Buid
Called to Order: 6:36 PM
Review of Minutes:
Please read the September and October meeting minutes to determine if changes need to be made. Thank you, we will discuss at the November meeting.
Unfinished (old) Business:
Color Run – The run is scheduled for Saturday October 19th, and the run is producing positive vibes with the children in the school. The PTO discussed how to handle if there are any extra prizes at the end. The discussion revolved around every child getting a key chain. Additionally, the $10,000 goal was already exceeded as of this meeting. The funds will be used for future PTO events and requests. A logistics committee was created to plan out the day of the run. Volunteer names were provided to the committee.
Membership Drive – More green paper was requested by the front office to send out the drive request.
Teacher Conference Dinner – November 7th will be the potluck for the teachers. Sign up genius will be going out in the next week for this event.
Picture Day – Picture day for the Elementary school is scheduled for Wednesday October 23 and Thursday October 24. Sign up genius will be sent out for volunteers in the next week.
Trunk or Treat – Held on Friday October 25th. Five sixth grades parents have signed up so far. Since only five 6th grade parents have signed up, the request will go out to the larger community. Due to the small amount of candy donated before the event in the past, the PTO will be requesting a five dollar donation or a bag of candy donation to participate in the event. This proved successful in the past. Early candy donations will still be accepted at the elementary school.
Yearbook – Electronic folders have been set up. Shannon is looking for help for the Color Run and Trunk or Treat event. She is looking into the feasibility of QR codes in the future so anyone can submit photos. Additionally, she will provide folder access to the school teachers for each of the grades. She will continue to look for help in the future as needed.
Writing Olympics – Tiffany discussed making the last week of March (tentatively 29/30) the due date for submittals so edits can be made. She worked to deconflict this event with STEAM night and the vendor fair. This year has the potential to be easier due to submitting digital files. Kimberley Macica agreed to help Tiffany chair this event.
Book Fair – It will run from Thursday October 17 to Friday October 25. The book fair material should be delivered any day now. Liz identified a potential co-chair to help (please reach out to Liz if you are interested). Sign-up genius will go out for Pre-K to 3rd grade to request volunteers to help fill out wish lists.
Bus Driver/Custodian Breakfast – This event will be looped in with the teacher conference dinner.
New Business:
Ornament Night – This event is fun for the kids, not a fundraiser. December 6th is the tentative date. Kids will have the opportunity to come and decorate ornaments for their trees. Meghan, Lindsey, and Kate volunteered to co-chair this event. They are looking into potentially have candy canes as well.
Festival of Wreaths – This will also be held tentatively the night of December 6th. Liz recommended a motion to buy raffle tickets which will help ease picking of the names. Additionally, buying sturdier hooks to hang the wreaths. Both motions were approved. The plan will be to draw the winners on December 18th.
Reimbursements – Two motions were put forth to reimburse ice cream cards for summer school and teacher tenure gifts. There were a total of three teachers this year. Both motions were approved.
Funding Requests:
Fire Prevention Day Pizza – this was requested by Bridget Chapko. The request is for the PTO to pay for pizza for the firefighters who are volunteering to participate in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Fire Prevention Day. The day was opened up to the entire school so it will now be an all day event. The group discussed the why and who would be getting the pizza. Only the volunteers would be getting pizza, not all the kids or the school. We discussed most of the fire fighters in the community are volunteers so they would be taking a day off to help out at the school. Additionally, this is a school wide event, not a particular grade and it supports a community service mission. The motion was approved to provide pizza.
Indoor recess balls/indoor recess supplies – this was requested by Kerri Greco. Three years ago the PTO received a $1000 Stewarts grant which was specific to be used to buy indoor recess supplies. We have not requested this grant recently. Someone asked if this request had been brought to the school board or business office since these are really school supplies. Since the answer was unknown, the group decided to table this request until this could be better understood.
Third grade snacks – this was requested by Beth Elmer. Lots of discussion occurred for this topic. Third grade lunch is not until 1pm this year with most snack times being around 10am. This leaves a large gap before lunch time. Teachers discussed the difficulty of teaching a student when kids are hungry, so lots of teachers ask for donations or supplement themselves. Some encourage breakfast since it is free to all students this year. It was also identified the nurse has crackers for certain circumstances. While the PTO wanted to help, the discussion led to the determination that they cannot supply snacks to only one teacher and cannot take on an entire “snack” program. The group was open to supplementing a food program if there was something already in place. This topic was also tabled for a larger discussion and a determination on how to engage the appropriate program to support snack time.
Future Discussions: None
Meeting Adjourned: 7:51 PM
Next Meeting Scheduled for Thursday November 14 at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Reminder – any questions regarding the minutes can be directed to Liz or Shannon. Their PTO emails can be found on the website under contact us.
Hoosic Valley PTO
Meeting date 11/14/24@ 6:30pm
Meeting location: Elementary School library
New Business
Funding Request
Future Discussion
Adjournment
Hoosic Valley PTO
Meeting date 10/10/24@ 6:30pm
Meeting location: Elementary School library
New Business
Funding Request
Future Discussion
Adjournment
Subject Line: Hoosic Valley Color Run | Program Day 3
Hoosic Valley Elementary School Teachers!
Thank you SO much for your help during the first few days of our program.
Action Steps for Today:
1. Watch today’s Castle Quest episode about Respect!
If the website is blocked, you can access daily character videos at MyBooster.com on your Teacher Dashboard.
