Open House Nursery School

Meeting of Board of Directors

October 3, 2012

 

MINUTES

 

Present:

Eileen Shannon, Executive Director

Amy Herrick, Assistant Director

Samara Daly, Outgoing President

Nicole Callihan, Incoming President

Emmanuel Collet, Treasurer

Jillian Berman, Secretary

Cassie Guy

Patricia Mcinerney

Leo Chan

Gabriella DiPiazza

Dionne Burnett

Sheri Kirshenbaum

Teri Kinney

Carmen Bryant

Angela Schwartz

Trey Hatch

Nora McCauley

Jennifer Minetree

Amanda Field

I. Welcome and Introductions (Eileen and Samara)
A) Eileen and Samara introduced themselves and everyone present introduced themselves

II. New Business (Samara)
A) Samara is stepping down as President because son no longer attends Open House.  Sheri Kirshenbaum made a motion to elect Nicole Callihan as President, and Eileen seconded motion.  Following vote, Nicole was elected President of the Board of Open House.

III. Overview of Board and Committees (Samara and Nicole)

A) Parent Life Committee: Mandy Field and Karen Marien chair this  committee.  Committee responsibilities include: (1) organizing class parents for each classroom, including with efforts such as holiday gifts for teachers; (2) soliciting parent involvement in the classrooms; (3) organizing Parent’s Night Out event in February; (4) assisting with the Spring Fling fundraiser; and (5) organizing Saturday movie mornings.
B) Marketing Commission: Nora McCauley chairs this committee along with Amy Herrick.  Main issue now is to get more children enrolled in the Pond PM class, which has openings. Jennifer Minetree has agreed to post on Bococa.
C) Fundraising Committee: This committee is co-chaired by Sheri Kirshenbaum, Teri Kinney, and Dionne Burnett.  This committee is responsible for two primary fundraising drives: (1) the Annual Fund; and (2) the Spring Fling.  In addition, this committee will coordinate the Book Fair, which we are doing this year with Fork & Pencil.  In addition, this committee will consider other fundraising opportunities, including a link through Amazon.com, and an alumni pie social, which Samara suggested and may host.
D) Finance Committee: this committee is co-chaired by Emmanuel Collet (Treasurer on the Board) and Amy Herrick.  This committee works on the school budget, and the two primary focuses of the committee are teacher salaries and tuition.  Amy reported that the bulk of Open House’s income is from tuition.  There is a constant tension between tuition (keeping it down) and staff salaries (increasing it and keeping up with cost of living).  Last year, the school had a net profit of $100,000, which was unusually good.  The goal is to build up a reserve fund, largely if we need to move locations.

 

IV. Executive Director’s Report (Eileen)

A) Eileen encouraged people to get involved with the Board and/or the school.  Even if you don’t have time to attend meetings, you can contribute a lot via email.
B) The Open House Fall Social is this Saturday, October 6.
C) ERB testing for private school admissions: Open House is a host site for the test, which enables Open House families to have their kids take the test in a comfortable environment.
D) October 15, 2012: this is the date for people to email if they would like to tour/apply to Open House for next year.  Families are selected to tour by lottery, with a little bit of sorting by age to the extent we know whether certain age groups are very limited.  For example, if siblings will be filling up most of the spots in the Nest, then fewer families with kids who would be applying for the Nest will be selected to tour.
E) Annual Fund: this is coming up.  We send out letters requesting donations just before Thanksgiving.
F) Curriculum Nights: these are coming up at the end of October. Teachers give individual presentations to parents by class.
G) Green week in November: the focus of this week is to build awareness of being “green” and recycling.  The week culminates with the kids parading around the school.
H) Website: the new website is finally up.  We want to encourage parents to get into the habit of checking the website.  Among other things, there are various blogs on the website, including the classroom blogs and a blog for the Board.  Eileen provided the group with the username and password for the Board blog (not reported here since these minutes will be posted).

 

V. Board Meetings/Scheduling Issues:

A) Tuesday night meetings will not work going forward.  Following a discussion, we agreed that Board meetings will be held on Thursday nights.