St. Joseph PSR Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
January 9, 2008
Attendance: Michelle Foster, Lisa Schroeder, Cindy Mesnier, Jim Gissy, Martha Vehlewald, Fr. Jim Krings, Annie Miller, Carrie Sallwasser, Eileen Munoz
Fr Jim Krings – Nothing to report
Michelle Foster – CRE
a. Seventh and Eighth Grade Service opportunity on February 3 to help at the Missionaries of Charity soup kitchen. Michelle has been training with the full time school representative and is going to start offering trips bi-monthly to the PSR students. It will be on Sunday mornings. Space is limited to 6 children and 4 parents. She will need help in February. Martha Vehlewald volunteered to help.
b. Suggestions for improvement of PSR Board presence and involvement at PSR events were asked for. Suggestions were: To make sure the community knew who was on the board by including the board member names on the monthly PSR newsletter. To have the board members stand in the back of church at PSR Masses. To make sure the board members have name tags. To have a board member table manned at the entrance on Monday evenings. To have board members call new student and first grade parents halfway through the year to introduce themselves and ask how things are going. To have introductions at PSR Masses.
c. Human Sexuality starting in 4th-8th grade classes soon.
d. 2008- 2009 PSR Registration -There will be changes this year. Registration will begin in April instead of March. It will last one month long instead of just one weekend. The deadline for price breaks will be the last day of PSR with the mentality of getting everyone registered by the end of the year. Window of registration will be six weeks long. Suggestion was made for the catechist to include reminders of registration in their weekly emails.
e. Go Teach All Nations -The self evaluation program. Student and Catechists/Administration surveys are 95% completed. Parent surveys will be going out via mail in the next few weeks. Michelle asked for board members to help tabulate surveys and comments. She needs three for the student surveys, two for the catechist/administration surveys and three for the parents. Board members had no preference of which group they were to help tabulate. Fr Krings suggested that Michelle investigate if the parish office had the capacity to help tabulate and have the board members compile the comments. Eileen volunteered to put all the info into a spreadsheet.
f. Safe Touch - The changes went very well this year with Joann Goehler. Next year will try and coordinate the program to be done at the same time as the Human sexuality program.
g. Parent Mixer feedback. It was a nice evening, but lightly attended.
h. Letter from Dr Malito - Michelle handed out a thank you letter from the Parkway Superintendent to Ms Steffens for the $600 dollars raised for four needy families by the students in her class. Suggestion made to make sure this gets publicized.
i. Family Advent Event went very well and was attended by 35 families. Plans to have similar events at Lent and the Feast of St Joseph.
j. Grade Level Masses and Breakfast Attendance have been varied depending on the weekend but are being well received. Would like to add skits or lessons by the classes attending the Mass/breakfast next year.
k. Dismissal Change Letter has gone out in the mail and it starts next week. Involves only the first and second grades. Michelle is concerned that it takes the first and second graders away from PSR community
l. PSR Donut Sunday - Eileen Munoz did an excellent job. The wall of achievement was a good idea. Michelle will ask the catechist to turn things into her all year and she will keep a file for things to put on the wall for next year. It was questioned how much money or how many toys were collected?
m.
Chalking the Door at Epiphany Michelle
handed out the flyer on Chalking the Door at Epiphany that was handed out also
at PSR Epiphany
Carrie Sallwasser - DFF
a. Catholics Returning Home - Carrie informed that this program is available and information is going out to the whole parish She invited board members to invite anyone who might benefit from this program.
b. Human Sexuality Carrie in serviced and new catechist’s in serviced.
c.
Single Parent Group - A group for single
parent meeting January 28 in the church basement
d. Divorce Group Pilot Program is underway.
e. Newsletters for all these programs will be sent home.
a. Donut Sunday already discussed in Michelle’s CRE report.
b. Board presence already discussed in Michelle’s CRE report.
a. Parent feedback - Michelle has already gotten feedback about the new dismal for first and second graders.
b. Assigning board members to grade levels - Discussed that it was too late in the year and to try and do this next year.
c. Assigning board members to Parkway and Rockwood Schools Discussed that an individual from each school be represented on the board.
d. Survey assignments already discussed in Michelle’s CRE report.
e. Eucharistic Ministers - We have plenty of Eucharistic Ministers at PSR Masses. No catechist should be needed there are usually enough parents.
f. Mass Attendance - Michelle suggested that student attendance was down at the Epiphany Mass but parent attendance was up. Annie Miller asked for ideas on how to get more parents attending PSR Masses. Suggestions were made to involve the catechist to invite the parents. To have board members call parents with a welcome call and a call halfway through the year. To hold an open house similar to elementary school. To hold adult faith formation during PSR, the challenge being getting the parents to attend. To focus on the first and second grade parents with invitations and calls to ask them to join and get involved. To use the web with a Catholic 101 type program. To have a first grade podcast.or online academy. It was suggested to contact Father Greg Heili about this.
g. Discussion of the calendar of PSR events Michelle supplied a list of PSR events with board members who had volunteered to be at those events and asked for as many board members as possible to attend.
a.
Next Meeting March