Bridgeview Family Association

Promoting community, Communication, Understanding, and Fun

The purpose of the Bridgeview Family Association is to promote communication, cooperation, understanding, and mutual support among faculty, students, and parents of Bridgeview Montessori School. The goal of this group is to help enrich our children's experience here at Bridgeview Montessori School as well as to provide an opportunity for parents to meet each other outside of school hours.

The BFA encourages and motivates participation of parents in the life of the school. All parents with children enrolled are considered members of the BFA and are encouraged to become active in this organization.  

The BFA gets together regularly to talk about current issues, plan future activities, listen to scheduled guest speakers, and generally keep in touch with each other. This is a great way to keep up on what is happening at the school, and to meet the parents of your children's school friends. Past events have included:

• Harvest Fest

• Parent Montessori Math Education Night / Student Pajama / Pizza Party

• Winter Craft Evening

• Family Movie Night Under the Stars

To contact the Bridgeview Family Association, please email familyassociation@bridgeviewmontessori.org

Join our Bridgeview Family Association facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/9306073992752295/members

BFA MEETING Minutes

(newest to oldest)

Meeting Minutes , March 5, 2025

Strategic Planning update from Sandy

• Two meetings have happened - committees have looked at surveys, brainstormed, most recent meeting was to pare down and come up with actual action steps. 

• Sandy will type up and send to adminatrative team to see what is realistically able to be accomplished, and who will be responsible for following through. 

• BFA possible duties: Parent activities (maintain current events and possibly expand through canal walks, book clubs, parent education etc)

• Number of events felt fine, one per month, minus September. Discussed how can we get it going earlier? Personal email to new families and new teachers, use the classroom liaisons 

BFA Board for 2025-2026: 

Move to have one elementary and one children’s house event coordinator - keep rest of board positions the same

Send email via classroom liaisons re-open bra board positions - End of March

• President is open

• Treasurer is open

• Secretary is open

• Children’s house event planner (in conjunction with Kelly and Anna)

Summer plans:

• BFA board should meet in August 

• Set up a time for new HOS to meet with BFA (probably beginning duties August 1, new BFA president can reach out after then)

• Community clean up day - can we provide breakfast/get to know new families 

• Orientation night - put a flyer in packet

• Watermelon welcome 

• Parent meet up in August after orientation night - The Local

• Communicate better with faculty re: BFA events, let them know how they can help 

This month and next for teachers:

• Provide snacks/treats for conference days at the end of March 

• Teacher appreciation week - One day with a bigger event, like a meal? Then gift cards, smaller tokens of appreciation

• Collect Venmo in March

• Follow up in April based on how much was collected

Spring events:

• Spring Fling - April 28th 4-5pm

• Email teachers to invite them to the event - have liaison do this before April break

• 8 cousins - month of April - Kelly with talk to Katie to get all information to make a flyer

• Skyzone fundraiser - Kelly will make a flyer

April and May meetings -

• keep, but May is teacher appreciation week - board and any members who want to will be available for help with etup/execution of fun things

Misc:

• Donation to annual fund? No, we are not going to this year. 

• Put in a line in the annual fund to say what we contribute in lieu of money

•  Gillian will talk to Julie about organizing Field Day

Meeting Minutes , February 5, 2025

Last Year’s Annual Fund Donation and accounting moving forward:

• Suzanne looked into it and got back to me that it was indicated we donated $285 which was the proceeds from Paint Night.

• I plan to have a vote of whether we donate this year to the annual fund. As long as no one has any strong feelings otherwise I say we just move forward with our more clear tracking of our funds and then take this into account in our vote to donate to the Annual Fund this year or not. 

• I also requested to speak to Eric about how our account is held. I think that this was clarified that they have a different umbrella for us and that Eric wanted us to keep track too. I will clarify this with him. Going forward:

  • Paypal payments for us: Suzanne with forward me every paypal receipt she receives, I will total it and submit the number to Emma/Peter, then they can keep that number in our running accounting of our account, and she can provide the number to Eric to be sure he does the same. 

