Last night, at our first General Membership Meeting of the Year, the subject of Donut Dates came up.
Donut Dates are an opportunity for each classroom to have the parents of the children come in during school hours and read with their child. The PTA provides a donut for both the child and parent. It is once a year, per classroom, for 15 minutes.
There were two parts of the concern voiced:
1. Not every child has a parent who is willing or able to come to the school for the 15 minute date, and that situation may create sad feelings for the children without parents who come in. I was approached by several teachers after our meeting last night who commented on this, and there were some suggestions about asking our local police, firemen, army staff, etc. come in to help with the children who don't have parents. We can certainly look into that if we decide to keep the program running this year.
2. Cost of donuts. The Donut Date program is part of the Family Life Commission, and they have a current annual budget of $1800, down from $2350 from last year. To be clear, NOT all of that money is spent on donuts, their commission sponsors THREE main things:
a. Family Week in November {you may remember this week from the last few years-- the keystone event of the week was when families were invited to the school to watch a movie},
b. the Birthday Table {each child is invited to have a small piece of cake and juice during lunch. The Family Life Commissioner is planning on saving money this year by serving water instead of juice}, and
c. the Donut Dates.
The Family Life Budget is currently $1800, about 4.69% of the total PTA budget for the year.
Some additional things that have been brought up to consider:
Donut Dates are not the only school function where children are invited to have a family participant to come to the school- the 5th grade maturation program and the 1st grade grandparents day that would also fit into that category.
The goal of the Donut Date program is to provide a fun activity where the parents are invited into the classroom, can see the environment there, how the teacher interacts with students, and see who their children are buddies with. Parents have expressed support for the program citing those benefits.
As your PTA board, we want to be sure that the programs we are funding are meeting the needs of the families at our school!! Please weigh in on this issue and help us get a feel for how the PTA general membership at our school feels. We will be in further discussions about this Tuesday morning at our 9:30 am board meeting, and we welcome you there. Our meetings are held in the teacher's lounge.
Thank you for your support! Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.
Jen Cox
President, Harvest Elementary PTA
jencox4@yahoo.com
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4 comments:
I like the Donut day. I know my kids look forward to this. I understand some parents may not support this, but that does not mean ALL the kids have to miss out. I think the school has done a wonderful job making sure each child has a partner. My son in 4th grade is already excited that when he is in 6th grade if I can't make it he will get to help his brother who will be in kindergarten. When my children turn an actvity into showing love for their family, I do not want to take this away. I think more parents need to be involved, NOT make it so that parent involvement is not needed!
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