March 2025 Monthly PTA Meeting Notes

3/11/2025 9:45 pm

Takoma Park Elementary School (TPES)

Piney Branch Elementary School (PBES) 

Parent & Teacher Meeting (PTA)

Tuesday, March 11, 2025: 7 - 8pm on Zoom 

 

Agenda will include: 

(1) Upcoming TPES and PBES Dates and Announcements

(2)  Treasurer’s Reports 

(3) Understanding and Navigating Your Child’s Mental Health Needs

(4) Q&A

 

Spanish Translator: N/A

Amharic Translator: N/A

 

7:00 PM: Meeting Kick-off 

Ingrid Gardiner, PBES PTA President

  • Intro to topics to be discussed

 

7:05 PM: Upcoming Dates & Announcements

Chris Campbell, PBES VP Communications 

Kaitlin Caruso, TPES PTA President

 

PBES Upcoming Dates & Announcements - Chris Campbell:

 

  • Spring Soccer Game Volunteers Needed

 

    • This spring the TPES and PBES PTAs will hold another joint soccer game fundraising event to bring together our school community. Last year was a hit! 
    • If you are interested in helping to make this happen, please reach out to Sara Lewis (serowe@gmail.com).
  • On Friday, March 14 Piney Branch Elementary School will be celebrating STEAM Day on Pi Day. This year, it will be held during school hours.
    • All day we will have special activities related to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics.  We are hoping that you can help us make this day extra special!   We are requesting and hoping our community can donate materials that you may have around your home, or pies that students may enjoy as they learn about the number Pi.  We also need lots of volunteers to help us with the fun activities we have planned.  Please use this google form to find more information and to sign up to help.  Thank you! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNE_tD1FKWx5h5uYwcOWMooRQoPBjoxX-6l-je5qQZaQeTjw/viewform?usp=sharing
  • Readathon Update: 
    • The Readathon concluded last week, Congratulations to the ENTIRE SCHOOL for reading a combined 386,171 minutes! What an incredible accomplishment! Thank you to two amazing parent volunteers for emceeing the Readathon assemblies today-- Marc Evans and Erik Chang-Gillespie. Thank you also to all of the families that donated Readathon prizes. And thank you to our amazing teachers, whose encouragement of their students, commitment to the Readathon, and willingness to keep reading logs organized (on top of everything else they do) made the event possible! Thanks as well go to the parents who tallied minutes read over the weekends (Martha Wawro, Lauren Wilk, Sharon Garner, Ellen Knowles, Amy Bivins, and Lis Hooper), and the parents who volunteered at the Readathon kickoff book giveaway a few weeks ago (Pete Hackeman, Claudia Trapp, Christine Kahler, and Natalie Hoover)! 
    • Next steps for families: if your students have collected pledges for minutes read, please submit these pledges on the PBES PTA website (use the Readathon Donation option), or by check (make checks payable to PBES PTA). All donations are tax-deductible.
  • Coming Soon: Literacy Curriculum Nights 
    • The Elementary and Secondary Literacy teams are hosting Curriculum Nights to introduce families to the new elementary literacy curriculum, Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), and to discuss how to support your child in reading as they transition from elementary school (Grade 5) to middle school (Grade 6). The first session wasl be held in person this Wednesday, March 5, and the next one will be virtual. Register at this link: RSVP. The same information will be presented at all the sessions. Details are below:

 

 

  • Upcoming Dates

 

      • March 11 and 12: MISA Math test for 5th graders

 

 

 

TPES Upcoming Dates & Announcements - Kaitlin Caruso:

    •  MARCH 28 – Movie Night: Join us for a fun-filled movie night at Takoma Park Elementary School, hosted by your PTA. Enjoy a movie with your kids, eat some treats, and connect with other families. 

 