  • cash payments: Emma/Peter will total them and give the cash to Eric. They will add that to their running accounting of the BFA

  • reimbursements: continue to do them the same; fill out the form if you need reimbursement. Send the form, receipt to Eric and cc Emma/Peter; They will add that to their accounting for our account 

  • Our total right now from Emma/Peter is $505. I will check that number with Eric's number and be sure we're getting the same number. If there is an issue with that I will let him know. Then after each event I think it makes sense to do the same. Just shooting him a quick email saying: This event in our records yielded $200 bringing out total to $705, please let me know that you have the same reflected in our account. 

We discussed events:

• Movie Night: Emily or Tiger will help Kelly set up the projector on Friday at 8:45 after drop off. There is a possibility that Sandy won't be well by Friday. Suzanne is going to determine if they still want someone from the school present and let us know. I am still available if  you feel you need more hands on deck, and Sandy is unable to attend. 

• 8 Cousins: Katie reached out to them and they're willing to run a month long fundraiser for us. They will give us 20% of the purchases that people from the school make. They will not do a discount, but I still think this is a great fundraiser we don't need to do much for. We floated the idea of April so that people can buy books for Easter baskets. 

• Spring Fest: I shared that we had the date of April 7th approved from 4-5. We discussed that May might make more sense to hope for warmer less rainy weather. We floated the date of May 5 or 12. Kelly/Anna can you see if either date works for the school?

• Ryan Family Amusements: We discussed doing a fundraiser here. We were discussing either Hyannis or Yarmouth for location. They give a percentage back to the school for bowling and gift cards. We discussed picking an April Break date to do a meet up similar to the Sky Zone event. We also discussed that one of them has a private room. I can reach out to them unless Anna/Kelly want to. This will give us an April activity in lieu of the Spring Fest and then we would have Spring Fest as our May event. 

• Pilates: Estelle was thinking 11:45 on a certain day. Estelle, are there any dates you can give us so that we can try to figure out if we can get that in before the end of the year?

If anyone has any questions or suggestions please feel free to let me know! You can also always text me on my cell. 203-610-2790.

Meeting Minutes, January 8, 2025

Holiday Event Feedback:

• We had about 30 kids (19-20 families).

• Many more people than last year. Next year, could we use both the blue room and rainbow room? Otherwise we’ll need to cap registrations. 

  Anna and Kelly are submitting receipts for reimbursements.

Booklove Fundraiser

• Can we do another one at another book store? Titcombs or Eight Cousins. Kelly will ask Sandy about her contact at Titcombs, Katie will reach out to Eight Cousins. 

Budget Check-in: 

• Emma will check with Suzanne/Eric/Amy for an accurate dollar about after Winterfest admission costs, reimbursements, and Booklove deposit. Also expecting a check from Hammer and Stain after this week’s event (roughly $150)

Workout Class:

• February 5th? - workout class, 10:30am. Estelle is looking into this, do we open to the public to fundraise more

• Could also be moved to early March, pending Estelle returning to workFebruary 7th

Movie night: The Incredibles 

• Sign up is ready 

• Pizza from: Mr. Gs

• Chaperones? Sandy will be here, no permission slips needed 

• Kelly and Anna can take care of getting pizza here, but are looking for another parent to possibly chaperone, as their own kids will be in attendance. Carolyn can do it. 

• Projector and screen here at school that can support the movie? 

February 13th: Parent meet up at The Local - Kelly will reach out 20(?) people estimated?

Kids Event in March away from school March 27/28th are conference days

Friday March 14th is professional development day: Bowling

• Nova - no morning hours on Fridays

• Skyzone - Will donate back 20% of each ticket sold

Monday, April 7

• Spring Fling event, after school, for children. 

• Plan to be inside (rainbow/blue room), but if weather is nice we can move outside. 

Cindy Horgan: 

• Do we want to reschedule? 

• 21 people were registered - 7 free educators 

• Can it be a recruiting event if opened up to the public? Have space for 40 people 

• Rent/reserve a room at the Bourne library? 

