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Schools

New Hyde Park Road School PTA Sets Holiday Agenda

'Tis the season for raising school funds.

The held its monthly Parent Teacher Association meeting on site at 7:00 p.m. Thursday Nov. 18, and after the financial and educational update formalities were dispersed with, festive fundraisers aiming to earn money for the PTA to cycle back into the school ruled the agenda.

Coming off the success of member Andrea Orbon's "Pumpkin Patch" sale featuring pumpkins, apples and lollipops, which "went very well," and Theresa DeCola's "Wrap Sale," which made over $4,300 even though DeCola "originally thought it would only make $1,500," the PTA will seek to keep the cash flowing in the swiftly approaching holiday season initially through a "Thanksgiving Bake Sale."

The bake sale will take place at 3:00 p.m. in the NHP Road School cafeteria on Tuesday, Nov. 23, at which time 19 parents will serve up various homemade Thanksgiving edible goodies. The event "should sell out very quickly," according to member Marie Scandura, who has given out coupons for the sale as well.

After Thanksgiving, the PTA will focus on the annual "Holiday Boutique," which will take place later in December. Letters promoting the boutique were scheduled to go out the day after the meeting and the sale is well into the planning stages, with shopping trips for event still being undertaken.

The seasonal sales will not end there, as around the same time, DeCola will spearhead a "Holiday Plant Sale," featuring greenery from Milena's Garden Center.

Principal Peggy Marenghi addressed the parents regarding their children's well-being and assured parents that their children were flourishing. Through teacher focus groups, during which each teacher gets a half hour to update her, Marenghi gave the parents some educational highlights, such as that 95 percent of the fourth grade was passing. In addition, Marenghi and other faculty aim to have students exit in June with "a higher order of thinking skills not necessarily accumulated through more work, but through greater thinking and adaptation."

To round out the evening, PTA members were given and asked to hand in a survey about what school programs should stay, what should go and what should be newly instituted if the budget permits, although according to Marenghi, "it has been a tough couple of years."

The first budget meeting will take place on Jan. 3, 2011 at the .

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