Site Council Meeting Minutes

December 4, 2007

Attendees:

• Amy Kraham: Parent
• Anne Seeger: Parent
• Mike Schackel: Parent
• Steve Rogers: Assistant Principal
• Laurie Hoyt: 7^th Science
• Karl Ritter: Counselor (Facilitator)
• Deirdre O’Neill: Principal
• Sylvia Padgett: 6^th Math
• Alex Paige: 8^th Math
• Chad Wertz: 8^th Science (Note taker)
• Todd Zimmerman 6^th Math

Agenda:

• Items
• Middle School Scheduling
• History from Deirdre
• Each school had their own schedule
• FTE assigned by district and school assigned it
• FMS had more electives and not enough PE
• Math and science needed longer periods
• Now all middle schools have same schedule for 3 years
• Task force is now looking at the issues
• What does it look like currently?
• 70 min classes for math, science, L. A. and S.S.
• 55 min elective and PE rotate A and B days
• Is it working for you?
• Ritter, non common passing times reduce discipline issues, but negatively impacts a minority of other students (sped and HS math students for example)
• Hoyt, longer periods allow more instructional time and having fewer students make is easier to evaluate them
• Wertz, longer periods benefit all subject areas, though we are not opposed to electives
• Paige, instructional time differences add up over the period of a year to large amounts of missed content time
• Padgett, agrees with others and believes that fewer transitions are better for students in general
• O’Neill, Superintendent wants to implement more programs to support NYAS and HCL types of students and this would entail different uses of instructional time. This is occurring now at Shuksan where they have more classes.
• What would parents like to see?
• Amy, “knee jerk” reaction is that parents want more electives
• Anne, They may not understand the cost associated with this
• Amy, maybe quality and subjects of current electives is at issue? We should also tell parents about period length, quality of instruction, and number of students and how this figures into the elective issue
• Mike, How can we communicate to parents that there is a big trade off to adding more elective classes to the schedule? Would hate to see the same program applied to all four schools without input
• Deirdre, “Zero hour” electives are another possibility
• Parents would be willing to hear from other parents about their opinions concerning this issue

• Break
• 4:15 to 4:25

• Family Communication
• Schedule a meeting with the Superintendent about the levy
• PTSA, Site Council and all other parents are invited
• Wednesday in January? Evening? Night?
• January 16^th 5:30-6:30
• PTSA will have cheese and crackers with coffee and juice
• Promotion as a “drive by” on the way home after work

• Emergency Response
• Buckets and all other equipment and supplies
• Teams of teachers who are emergency leaders
• Evacuation routes are in place from the school and the campus
• Food supply located in the cafeteria
• Maps are in each classroom of locations and routes
• 5 trees have recently come down due to high winds
• Plans to practice off campus evacuation this year
• Communication
• Radios from teacher to teacher
• Rosters of release information
• Mike, What about a controlled parent access point? Parents will want their own child
• Anne, Parents should make sure children know who is on the release list so that they know who they should go home with
• Amy, other parents had lockdown drill discomforts due to not being notified. Maybe a note could be added about these drills

• Bullying
• Amy, a book that is out called Odd Girl Out
• She is willing to donate book to teams and the library
• Underground bullying
• Has many resources and references
• Racism: Amy, Anti Semitic incidents have occurred
• Jokes about concentration camps
• “No Jew” zone
• Other references against Latino groups
• Steve, has talked with the complainant and will follow up with the perpetrator tomorrow
• Linked to media sources that perpetuate stereotypes
• There is another book about the holocaust worth reading
• “Retard” and “gay” terms brought up too
• Ignorance is also a culprit
• Bullying curriculum is in place
• Consequences are mandated by the state
• Consistency is also key

• Held Over:
• Date and time for next meeting
• Monday January 14^th, 2008 at 3:15 to 5:15
• Proposed Agenda Items
• Communication with Families
• Parent Support of Traditions
• Soliciting Volunteers for teacher events
• Discuss what we would like to communicate to the Superintendent
• Special Education
• Scheduling Update
• Foreign language for high school credit
• PTSA about Magazine drive
• (10 minutes)