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PTA meeting minutes: 28July2009 & 10Aug2009

10 August 2009 meeting:

1. The school is closed from 13 to 17 (fumigation of the school premises) & reopens on 18 August 2009.
2. 12 August will be the finals for Shloka competition & Pot breaking for Sri Krishna Janmashtami
3. Swine Flu email & SMS has been sent to all parents from the school. Many rumors are spreading around, so please don’t trust & must confirm from the school principal directly. Please read the circular carefully & follow the Dos / Don’t please. Copy of the same is available at the school office for reference.
4. BSMS, Jamnabai, Podar & Manekji school principals are in close touch & these schools won’t close unless informed by MCGM.
5. Unit tests should continue as this term was short. We need to check with all parents if we should combine 2 unit tests together & go by the popular vote.
6. All circulars of the school will be sent only by emails from now on to save paper / environment. Also we will post all circulars at a public blog http://bsms-pta.blogspot.com/
7. All the PTA members need to create their class e-groups for better internal communications & also we have to find out all student parents emails that may be missing from school records. Help is available to create your class groups, please feel free to ask amol108@gmail.com. We can also create a common email address (bsmspta@gmail.com) for any parents with no email address to access the circulars or communicate.
8. the sixth pay commission details are being worked out & getting verified at various stages in the school.
9. the backlash of 90-10 may be compulsory Marathi language. The school has already spent Rs.50K to AISM to fight the legal battles against the Govt. we can try to make the Environment Education as a graded subject & may also have to introduce Marathi in 5 & 6 grades.
10. Some parents ask questions like why computer fees to all students, but the technical drawing teacher is very expensive to maintain, also others like the counselor, karate teachers. The board says we should have 70 students per class, but we are not forcing that & hence we need to maintain our high standards with extra fee hike.
11. we may move the senior students in first phase to the new school building once the construction starts – piling contract is signed.
12. we may have to pre-pone the exams of 9^th grade exams, as the teachers have to do corrections later.
13. on the 15^th August we are calling all the 10 grade students for flag hoisting.
14. All the 10 grade students & office bearers must come for the morning program (9 am) in the temple of the appearance day of Srila Prabhupada 15 August. All the students & parents are most welcome to temple to celebrate our founders appearance day.
15. Bhagwad Gita class needs more attendance from the parents please. The last classes only had 7 to attend & this is not encouraging to the speakers. So now all PTA members will attend & encourage all parents to join, so we can all benefit from the words of Lord Krishna in Bhagwad Gita. There is a consideration to have 3 days in a row every month to have better impact & help us all connect better.

