The meeting was called to order at 7:13 p.m. in the Chef’s Hat Restaurant by Laurie Vertefeuille.

Attendance: Laurie Vertefeuille (PFO President), Kristen Michaud, Lisa Ward, Cindy Hair, Karen Ford (PFO Treasurer), Al Wilder (PFO Vice President), Tina Abell, Fred Ashton (Assistant Principal), Mary-Paule Monks (Guidance Office), Corinne Fitting (PFO Secretary), Heidi Balch (Central Office)

Special Presentation: Ms. Heidi Balch, from Central Office spoke. Ms. Balch is the parent liaison to Central Office. She discussed ways to stay involved with your teens while they are in high school. One way is to ask them informed questions: When the syllabus for the year in their trade comes home, look it over, and ask your child about the items on it as they are taught. Talk to their shop instructors - the instructors are a great resource for both positive and negative feedback on your child (they spend about 6 hours a day with them!). Make sure to let the instructors know if anything big is going on at home that might affect your child’s school performance.

Ms. Balch is also the Skills USA director for Connecticut, as well as director for Student Congress and Student Council. Skills USA holds a Leadership Conference in the fall, and various trade competitions in the spring. These help build self-esteem, confidence, and provide connections to the industry with possible employment opportunities. CT has a grant that covers membership fees in Skills USA for all students, but don’t have funds to send students to the national competitions, so individual schools typically fund-raise for that.
If parents have questions, they can contact Ms. Balch at Heidi.Balch@ct.gov.

Secretary’s Report: Minutes from the November 14 meeting accepted with no changes.

Treasurer’s Report: Checking Account Balance is $9752.53 (although $8214 is held for reimbursement to other organizations). Ms. Ford had some questions regarding the WT water sales, and Mr. Wilder will follow up with the Alumni Association on that.

Old Business: We are now posting PFO meeting minutes on the web site once they have been approved by the PFO.

Parent/Teacher Conferences were held November 16. Ms. Michaud, Ms. Ford and Ms. Vertefeuille set up a table and had Tech-wear sales totaling $190 that evening.

Ms. Hair, Ms. Michaud and Ms. Abell presented additional information on the cookbook fundraiser. An initial mailing with forms requesting recipes, a reservation sheet for ordering a cookbook in advance and a form for placing ads will go out in the report card mailing this week. The due date will be January 31, and we should have the cookbooks back by April 15. They will host contests for students to design the cover, section artwork, and titles, hoping to get as much participation as possible. Ms. Monks will send a notice to the chef coordinator to solicit recipes from the chefs at all the culinary schools. Ms. Abell offered to donate a piece of PFO tech wear of choice to the student who comes up with the cover design and title of the cookbook. Thank you Tina!

The tech wear fundraiser flyer is still in the works, and we’ll get a report on the status at the next PFO meeting. Ms. Vertefeuille mentioned that she has ordered a sample sweatshirt blanket with Windham Tech screened in the center. Also, the heavyweight Lee sweatshirts are no longer available, but the vendor will substitute something comparable.

New Business: Mr. Wilder is looking into insurance to cover any PFO events. He has contact information from Grasso Tech and is getting a copy of the policy for our future consideration.

Copies of proposed amendments to the PFO By-Laws and Constitution were distributed for people to review for the next meeting.

Ms. Monks mentioned that the football banquet is January 4, and they were hoping someone from the PFO could man a table to collect donations for the Alex Bousquet Scholarship Fund. Ms. Michaud and Ms. Ford volunteered. Thank you Kristen and Karen!

The next meeting is scheduled for January 9, 2007.