The Big Sandy Booster Club met January 8th with nine moms attending at the Big Sandy Senior Citizen’s.

Melanie Schwarzbach gave the Financial Report. Currently they have $13,790.00 for future projects. There was considerable exciting discussion about the numerous opportunities for future contributions they could make.

The posters are up at the high school where names of the Corporate Sponsors and Life time membership are displayed professionally. They hadn’t been updated since 1994. Pep’s is now a Corporate Sponsors.

New Pioneer clothes and gear are coming! This year the Booster club will be using Leftys’ Design from Fort Benton. You’ll hear more about this in the future, but there will be a link where you can go and order a variety of clothes, with numerous choices in the near future. They don’t have it completely nailed down yet, but they are in conversation to make sure everyone has the opportunity to look at and purchase Pioneer gear!

Any Pop Shoot takes second place to Little Girls Dance and grade school basketball, even though the kids love doing it.

Kristen Gasvoda reported the Birthday Calendars are in and being sent out. She has 15 extra’s The PTA started the Birthday Calendar years ago. Pattti Hanuum said the Birthday Calendar started in 1957 as a PTA project. The Booster club would like to acknowledge Kristen Gasvoda for all her hard work. Give her a thank you when you see her.

The Booster Club will be purchasing spirit objects for the Basketball Tournament this year. They are to be used and then returned to the box after the games.

Rules governing Booster Club donation to high school sports was discussed. Superintendent Kelly Haaland said the issues were Title IX. According to Montana Office of Public Instruction “Title IX is a federal law that requires recipients of federal funding for education, with a few specific exceptions, to be in compliance with the

minimum requirements of the Title IX regulations. TITLE IX of the Education Amendments was signed by President Nixon in June of 1972 to become a law. The main purpose of Title IX is to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity that is federally funded.”

Another rule according to Big Sandy Schools Policy is the ownership of all uniforms. The school is responsible for all sports uniforms. The interesting thing is Title IX doesn’t mean equal dollar amounts in uniforms, only that uniforms are purchased equally. It is not referring to shooting shirts, or other clothes promoting the team or gear not necessary for the sport.

According to Kelly cheerleaders uniform need be placed in the rotation of purchased uniforms. Uniforms need to stay with the school. So, review of school policy and the acceptance of donations will need to be reviewed. If the school buys warm ups they belong to the school, unless you want to raise funds to put their name on the warm ups, then it can belong to them.