• Feeling in the group is to likely reschedule this event for next school year. 

Meeting Minutes, November 6, 2024

Blue Room: 9 - 10 am

Event Planning and Fundraising Check-In

• Recap of Fall Festival: 23 families RSVP’d, 16 attended. Fun atmosphere, people were happy to be there. Kids from every classroom, Yellow Room most represented, E2 just one family. 

  • Raffle didn’t seem popular, we raised $85 from 4 families who participated. 

  • Would it be better to charge admission vs. suggested donation vs. raffle 

• Cindy Horgan Event: December 2, 6-8pm, at Bridgeview in the Blue Room. Sending out info to community today/tomorrow. $10 fee for attendees (family max). Parent only event, will be open to adults outside of Bridgeview community also. 

• Holiday Party: Winter event to mirror the one we held last year. Monday, December 16, 4-5pm. Cookie decorating, lantern making, hot chocolate, etc. Many supplies left over from last year. $5 per child admission fee. 

• Parent Event: Reaching out to Hammer and Stain to see if we can host an event in January. Think about procuring raffle items ahead of time for people to win at that event (restaurant gift cards, etc)

• Elementary Event: Pizza, movie, and dance party evening. Friday, February 7th at 5:30pm (tentative, pending teacher involvement). $5 per child admission fee?

• Other event/fundraising ideas:

  • Facilitating a meet up for kids outside of school (ice skating, trampoline park, etc)

  • Utilizing local bookstores (we are too small for a Scholastic Book Fair): Titcombs, 8 Cousins, Reed Books, BookLove

  • Our goal is to raise $1500 this year in order to break even and cover the costs of events and Teacher Appreciation Week. Moving forward we would love to be able to operate with a surplus in order to provide "extras" for teachers and children. 

Service Opportunities:

• Looking into sponsoring a family or 2 for the holidays as a whole community. 

BFA Liaisons have all communicated with their classrooms. 

• Yellow Room: Emily Curry and Katie Behunin

• Red Room: Estelle Besse and Taniya Roy Chowdhury

• E1: Christine Cullity

• E2: Liz Farmer

Meeting Minutes: October 2, 2024

Blue Room: 9 - 10 am

BFA Meeting Recap:

Dear Bridgeview Community, 

The following is a recap from the first Bridgeview Family Association meeting of the year. We will do this for each meeting throughout the year. Please be sure to answer the short survey (sent separately) so that we can best tailor our meeting times to reach the most families. Thank you. 

BFA Leadership Roles Assigned:

• Meeting Leader runs meetings, creates agendas, refers to previous meetings, manages decisions. Meeting Leader for 2024-2025 school year is Carolyn Reis, Yellow Room parent.

• Secretary takes notes during meetings, produces a meeting report to recap meetings. Secretary for 2024-2025 school year is Gillian Monroe, Yellow Room parent.

• Event Coordinators manage events hosted by BFA. Organize volunteers and procure materials as needed. Event Coordinators for 2024-2025 school year are Anna Stein, E1 parent, and Kelly Band, Red Room and E1 parent.

• BFA Liaisons (Room Parents) will be the bridge between classroom families, teachers and the BFA. Event organizers can call on BFA Liaisons for assistance with volunteers or materials. TBD for 2024-2025 school year - See volunteer opportunity below. 

• Treasurer - Oversees and manages BFA fundraising opportunities and general funds. Treasurers for the 2024-2025 school year are Peter and Emma Von Stelzer. 

Communication:

Bridgeview Family Association can be reached at familyassociation@brigdeviewmontessori.org. In addition, please find us on Facebook - Bridgeview Family Association.

Upcoming Events:

• Fall Fest - November 2, 2024, 2-4pm, rain date November 3, 2-4pm. Please RSVP if you can make it! 

• Other ideas for events throughout the year:

  • Family Game Night

  • Movie Night with outdoor projector 

  • Paint Night for parents at a local restaurant 

  • Parent education event with local speakers

• If you have an idea for a great community event, don't be shy, share it with us! 

Current Volunteer Opportunities: