MECA HS PTA General Meeting December 20, 2023

Virtual meeting (zoom)

Attendees: Josh Ehrlich (PTA President), Monica Soto (PTA Secretary), Shelby Banks (PTA Treasurer), Vivian Cruz (School Parent coordinator), Sarah Kaplan (Principal), Julia Tseng (parent), and Michelle Capriola (parent).

Meeting Started 7:06pm without Quorum of members.

PTA President Josh Ehrlich chairing the meeting. Monica Soto PTA secretary scribing the meeting notes.

1.      Approval of October and November minutes: No quorum of members to approve minutes. This item is being moved to January meeting.

2.      President’s report

Josh provided the following updates:

·         The video recording of the College Night presentation is now available on the PTA website.

·         We were unable to do the Meet & Greet event in December. We are looking at a January date at a place near school.

·         We are planning a Parent workshop next year. Last school year Powertools (the outside Consultant) presented two parent workshops and covered top topics of interested. The videos of those workshops are available on the website upon request.  

·         For January meeting we are proposing a Jupiter Ed related topic and invite teachers to go over the info.

·         Our PTA email is still the current ptainfo@mechahspta.org since the DOE pushed the roll out of PTA doe accounts to a later date.

3.      Treasurer’s Report: Josh shared the screen the report Shelby prepared for the meeting. IT shows the end of the year balance. Josh also shared we’ll need to fund the Senior Scholarships, the PTA only planned expense for the school year.

4.      Principal’s Report: Ms. Kaplan just mentioned the following news and events:

·         Ms. Laurent’ replacement: MECA is going thru a transition period of their College Bound Initiative program with the unplanned exit of Ms. Laurent. She is leaving the position due to personal reasons. Ms. Kaplan is working with Ms. Ciara, her replacement, who has experience that aligns with MECA’s needs. Ms. Ciara is planning to meet with Seniors to ensure our students will not be impacted. She is also planning to meet with the 11th graders and parents. We could plan for an in person meeting to introduce her to parents.

·         School Data: There has been an increase of English Rising learners since mid October and data shows the increase in their population from 3-6% to now 13% of the total population. Funding formula for next school year might be affected. Need to identify hiring of staff to accommodate the additional students’needs and teacher’s needs.

·         Starting in spring, MECA partnered with an organization as a consultant to support and provide coaching to staff.

·         We are planning to identify a ½ day request for staff workshop.  IT will need parents input.

Ms Kaplan answered question from parent about the scheduled SAT digital. She did not have any news but just know a survey was sent about technology inventory.

Another parent asked if MECA offered prep classes for SAT. MS Kaplan responded there were no prep tutoring but may be in the future.

5.      Old business:

We held the Title I parent election and a parent representative.

6.      New Business:

No new business

The meeting adjourned at 7:37pm

Please reach out via email to ptainfo@mecahspta.org