PTA Meeting Slide Show & Meeting Minutes- January 10, 2023
P.S. 34 Oliver H. Perry PTA, Inc.
President: Julia Kotowski
Co-Treasurers: Brian Binsack & Jolie Ruhe
Co-Secretaries: Lilith Dollard & Molly Giliotti
PTA@ps34pta.org · www.ps34pta.org
PS 34 PTA Minutes
Date: Tuesday January 10th, 2023
Time: 6:15 pm
Location: Zoom
Lilith Dollard, co-secretary opened the meeting. President Julia Kotowski was not present. All other board members were present.
Mr. Beugoms gave the Principal’s Address
· Attendance: Was dropping at the end of December. Now we are slightly below normal but better than before. Attendance has fallen at our school and across the city. There has been a trend to taking extended vacations that did not happen before the pandemic. Children receive 180 days of instruction during the school year and missing days for personal vacations affects the amount of instruction a student will receive.
· New Interim Acting Assistant Principal: Ms. Marshall. She is working alongside Mr. B.
· New Speech Teacher: Megan Burns. Now all students are receiving speech in school. She has already started meeting with students.
· PS 34 is going to host a Saturday Academy open to grades 3-5. Focus will be on test readiness. Mr. B is hoping that all students will participate in the state testing this year. Saturday Academy is optional. There is pizza lunch. It will go from February through April.
· STEM is being covered by Shanti Crawford who was the Lego Robotics teacher. She started January 3rd and will hopefully be brought on as a full-time teacher.
· Respect for All Week and Black History Month will be happening in both January and February.
Treasurer Report:
· Brian shared the monthly Treasurer Report. (details of this can be found in the slideshow)
New Business:
· Read-A-Thon: Happening in March. This is a way to encourage reading and works also a fundraiser for the school.
Upcoming Events
· Movie Night: February for younger kids and in March for older kids. Look out for survey for movie choices.
· Art Party: Live Auction and party. Bidding will be through an online platform. In order to make it happen we will need help with: securing donations, securing sponsors, managing donations, setup, cleanup.
· Looking for parents input on what enrichments parents would like to have in the school during the day. Link to
· Teacher Feedback: Sending out a survey to teachers to see how the PTA can best support them.
Updates from Parent Coordinator:
· New January Calendar went home.
· There are Parent Workshops offered by the district. (Check the slideshow for more information)
· Self-Care Workshop on January 11th 9:30 am
· Adult Career Information Session Wednesday January 25th 9:30 am.
· Family Night: Disney on Ice January 20th.
· NYC Schools Account: Make sure that you have activated your school account. You can see grades, test scores, take virtual parent classes, and access Support Hub for your DOE issued device. This account will travel with you all the way through high school.
· Save for College Program NYC Rise: nyckidsrise.org
· Deadline for Kindergarten application is January 20th.
· Check the Lost and Found
Q & A
· Tours for parents that have not been in the building?: Right now tours are for prospective parents. They are looking for different ways for parents to come into the school that are not like a tour. Sign up for Read Aloud if you are interested in seeing the school.
· What are the assemblies that are happening this month? African Folktales. Respect for all assemblies will also be included. PTA also has a budget for assemblies. Please let us know if you have any suggestions about assemblies that you would like to see.
· Concern over the Eckford Street school exit: There have been a lot of near misses with accidents. What can be done to address this situation. There is concern over the people that are parking in the no parking section to pick up their students and then moving when the street is still closed. Mr. B said that there is no staff that can be assigned to the street. Right now a paraprofessional is there at the gate. Mr. B will research about how best to help the situation.