February 2023 PFSA Meeting Minutes
1.) Call to Order/Pledge of Allegiance & Welcome: Current PSFA officers in attendance: Kristen Cichon (2023) Colleen Stemetzki (2024) Debbie Rau (2023) Mary Ann Doyle (2023) Janet Schneider(2025)
2.) SGA Report: Charlie Raynor, VP: We’re going to be holding the Fashion Show on March 10th. We have finalized our committee heads, held an interest meeting, secured our stores, and assigned all of our models to their stores. A majority of the more complicated work is finished. We now need to focus on our decorations, which will be a working project throughout February. The Fashion show is an opportunity for our students to walk the runway, the models got to choose stores that fit with their preferences and outfits that they like. The show is open to all family members and friends to come and enjoy. The SGA had a coffee sale last week to use up our coffee from the Club Crawl. It was pretty successful with a good flow of customers, and the students seemed to enjoy the coffee. If you would like to purchase some coffee the SGA still has some bags available for sale. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing coffee. We just mailed out our compatibility tests and will be receiving the results back and will be able to match up students around the week of Valentines’ Day. The responses are fed into a program which will be able to match the student up with other students who have similar interests. It will show who they are most compatible with and who they are least compatible with. It always seems to be a hit with the students so it should be fun to see who it comes up with this year. On behalf of the senior class we would just like to thank the PSFA for taking the Thompson Park bussing trip into consideration. It would be a nice end to the school year knowing that the students do not have to pay for their seats on the bus. Thank you all for that consideration. On to NHS information we have officially started our “Cards for a Cause” fundraiser. The NHS is selling nice high quality cards for every occasion. A box of 30 cards is $30 dollars and we get $13 per box. Our goal is to raise about $2000 to help pay for the freshman orientation costs as well as next year’s induction costs. Any checks should be made out to the NHS Student Activities Fund. Next we will be starting a food drive in tandem with the Cultural Communications Club (CCC), nearing the end of March. More information will be announced at the next meeting.
3.) Principal Gleason’s Report: We just finished up our exams and are onto a new semester. So we are 1/2 way through the year. Next Friday we have our ‘Career Day’ put on by our SkillsUSA Club. Mr. Stengele is our SkillsUSA Advisor. We have basically moved to an all alumni format. Which is great to see former students coming in and talking with current students about the jobs that they have and what they are doing since they left CHS. It’s a great day and we are looking forward to career day. The Winter Ball dance is tomorrow from 6 pm to 9pm, they are still working on their ultraviolet winter ball decorations, and it should be a good night. Grades are due on Monday. Q1 and Q2 are the marking periods, M1 is the midterm grade, F1 is the final grade and Y is the year grade. Their final grade is 40% for the marking periods and 10 % for their exams. Naviance is the applications that students, teachers/guidance and parents can use for college applications. It is introduced in the freshman year, there are a lot of features on the site to help your student find the right college match. The student can take a survey of their interests and the program will offer suggestions for a good match. The Guidance counselors will introduce it in Freshman year, review it in sophomore year and then really work with the students in junior year to explore all that the app has to offer and to guide the students with their selections. Thank you everyone for coming out. I’m always available please reach out to me with any questions.
4. ) Co-President’s Report : Hope you enjoyed the parent chat. It was a good one. We are looking for people to fill positions of the outgoing senior spots. Janet (Schneider) has stepped up to fill the position of co-president to help Colleen (Stemetzki) so that leaves Janet’s position as Corresponding Secretary available, Janice Karp is the Recording Secretary and is a senior parent as well so her position is available too, as well as Lina Esposito in Merchandise and the big one is Debbie Rau is the Gift Auction Chair- she starts in September overseeing all of the volunteers that go out and solicit in the various towns in Monmouth County. We also have a list of vendors that are solicited online. We have a really nice group of people to work with and we have lots of notes to follow. We are all also available to answer any questions down the road. Teresita Weiss stepped up to send out the tax donation letter. If you have donated during the drive, the letters are just going out and if you have not received it yet she has just gotten an additional list of donors so more letters will be going out shortly. If you do not receive the information from us please reach out and we will get it to you asap. Another thing that we budgeted for and are funding, that Charlie (SGA) mentioned is the senior class trip which is about $2000. To send the seniors on their class trip to Thompson Park.
We have added some fundraising items to offset these additional costs; the SAT/ACT prep course and the Driver’s Ed Course which will be running in March. Anyone who is 15 or over may take the course and it prepares the student for their learner’s permit test. If you need information please contact the PSFA.
