hardy pto agenda minuteS
October 15, 2025
For Your InformatioN
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- PTO Positions and Committee Leads
- PTO President still looking for a Vice President
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DIG) & Safe Routes committees still looking for co-chairs
- Classroom Coordinators will be emailing to introduce themselves soon. They will also begin soliciting donations for classrooms funds which are separate from the Direct Donation Drive
- Spirit Wear should arrive by late October
- Green Team is planning a pumpkin/gourd composting event on Friday, 7 November 2025, so hang on to those pumpkins! The committee will also need assistants for this event.
- DIG is initiating the DIG Group 2025-2026 and will be reaching out to those who expressed interest in participating via the PTO survey. Initiatives this year will include:
- Multicultural Fest scheduled for 7 February 2026 from 11am - 2pm. A survey gauging interest will be sent out soon.
- Rainbow Alliance starts meeting every other Thursday afternoon starting Thursday, 16 October from 2:30 - 3:30pm in Ms. Smith’s classroom
- If you are interested in joining DIG, please reach out to Abi Shantz-Vogt at DIG@hardypto.com
- Safe Routes to School
- Bike Rodeo was a success
- Bike rack grant application opens at the end of this month
- Working through logistics of Bike Bus. If interested in assisting, please email hardybikebus@gmail.com
- Thank you to the Harvest Fest volunteers and the 5th grade treat train donors and volunteers!
- Upcoming Events:
- Hardy Moms Movie Night: We’re watching Hocus Pocus at Capitol Theater on Thursday, 23 October at 7pm.
- Trunk or Treat: Friday, 24 October from 6:15 - 7:30pm. More donations and cars needed
- Bulb planting: Sunday, 26 October from 2 - 4pm. Gloves and digging tools will be available, but feel free to bring your own. If you would like to volunteer to assist, please reach out to Alham Saadat garden@hardypto.com
- Caregiver Coffee: First Friday of the month - 7 November. Looking for volunteers to assist with set-up.
- 4th Grade Treat Train or Buffet: Friday, 7 November. Looking for volunteers to assist.
- Crafternoon: Sunday, 23 November from 3 - 5pm. Craft ideas and leaders needed.
- Hardy’s Passport to the World (Multicultural Fest): 7 February 2026
Meeting Minutes
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Welcome - Becky Gibree
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- Hardy Helpers
- Need volunteers for school grounds improvement, lost and found, trash pickup, leaf blowing, weed pulling, and anything else the school needs
- Scripps Spelling Bee
- School membership is approximately $199 per school
- Registration free includes material packet for students to use including word lists to review
- Deadline to register is 31 January 2026
- There is a regional and national championship
- PTO Committee doing further investigation regarding participation and the logistics involved with it
- MathLeague
- School membership is free; however, if students want to register on their own, there is a fee
- Students would participate in monthly tests to qualify for the next round
- Participation can be done online or in person
- Jing Cai has volunteered to coordinate with students to register
- Teachers will put out feelers for interest and the school can offer as an after school program
- Arlington Education Foundation (AEF) Liaison - Rachel Miller
- AEF currently offers two types of grants are for teachers and staff that would like to try something new in their class;
- Innovation Grants - $250 to $1,000 for teachers and staff that would like to try something new in their class; due dates are 15 November 2025 & 15 April 2026
- Continuing Scholars Award - up to $2500 - to be used for teacher and staff professional development; rolling deadline - should be submitted by 25th of each month
- If you have any additional questions, reach out to hardy@aefma.org
- There are staff and PTO members that have experience writing grants and will offer assistance if needed
- Principal & PTO Representatives Report - Principal Gretchen Saunders, Emily Vecchione, and Laura Ribeiro
- Principal Saunders shares how the teachers and staff are implementing different types of professional learning frameworks to improve the quality of education provided to students. Examples include:
- Math - Building, Thinking Classrooms
- Focuses on fostering deep student thinking and responsibility by students working in groups to shift away from mimicking to authentic student learning
- Looking at pricing out white boards that will facilitate “vertical learning”
- ELA
- Focusing on using specific talking protocols and strategies to enhance student discourse in their daily lessons