28 July 2009 meeting:

1. History of PTA, structure & inception. PTA is very important as its not possible to consult all 562 parents for all issues.
2. the main focus is to help our children with all suggestions or complaints.
3. 6th pay commission will have to be implemented by collecting Rs. 1000/month difference from all. All teachers are paid new salaries now with effect from April 2009.
4. Stationary charges have gone up so some component will be part of the fees. it will cover all arts, crafts, ID cards & class photo.
5. legal fees have been introduced as AISM (72 schools group) has to fight legal cases against the Govt. so far Rs. 50K has been already spent.
6. Data forms delay the inputs from parents & we have to keep waiting. there is consideration of sending circulars by email & SMS only.
7. Car stickers for parents may help with convenience & identification, but security check is must.
8. Parent card may help to get kids picked up in case of emergency or pass on some code to some friend for pick up. needs more discussion.
9. Medical red card can be optional.
10. Tata AIG receipt was not received by many parents last year, still since its a small amount (Rs.230) i should continue. they sent Rs. 1 Lakh last year for our teacher's death.
11. Medical check-ups may be conducted by Bhaktivedanta Hospital doctors & even for big kids vaccination follow-up is required.
12. SMS & Email system set up in in progress.
13. Disaster management - system is formulated to make sure small kids are guided by bigger ones & teachers. evacuation drill will be helpful.
14. Sports fee of Rs.2000 will cover Cricket, football, basket ball & indoor skating, TT. kids can call parents if they plan to play after school, but Sudhir sir must be in loop. they should not play on the terrace.
15. Bhaktivedanta Hospital will send their doctors for check-ups - ENT & general. Elder kids will have workshops like sex education. Amol K will follow-up with Dr. Santosh Chaudhary of BVH.
16. Good touch - Bad touch seminars need to be conducted for all kids. Gandhari mataji will get information & materials from Parijata soon.
17. Child Protection training for parents will be conducted again in the second term.
18. Parenting seminar for fathers will be made compulsory.
19. many kids have expressed their desires to visit Vrindavan for a trip. Also Mayapur is considered. A yatra with all kids & their parents is open for discussion & optional in the month of November 2009.
20. Primary trip will go to Wada - Pre-primary for one night stay.
21. Bhagwad Gita class for parents need more attendance. Parents must understand the efforts & purpose that goes into organizing the Bhagwad Gita class. Parents are urged to attend regularly & not treat it as some time pass please.
22. Birthday dressing needs to be improved & conservative. they have to wear traditional Indian dresses & no western at all.
23. Shloka competitions are coming up. pronunciation with meanings will be more emphasized now on. from next Monday each word will be highlighted & explained by Gandhari mataji during prayers.
24. Spelling bee certificates were missing last year, so need to straighten it out after discussing with the organizers.
25. Academics - we observe & suggest a check-up in need be for learning disabilities. there won't be any labels on the mark sheets of kids.
26. Mrs. Joshi (mother of our head boy Gaurav) expressed to all parents that her son has dyslexia still he is the topper for his class. She wished she would have found out earlier & talked to Principal before. He was losing marks only for spelling mistakes & was found little late, still the ICSE board has agreed to consider his English papers correction with spelling errors. class level assessments will be done by teachers.
27. We have total 86 special kids in our school now. but we take care of them like all other kids & don't discriminate like other schools who reject them.
28. we need good English & History teachers. so if any references with B.Ed. are welcome.
29. Anger management seminar is necessary for parents & teachers also.
30. new school building plans will be presented by Kapila Prabhu in next meeting.
31. we may be forced to have 11th & 12th classes in house next year due to new rules for college admissions etc. We have 30 students in 10th & 32 in 9th now.
32. AGM is due soon, once we get confirmation from the doctors who would like to address the parents also. AGM budget was 150 last year, that covers felicitation of last year's PTA, top rankers.
33. none of the last years parents have donated their 15K to PTA, but year before we had Rs. 65K from the same.
34. the new computer books need to be reviewed & changed.
35. Snacks supplier has been changed now to Camy wafers supplier Raju & ISKCON bakery as back-up plan. We will now see a change in menu as more steamed stuff like Idli, sandwitches, dhokla than fried as before. Chana & milk products need to be stopped to avoid stomach issues. bread also need to be checked & reduced.
36. this was just an ice-breaker meeting to begin with. more discussions will happen on emails & all information will be shared with all parents by PTA representatives.
37. The language of some teachers need to be improved. its just a matter of time otherwise we will see our kids following the bad standards of other schools
    
38. PTA is not a forum for just compaints.

Action points for all PTA members:

1. We will be given the list of all respective class parents names & emails in soft copy. We have to form a separate google or yahoo group for internal communications to all other parents in the class, as we all are equally involved & partcipation from all is better.
2. Pass on these minutes to all other parents in the class by emails, after we form the groups.
3. We also plan to send school circulars by email to save paper & environment in future. So please ensure that every parent of students in your class is reachable on email. If it happens that some parents are not on emails at all, do revert back please.

Thank you.
Amol Kulkarni.
amol108@gmail.com
PTA coordinator & PTA member from Sr. KG.

BSMS school pictures

I just gathered some wonderful pictures from our Bhaktivedanta Swami Mission
School & uploaded them for you to share with the world.

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/574011584btXmMa?vhost=good-times

Dassera 2008

test

checking if we can post all BSMS circulars here for any parents to view...
it will save lots of paper
thank you