Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contracts:
All PTA contracts must be signed by the PTA President. Please contact Sarah Maris (747-6922
or sarah.maris@gmail.com) when you need something signed.
Executive Board Representative:
According to our Standing Rules, your Executive Board Representative is an ex-officio member
of your committee (which means she shows up at meetings, offers ideas and suggestions, but doesn’t
do any substantial work ☺). Please make a point of keeping your Board Rep in the loop by inviting
her to meetings, copying her on important correspondence and giving her regular verbal reports.
This will help your Executive Board Representative write her brief monthly reports on all active
committees.
Letters of solicitation:
Solicitation letters must be approved by PTA President and FH Schools Superintendent
before they can be distributed to parents, community members and others. Contact Sarah (747-6922
or sarah.maris@gmail.com) and she will obtain the necessary approvals.
Membership:
All chairpersons must be members of the PTA. Please encourage all of your committee members to
join the PTA. Membership forms are available in the PTA section of the FH Schools website or from
membership chair Mary Pat Gendleman (936-0653 or marypat@gmail.com).
Procedure Books:
All committees are required to keep detailed procedure books to help future committee chairs
understand what to do. See next page for a suggested list of Procedure Book contents. Your
Procedure Book should be turned in to your Executive Board Representative after your
committee’s activities have been completed for the year. You need not wait until June to turn in your
book.
PTA meetings:
Committee chairs are encouraged to attend PTA meetings particularly when their committee is
active. This is an important way to share information and get questions answered. If you cannot
make the meetings, please inform your Executive Board Representative.
School Property Use:
If your committee will be using any of the facilities at Knollwood or Sickles School, you must submit
an Application for Use form to Jacqui Baker in the Board of Education office. Application for Use forms
may be obtained on the FH Schools website (under “Forms”) or from the BOE office.
Solicitation Policy:
1) Door to door sales by children is prohibited by the Fair Haven Board of Education.
2) Prize incentives for sales are also against school policy.
3) All solicitation of local businesses and parents should be cleared by the PTA Executive
Board. We want to maintain a strong relationship with community and avoid duplication so we
need to be careful how and when we ask for donations.
Term Limits:
According to our standing rules, no committee chair may serve more than three consecutive
terms as chair of the same committee. The purpose of this rule is to spread the work – and the
fun – around. If this is your third term or if you want to do something different next year, please talk
to your Executive Board Representative about finding and training your replacement.
If you have questions about theses policies or about the Standing Rules, please contact your Executive
Board Representative or PTA President Sarah Maris.
Fair Haven PTA
Committee Chair Basics
2006-07
Fair Haven PTA
Suggested Procedure Book Contents
Your Procedure Book should include enough detail that someone else could run your committee
without asking you any questions.
Each Committee’s book will be a little different, but most should include the following sections:
III) Budget:
• Budget Procedures (prepared by Executive Board)
• Committee Budget Summary
• Expense Tracker
• Copies of receipts/invoices for big ticket items
IV) Communication:
• Communication Procedures (prepared by Executive Board)
• Flyer Procedures (prepared by Executive Board)
• Copies of flyers, newsletter articles, lunch menu blurbs, articles in local newspapers etc.
Don’t let putting together your Procedure Book stress you out! If you are struggling with what
to include or how to write it down, contact Sarah Maris (747-6922 or sarah.maris@gmail.com) or
Danielle Hester (842-0281 or danihester@aol.com). We have prepared several of these books and
we can help you to put your book together in no time.
If you have questions, contact your Executive Board Representative or Sarah Maris (747-6922 or
sarah.maris@gmail.com) or Danielle Hester (842-0281 or danihester@aol.com). We want to make
this process as user-friendly as possible – both for you and for future chairs.
Collect email addresses from interested parties and add them to the list
• Circulate a sign up sheet at all meetings
• Include the fhfdl@hotmail.com address on brochure given to parents whose children are
new to the Special Education system
• Anyone may join our email list. Current members include Fair Haven parents, staff and
administration as well as parents, staff and administration from other nearby school districts.
• Add email addresses to the Hotmail account as new contacts
• Add contacts to one of the two groups. Hotmail will not allow us to send an email to more
than 50 people at a time so we split the list into two groups (last names A-L and last names
M-Z)
• Once a year send an email reminder that we
would be happy to remove any recipient’s
name from our list – they just need to send us
an email requesting that we do so.
Monitor account for meeting and workshop announcements sent by other groups and list
members.
