September 2025 General Meeting Draft Minutes

Written By Justin Stoller

September 2nd 6:30-7:55pm

1 In Attendance

Board members present

Jake Sepulveda*, Steve Pagenstecher*, Justin Stoller*, Reece Nitschke*, Emma Koehler*

Community present

Sabrina, Sarah N*, Conrad W, Christina Maul*, Meg Stively*, Ashley Green*, Katie Rose*, Kristin Chatfield, Beth Harvey*, Conrad Wilson, Andrew Schroth, Alan Geleynse*, Adam Payn, Abbie Collier, Kadian Everett, Hillary Naishtat, Darcie Bell, David Jones*

* Member

2 Welcome

Meeting convened at 6:30 by President Jake.

3 Minutes

Minutes from the last General Meeting, held June 10th, were accepted without amendment.

4 New School Year Introduction to the PTA

It is great to see so many new faces! After a round of introductions we briefly went over who, why, and what of the PTA. Folks are encouraged to review that info at their own pace at the links below.

Find out who we are here: https://www.vestalpta.com/whoweare

Learn what we do here: https://www.vestalpta.com/what-we-do

And see what we accomplished last year here: https://www.vestalpta.com/yearinreview

If you have any questions you can email us at vestalelementarypta@gmail.com 

Follow one of our social media accounts below

Sign up for the PTA here: https://www.oregonpta.org/membership (select “Vestal” in the drop down). If the membership fees would be a hardship let us know, either in person or via email, and we can waive the fee.

5 Principal Update

  • So far a great start – minus the heat!

  • Enrollment is up this year

  • Our new PE teacher is starting on Thursday (Sept. 4th). His name is Dennis McCaffry

  • Our librarian, Ms Hazen, is out on leave until February. Alison Eriquez is our long term substitute librarian, and she will be at the school every Mon & Tues until February.

  • Depave is doing a ton of work on the Outdoor Classroom (which is past the portables if you haven’t seen it yet). We hope sometime this fall to do a ribbon cutting.

6 Treasurer’s Report

We made more last year than we had planned on and currently have around 30k in the bank.

We have an aggressive budget, aiming to spend about $2.5k more than we bring in, however we are very conservative on our fundraising estimates – hoping to be happily surprised.

Note: we will not do a Pie Sale this year.

Several amendments are proposed to the provisional budget we passed last year:

  • Increase classroom grants to $100 per classroom

  • Add a separate $500 art budget

  • No library grant, but $1250 for “Book Fair Bingo” and the remaining proceeds will go to the library.

  • $300 for communications and signage

  • $800 for a Green team budget

Jake motioned to approve budget changes, seconded. 17 votes to approve (10 current members), 5 abstensions (1 member). Budget amended.

7 Standing Rules

The proposed Standing Rules were reviewed. Jake motioned to approve them, seconded. 16 votes to approve (10 current members), 6 abstentions (1 member). Standing Rule adopted.

8 Upcoming Events

September

October

  • 1st – City counselor will join the community on the commute to school

  • 2nd - Threshold Beer Profit Sharing Night

  • 8th – Walk and Ride to School Day. We need volunteers to help with crosswalks along 80th

  • 10th – No School

9 Reece’s Experience Report at the Montavilla Jazzfest

  • Reece found it super valuable to be there, and it was a great experience.

  • Lots of support for the PTA from the community and was able to get our name out to folks that might support us but not typically hear from us.

  • Was able to join on stage for a call out!

  • The Jazzfest seems to be doing great, everyone (at the meeting) was happy to see how it has grown and we definitely want to keep supporting it.

  • Caveat: they thought we would be there both nights, but we were only there on one; need more volunteers and/or set expectations better next year.

9 Open Discussion

  • Kristen has an abundance of food from her neighbors’ garden, is there a way for her to contribute that to the community? Options she could pursue are a table at pickup, free food in the teacher’s lounge, or fresh snacks in classrooms?

  • Meg’s cat is charming

  • We are expanding our profit sharing nights to Ranch and Threshold – met with general approval.

  • If folks have A/C units that they want to donate they would be appreciated when the weather turns warm again.

  • New kinders will be added to Honeycomb soon (week after next). Honeycomb is now opt-out.

  • Remind is gone. Parent Square is the new Remind. Parent Vue still exists, some teachers will also use it for communication, but likely to move to Parent Square. Honeycomb is for parents/PTA.

  • Jake and Sabrina will work on a communications FAQ 

  • We should add a “Communication Check-in” as an agenda item for the next PTA meeting to see how comms are working.

  • Christina mentioned that we should move forward with Soiree donation requests ASAP. Large places want the information earlier, small businesses might prefer later.

  • Justin read the Standing Rules per our requirement that they be read out loud once a year, most attendees left at this point.

  • The remaining participants had a quick conversation about how and what the PTA will fund. We cannot fund salaries and we generally don’t bring in much monetarily, however we will always help folks find a way to get donations to where they will be the most impactful.

10 Closing

The meeting was adjourned by Jake at 7:55pm. We hope to see everyone at our first in person/hybrid PTA meeting of the 25/26 School Year on October 14th!

Justin Stoller
Next

October 2025 PTA Newsletter