5.) Recording Secretary Minutes: Janice Karp (2023) Not available tonight. Minutes from January approved – motioned by Colleen Stemetzki, and 2nd by Lisa Lipincott.
6.) Corresponding Secretary: Janet Schneider (2025) – Nothing to report
7.) Committee Reports
A.) Fundraising: Debbie Rau (2023) – The Gift Auction is March 11th at Jumping Brook Country Club- we sent out the invitations via email, and you can sign up via the on-line system under the PSFA tab on the Communications High School website. We would love for you to join us. You can come as a single or a couple or get some friends together to make a table. We have some great prizes already; a laptop and apple watch, local theater tickets, a golf outing and many more. Next week we will be wrapping the gifts and we will be at Patty’s house on Tuesday night from 7-9 and Wednesday from 11-2. There are sign up sheets at the back of the room. We have lots of supplies to make wrapping easier and get the items in their gift baskets. No experience necessary! This is our last call for gifts and donations and ads. Next week we’re doing the wrapping and the following week we are putting the book together and we have it printed in house by Miss Fitzpatrick and the Graphic Arts department. The students help with the printing, which is really nice- we appreciate their help. We can use help to get the baskets from gift wrapping to Jumping Brook. If you want to sign up to help that evening- you can be a runner or help with the tables. There are sign up sheets in the back. It’s a fun night out and we hope to see you there.
B.) Hospitality- Lisa Lipincott (2025) and Kathy Seetoo (2025) – Look for Sign ups for Career Day.
C.) Membership: Teresita Weiss (2024) – If your student is a senior, they are eligible to apply for the 10 scholarships offered by the PSFA if you are a member paid in full. If you are unsure of your status please contact Teresita or the PSFA and we can verify your status.
D.) Communique: For information to be included in the Communique please send information to : newsletter@chs-psfa.org. Look for updated links to information on the Communique & CHS website.
E.) Enrichment Education: Working on a Driver’s Ed short course to prepare students for their written test. To be held in March via zoom. Dates, times and costs to be determined. If interested contact PSFA at chs.psfa@gmail.com.
F.) Parent Chat: Marlaina Loushine (2024) – parent chat- It was a great chat tonight. They provided a lot of information. We will get the presentation sent out through Mr. Gleason. I know that we are looking at getting into some of the health classes to do a presentation to the students. If you have any ideas for the parent chat topics you can email me or reach out to the PSFA.
G.) Book Club: Patti Riddle (2026) – It’s a fun group we have read two books so far. If you would like to join, look for the sign up on the Communique.
H.) Merchandise: Lina Esposito (2023) – We do have a canvas bag for sale that was designed by one of our students. There was a contest to get your design printed on the bag and the winning designer did receive a $50 Gift card and a free bag. https://chs-psfa.org/product/chs-canvas-tote-bag/
6.) Treasurer’s Report: MaryAnn Doyle (2023) – the annual Donation Drive has pretty much wrapped up, however we are still accepting donations and thank you to everyone who has donated. Our next fundraiser is the Gift Auction and it looks like a lot of people are signing up, and will be coming to the Gift Auction- so that is great. That is it on incoming, on outgoing we did buy the caps and gowns, we have had expenditures with hospitality, bagel breakfasts for finals.
7.) New Business: Student Grant Request – Grant Request #1- for the Inkblot, we have Ryan Lemberger here – he is the managing editor of the Inkblot here to describe the request that they are looking for. There is an overnight conference that takes place in New York. We have not been able to go since 2019. All of the junior edit board members in addition to a few other junior members that are highly involved in the club. We need funding as the conference fee is $169 for the two days, and hotel fees are expected to be between $120-150 per person for the night, so the total fee for the ten people on the Inkblot is going to be about $3000. This trip is going to help our future editors and chiefs, managing editors, to continue the success of the club. We are an award winning newspaper and held in high regard. We want to continue to have the prestige of our success based on learning as much as possible. The funding is broken into three sections, some comes from the district, some comes from money the Inkblot has raised and we are hoping that the PSFA will also be able to give us $500. to help fund this trip. The request will go to a vote after the student leaves the room. Those in favor? The Ayes have it!! It is unanimous. It is awesome to bring back the opportunities we had pre-Covid. Thank you to Mr. Woolley. https://theinkblotnews.com/
Grant Request #2- Probably came in about a month ago and it was for the Teen Arts Festival. It was for a registration fee of $450 and transportation cost of $900. One thing that all of us are facing is much higher transportation fees (since the pandemic).
8.) Adjournment: Colleen Stemetzki, Seconded by LIsa Lipincott