- Teacher Representatives
- Kindergarten - finishing up “toys” module; families should be looking for an invite to toy module; finishing up social studies unit “what makes me, me”; in science they’re working on toy-making
- 1st grade - building "magnificent things” - figuring out what the classroom needs and using tools to build it - this is to focus on collaboration, perseverance, and taking initiative within their group
- 2nd grade - in social studies they made campaign posters focusing on elections; did a reading theater to work on reading fluency
- 3rd grade - in science they are working on variations of traits in organisms and inherited vs. learning trait behaviors; in math, they are beginning their data unit
- 4th grade - working on “change-makers” project - find a person who has made a positive change in their community and researching
- 5th grade - in ELA, they’re summarizing informational text and having text-dependent discussions; math - multiplication and division and beginning learning about volume; science experiments on evaporation and condensation and the change of water states and temperature affects that; social studies - how America came to be; beginning the social/emotional learning curriculum - setting personal goals; planning a field trip to Boda Borg tentatively scheduled for 16 December; implementing an outdoor classroom - working with a science coordinator to visit the Mystic Valley Watershed and connecting that to the water cycle curriculum
- 5th grade helpers - welcoming students at arrival in the mornings to facilitate leadership among the students
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Committee Updates
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- Treasurer - Brian Gibree
- Budget updates and proposals
- Increasing assembly (enrichment) budget from $3,000 - $4,500
- District is cutting back on support for art supplies
- Increasing art supplies budget from $500 - $1,000
- Mrs. Vecchione class pet approval of $50
- Would like to purchase a 1-2 froglets for the life cycle/frog unit in her classroom
- Attendees voted “yes” for budget increase and allocating $50 for Mrs. Vecchione’s request for a classroom pet. No one voted “nay”. Voted on and approved via quorum (7/10)
- Fundraising - Lisa Morella
- Continuing to promote DDD (roughly 68% towards goal)
- $11,789 needed to reach our goal
- 60 more donations needed to reach 200 donations
- Linda contributed $65 through water bottle fundraiser
- Goldfish Swim School - Burlington, MA
- Tentatively scheduled for 24 January 2026 - online webform ready to use
- Will gauge participation at this event to see if it will be offered again
- Offering anonymous way for caregivers to ask for support to pay for event
- Maxima Shopping Day scheduled for 10 December 25
- Read-a-thon
- Tentatively planned, but need more details
- Need to work through logistics and materials
- Enrichment
- Need teachers to reach out to schedule workshops, field trips, and/or assemblies. To submit recommendations, reach out to enrichment@hardypto.com
- Suggestions for guests at assemblies were:
- Peter Reynolds, Author
- 45-60 minute assembly including story-telling and Q&A at the school (3,500)
- Evening event - where families and caregivers can come for a book signing
- Chris Poulos, bike tricks and life lessons on kindness
- Assembly of 45 mins ($2,000)
- Will do two assemblies for $2,500
- PTO will need to negotiate prices for each guest and further discussion will be needed since costs will deplete entire enrichment budget for school year
- Becky will reach out to other Arlington PTO Presidents to discuss possible collaboration to share costs of vendors thus potentially receiving a discount through recurring visits to APS schools
- Safe Routes to School
- Still need to create Drop & Go signs
- Drop and Go area (Chandler St) has large pothole(s)
- Caregivers and families encouraged to take pics and submit to Town of Arlington
- Events
- Multicultural - 7 February 26
- need more planners and will need volunteers to present their culture, decide on timing of survey to caregivers
- Still working through logistics
- Will be in place of STEAM (to be done on the off years of multicultural fest)
- Trunk or Treat
- Currently have around 60 cars registered
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Next PTO Meeting:
- 19 November 2025
Please find archived minutes here:
Archived PTO Agenda Minutes 2025-2026 School Year
PTO Agenda Minutes 2024-2025 School Year
Archived PTO Agenda Minutes 2023-2024 School Year
Archived PTO Agenda Minutes 2022-2023 School Year
Archived PTO Agenda Minutes 2021-2022 School Year
Archived PTO Agenda Minutes 2020-2021 School Year