2. Check your Teacher Dashboard on MyBooster.com and update your Level Up Tracker. (Learn how here).
3. Send an update to classroom families using the template on your Teacher Dashboard about your class’s progress or use the template below.
🚨Nightly Challenge: “New Donation Challenge”. “New donations” means any donations on MyBooster.com that come in today until tomorrow. The class with the most NEW donations will get EXTRA RECESS!
Thank you so much!
⬇️Communication Template | Program Day 3 ⬇️
As a school, we have raised over TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS]! 🎉 We think we can make it even further with our challenge tonight to see who the top class is with the most new donations on MyBooster.com. (The winner gets extra recess!) Thank you!
Hoosic Valley Parent Teacher Organization
Regular Meeting Minutes: September 20, 2024
Location: Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Attendance:
President: Liz Ruepp
Vice President: Melissa Kalbfliesh
Treasurer: Carolyn Gifford
Secretary: Shannon Hansen
Members (in-person):
Sarah Weber
Katie Teal
Robert Vogel
Erika Bates
Tiffany Hurley
Danielle Patnode
Deb Van Valkenburg
Stacey Kyea
Called to Order: 6:33 PM
Treasurer’s Report:
No monthly report. Currently the taxes are being prepared, reminder the PTO tax year runs from August to August. PTO continues to use Money Minder for online transactions and maintains the TrustCo bank account. PTO does administer the Johnsonville Ambulance Scholarship which is maintained through CAPCOM (now Broadview) CDs.
Unfinished (old) Business:
Color Run – The PTO was able to get five local businesses to sponsor the Color Run T-Shirts. Pre-K to 6th Grade will all receive free T-shirts for the Color Run. The run is scheduled for Saturday October 19th and there will be daily prizes for the students leading up to the event. Liz Ruepp is the acting chair and will be reaching out to volunteers within the next week or two. Thank you for those who have already signed ups to volunteer, please contact Liz if you would like to volunteer for this event. More information to come out in the beginning of October.
Scholarships: The PTO was able to distribute six scholarships last year to graduating seniors. $500 was given for the PTO character award which is provided to a student who is nominated by any teacher in the school district. Two scholarships were given from the Johnsonville Ambulance Scholarship, which is targeted for students going into the medical field (EMT, PA, etc.). A scholarship was given to a student for the PTO Character Award scholarship which any student can apply for. Scholarships were given to the valedictorian and the salutatorian.
Senior Gift: Socks were provided to all the seniors with a different design each year. The PTO plans to continue having the gift be socks.
New Business:
Meeting Dates – Different days of the week were discussed. The group landed on the 2nd Thursday of every Month at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library. The PTO does have a zoom link and plans to use this in the future.
Membership Drive – The PTO numbers for the start of the school year are looking higher than average. Another form will be sent out to students. Remember PTO uses green paper.
Teacher Conference Dinner – November 7th will be the potluck for the teachers. This is the late parent-teacher conference day. PTO will be looking for donations for meals. Sign up genius will be distributed so people can volunteer for meals or volunteer to set up and/or clean up.
Picture Day – Picture day for the Elementary school is scheduled for Wednesday October 23 and Thursday October 24. Two coupons per grade are provided to students who need the help with the cost of pictures. Additionally the PTO provides helper tickets to six individuals in the school. Sign up genius will be sent out for volunteers, the PTO looks for 3 per day to help.
Trunk or Treat – Held on Friday October 25th. The sixth grade students sign up for hosting trunks. The biggest need each year is the candy donations. Please send in a monetary donation or candy donation to the school with your children. Caroline volunteered to help get this off the ground. If you are a sixth grade parent interested in chairing this event please reach out to Liz or Caroline by the president or treasurer email (which can be found on the website under contact us).
Yearbook – Shannon volunteered to chair the yearbook this year. She plans to reach out other Megan Luskin for more information on the electronic folder set up. No help is needed at this time but she will looking for volunteers in the future.
Writing Olympics – This is a program which is missed. The program encouraged every student to do a writing piece. All the pieces were pulled together and placed into a book. Even a student illustrated the cover. Editing was the biggest challenge in the past due to the number and potential number of edits. The group discussed the benefit of authenticity. Tiffany volunteered to chair this program. If you would like to volunteer please reach out to Liz.
Bus Driver/Custodian Breakfast – After discussions on the timing, the group determined they plan to group this with the teacher conference dinner. So only one sign up genius will be sent out. The PTO will be looking for breakfast food donations. Caroline volunteered to set up, but a volunteer will be requested for clean up.
Book Fair – (added) Liz plans to chair the book fair. It will run from Thursday October 17 to Friday October 25. The last day will be the same day as trunk or treat which worked well last year. The first week is the preview week for the students so they can browse the books. Volunteers are needed to help students write down their wish list and to help the days of buying. The group also discussed how to help the teachers with their wish list. Teachers reach out to Liz if you are interested in a wish list! Liz already has a list of volunteers but more are needed. Please reach out to Liz if you would like to volunteer for this event.
Funding Requests: None
Future Discussions: None
Meeting Adjourned: 7:43 PM
Next Meeting Scheduled for Thursday October 10 at 6:30PM in the Hoosic Valley Elementary School Library
Reminder – any questions regarding the minutes can be directed to Liz or Shannon. Their PTO emails can be found on the website under contact us.