  • Pies for Pi Day! - We will be treating our wonderful teachers to delicious pies in celebration of Pi Day! We will be buying pizza pies for all teachers and staff for lunch and need YOUR help to provide sweet pies for dessert! If you are interested in volunteering to bring in a pie (store bought or homemade are both appreciated!) for our teachers, please SIGN UP HERE! Even though Pi Day is on March 14th, we will be holding the Pi celebration on March 13th due to a first grade field trip on the 14th. Please bring your pie to the TPES front office by 11:30 AM on March 13th (you can bring it in that morning at drop-off if it's more convenient!). 
  • 2025 TPES Read-a-thon - The 2025 TPES Read-a-thon! Every year, the PTA sponsors a Read-a-thon to promote student reading and to raise money for the PTA. This year's Read-a-thon began March 8 and runs through April 4. Similar to a walk-a-thon, students are sponsored based on how many pages they read, or have read to them, with all proceeds going to the PTA.  More information has been provided in your dolphin folder, and can be found at the PTA website.  Reach out to friends and family to secure pledges for each minute read. Then, please help your child record minutes read each day. Each Friday, either have your student turn reading logs into the teacher, or submit via the online portal: tinyurl.com/TPESreads. (Virtual option is new this year) Questions? Reach out to: leslie.jimison@gmail.com. We're looking for volunteers to support some upcoming Read-a-thon events. You can sign up in the linked spreadsheet
  • o    3/21-4/4 (Fridays): Teacher thank yous! We're looking for two volunteers to bring thank you treats to teachers!
  • o    4/11 (Friday): Popcorn party! Volunteers starting ~10 am, through the end of the lunch period for the big celebration. 
  • VOLUNTEERS NEEDED - TPES vs. PBES Soccer Game - It’s time for revenge! We are looking for volunteers to help plan this year’s TPES vs. PBES soccer game! For those who are new to our schools, this event is a friendly athletic matchup between staff and parents of Takoma Park Elementary vs. staff and parents of Piney Branch Elementary! Last year didn’t go quite the way we’d hoped, so we’re looking for dedicated volunteers to ensure we have a great time (and win, of course). If you are interested in helping to plan (or if you would like to play in) this fun, community-building event, please contact Sara Lewis at serowe@gmail.com
  • NO School on March 31st 

 

 

Additional updates:

Ingrid: PBES PTA will have a lot of positions available for next year. Will be having a mixer to meet and greet regarding board roles.

 

Kaitlin: TPES also has a number of roles to fill for next year. Movie night will have representatives available to answer questions and more info will be forthcoming.

 

7:15 PM:  PTA Business

  • Treasurer’s Reports 
    • Amy Swift, TPES PTA Treasurer

 

TPES Budget Report:

  • Rachael Pierotti, PBES PTA Treasurer

 

PBES Budget Report:

 

7: 20 PM: Thrive Behavioral Health - Understanding and Navigating Your Child’s Mental Health Needs - Priscilla Martins 

Thrive Behavioral Health partners with various county schools. Priscilla helps support PBES.

 

Slide Presentation 1:

_Title Slide Title Understanding & Navigating Your Child’s Mental Health Needs .pptx



Slide Presentation 2:

Understanding and navigating your child’s mental health needs.pptx.pptx

 

Resources - links to pdf tip sheet:

Rewards - Punishments: rewards-punishments.pdf

 

Coping Skills - Anger: coping-skills-anger.pdf

 

Managing Problem Behaviors: Mangaging problem behaviors .pdf

 

Creating A Token Economy: creating-a-token-economy.pdf

 

Family Mindfulness Schedule: family-mindfulness-schedule[9510].pdf




To provide feedback, use the QR code link to survey:

.

7: 50 PM: Thrive Behavioral Health - Q&A

Q: Are there any particular issues you are seeing?

A: Anxiety and ADHD, a couple school refusals

 

Q: Something I’ve seen is anxiety sometimes manifests as anger. Do you have any coping tips? Usually happens between siblings. Ways to talk to your child to get to a quiet safe space.

A: First separate children, do the five senses. Priscilla has a page of tips she will share. Key for all of this is consistency. Use these all the time.

 

Q: Sometimes parents have a hard time identifying if kids are having issues. What are some 

A: To get diagnoses needs to manifest both at home and in social situations

Hyperactiveness, not remembering things, forgetfulness

Anxiety - hair pulling, pick at nails, skin, overthinking things, worrying about things, anger

Q: Balance between support and discipline - any guidance you can give?

A: Rewarding good behaviors (focus more on good behavior and ignoring bad), Praise behaviors instead of traits, give small achievable goals, Rewards must be desirable, being consistent, always follow through, make sure they know what you are rewarding for and what the reward is.

Consequences: create a few simple and clearly defined rules, be consistent, always follow through.

Follow up Q: When do you ignore the bad behavior? SET STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR. Remind child of standards (rules), then can escalate if ignored.

 

From Mrs Oberdorf: Part of requirements from MD report card, have to do mental health screening - new this year, will be happening for 4th grade. Then if any students screen for needing assistance we have access to Priscillla at our school.

Per Dr Gadsden, this is not happening at TPES. Only 4th grade.

 

8:00 PM: THANK YOU & Next Steps (Ingrid Gardiner, TPES PTA President) 

  • Reminder that next meeting will be on April 2nd at 7 PM 

 

Other notes from chat:

 

If you have any children at Blair please let me k ow as we are gathering community input for Blair principal search.

Farzaneh_nabavian@mcpsmd.org




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