PTA Meeting Minutes 2-15-2023

MECA HS PTA General Meeting- 2/15/2023 Virtual meeting

Attendees: Josh Ehrlich (PTA President), Shelby Banks (PTA Treasurer), Carol Sun (MECA CTE), Monica Soto (PTA Secretary), Julissa Figueroa (CASW SYEP Director), Kiendra Moore, Dominic Jurado (SYEP), Mariama Barry (SYEP MECA Alumni), Mrs Jackson, Vivian Cruz (Parent Coordinator), Julia Tseng, Tischelle George,  iphone, Jeanune’s family, Amaya Moreney

Meeting Started 7:05pm with Quorum of members. PTA President Josh Ehrlich chairing the meeting. Monica Soto PTA secretary scribing the meeting notes.

1.  Approval of Minutes: PTA January 2023 general meeting minutes were approved. As always, all PTA general meeting minutes can be found on MECAHSPTA.org.

2.     President's Report- Josh Ehrlich:

·        Prior PTA Meetings video recordings are available upon submitting form request on the PTA site.

·        Parent Workshop video recording is also available upon submission of form request. We are still working on translating to Spanish the complete video.

·        Josh asked for parents to volunteer to manage the social accounts. Please reach out via email to ptainfo@mecahspta.org

·        Josh notified that in the March PTA meeting we will start the process of voting for PTA board for the next school year. We are open to proposals of new positions or even co-positions in the board.

·        Next Parent Workshop will be sometime in March (pending confirmation of the date). Based on the voting results of the topics, the next workshop will be about Stress Management and Mental Health with Teens.

3.     Treasurer’s Report- Shelby Banks:

Shelby showed the activity report as of the month of February. It showed the balance of $2,502.42. There was no new activity since last month. Pending deposit of a new on hand check from a parent donation.

Shelby informed the good news that Amazon Smiles program will still take donations to the program until the end of this month. The program will be discontinued on February 28th.

As a follow-up to Fundraising ideas, Shelby informed of a tentative Breakfast Bar proposal to offer sale of healthier breakfast items. This activity is pending the school building co-principals approval. Please let us know if you can volunteer to staff the sale for the PTA.

4.     Principal’s Report- Vivian Cruz:

Ms Cruz, our parent coordinator provided the Principals report since Ms Kaplan was attending a Broadway play with some senior students. These were the updates and news:

·        Reminder that from Feb 20th to Feb. 24th there is no school

·        There is a new event coming up, Spring Fling, scheduled for March 31st. More details to come.

·        Update on the Cafeteria Remodeling/Upgrade. It will take place during spring break. It won’t cause any disruption to school functioning.

·        This year Summer School will not be on Governor’s Island. It will be on the Urban Assembly of Government at 350 Grand Street in the Lower East Side.

·        Connect with Kids Network, the producer and professional filmmakers who chose MECA to be featured on a documentary, feature MECA students work.

5.     Feature Agenda Item: Summer Youth Employment Program at MECA with Carol Sun and SYEP Team

The presentation was divided into two: a) CTE Report by Ms Sun and b) SYEP Details Program by Ms Sun and MECA SYEP Team

a)     CTE Report: Ms sun shared a PowerPoint and went over information that highlighted MECA CTE department events from last semester.

§  The biggest event occurred in January when Seniors attended in person at the Horizon Media SOHO location. Horizon is a global media agency.

§  Career Discovery week trips: All 10th graders were invited to participate in these trips to expose them to the work environment of large corporations. There was very low return of the sophomores’ permission slips.

§  WorkED Advertising workplace challenge digital campaign begins March 6th and will take place after school Mondays and Wednesday.

§  REACT advertising campaign competition will kick off in April.

b)     Julissa Figueroa- Director of CASW SYEP for MECA presented the information about the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) at MECA. Information shared about the available programs and required ages. These summer internships are non lottery options for MECA students when selecting CASW.

Ms Sun will forward all the information shared today and links to how to complete applications to all MECA parents. Dominic and Mariama are available at MECA to answer any additional questions.

Important dates about SYEP:

Feb. 20th- Document submission opens

March 17th- Application closes

July 5th- first day of Internship

6.     New Business- no new business

7.     Old Business- no old business

The meeting adjourned at 8:15pm