• Forward anything that seems interesting and/or fairly local.
• We try to respect our list members’ email boxes so we do not forward items that are of a
commercial nature.
• We also try to step gingerly around anything controversial. Our goal is to provide
information, not to start (or foster) arguments.
4. Click on send
Day of event
• Arrive at least 20 minutes early to make sure room is set up. If event is not set up properly, find a
custodian and ask for help with setup
• Post extra signs to help people find the meeting location – many of our meetings are attended by
people who are not familiar with our schools.
• Greet speaker and discuss any time parameters or other issues (e.g. meeting must end by 9 p.m., hold
Q&A to the end)
• Introduce speaker and announce any time parameters or other issues as discussed with speaker.
• Thank speaker at the conclusion of the meeting. Don’t leave until everyone else has left the room
.
Day after event
• Write a thank you note to speaker. PTA letterhead is available from PTA President if needed.
Fair Haven PTA
Committee Chair Instructions
2006-07
2006-07 Monthly Timetable
Committee: __________________________
Summer
September
October
November
December
February
March
April
May
June
B. Lunch Menu
The Lunch Menu should be used for:
1. Date, time and location reminders for events
2. Requests for volunteers and non-monetary donations
To put something in the Friday Lunch menu, contact Sarah Maris (747-6922 or
sarah.maris@gmail.com ) no later than Wednesday morning. Please keep information brief –
space is very limited.
C. Flyers sent home with students (see next page for detailed procedures)
D. Publicity/local publications: If you would like to get your event or effort mentioned in
local publications (e.g. the Fair Haven Focus, Two Rivers Times, The Hub), please contact
Sarah Maris for content approval. Information will then be passed along to Ann Carey (PTA
Publicity Chair) for submission to publications. Most publications have very long lead times.
Please get your information to Sarah at least 6-8 weeks before you need it published.
E. PTA Phone Chain: The phone chain is to be used only for emergencies and other special
circumstances. If you think your situation qualifies, please contact Sarah Maris.
Fair Haven PTA
Communications
2006-07
Fair Haven PTA Flyer Procedures
1. Create your flyer
Include (as relevant)
• Event date/due dates
• Location, time etc.
• Where to turn in forms (e.g. PTA Mailbox)
• Contact information for questions
• Mission Statement is required on all flyers!:
PTA Mission Statement: It is the mission of the Fair Haven PTA to promote the
welfare, safety and educational development of our children in the home, school and
community through the cooperative efforts of parents and teachers
Keep the design simple and try not to use large amounts of thick black graphics. Our flyers are
copied on a wet-process machine and large black areas tend to stick and jam the copier. PTA
Duplication will ask you to change any flyer that cannot be copied easily.
2. Get flyer approved
All flyers must be approved by PTA President Sarah Maris and FH Schools Superintendent Bill
Presutti before they can be distributed to students.
Please email your flyer to Sarah at sarah.maris@gmail.com or drop it in the mail slot at 32 Hance
Road. Sarah will obtain Mr. Presutti’s approval and call you when it has been approved.
Approvals usually only take a day or two.
3. Turn in flyer and notify PTA Duplication
A. Contact PTA Duplication via phone or email to let them know you have a flyer:
Sharon Puryear (Sickles) 219-0557 sharonpuryear@verizon.net
Carolyn Riley (Knollwood) 741-4088 cajacass@aol.com
B. Place flyer in the Purple PTA Duplication folder in the Knollwood PTA Mailbox
C. Fill out duplication request (in folder) with a description of the flyer, date needed, your
contact information etc.
Whenever possible, please notify PTA Duplication that you will have a flyer for
distribution at least 1-2 weeks in advance. This will help them plan their schedule and
ensure that your flyer gets out on time.
If you are artistically or technologically “challenged” you can get assistance from an
experienced flyer designer by contacting Margo Tikijian (450-9492 or
margotik@comcast.net )
Don’t forget to proofread your flyer. Typos may not be caught during the approval
process (Sarah is a very poor proofreader!)
Include a copy of all flyers in this section of your procedure book so that future chairs
can see what you’ve done.
Have Sarah check to see if the back of the Lunch Menu is available for your flyer. It’s a
great way to get the word out and save paper.
Total $ $
Keep this form (or an alternate budget worksheet) in your Committee Procedure Book.
This form may be downloaded from the PTA section of the FH Schools website (see PTA Procedure Book forms). An Excel version is
also available on the website (see PTA Budget Worksheets).