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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-03-11-Hastings-min MINUTES OF THE SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING March 11, 2004 PRESENT: Jessie Steigerwald, Maria Moxon, Tammy Mulligan, Barbara Lockwood, Susan Campbell, Janet Lane, Jennifer Hertzel, Beth Somers Sutzman, Bette Piece. Lynne Stinson unable to be present due to a conflicting principal's meeting at the central office. SCHOOL COUNCIL BUDGET MEETING: 60-70 people came, a lot of positive feedback came afterward.Joanne Benton clarified with the school's lawyer that it IS appropriate for the school council to endorse the school's budget and it is appropriate to state the fact that without an override the school budget will be cut. Because this is a direct fact, it does not count as a political statement. Without an override there will be cuts and it is our job to make the impact of further cuts understood. Election turnout was better this year. People seem to want information, especially when it is pitched to beginners. YES FOR LEXINGTON.org is the official override group formed to promote an override. It is looking for endorsers and funding. Stand For Children is organizing townnwide to link various groups. It is a lobbying group for children (like the AARP is for elders) and they will be working on the override. APRIL 1 BUDGET TEACHING EVENT: Stand For Children will be holding a similar event explaining the school and town budget on April 1 at Follen Church at 7:15.Tom Griffith and Helen Cohen from the school committee, Deb Brown from Appropriations Committe, Charles Lamb from the Capitol Committee, and reps. from DPW Four PTAs and the Library will be there. Can Hastings be a cosponsor? (as of March 23, (Estabrook, Bridge, Harrington & Fiske) have now agreed to co-sponsor the event and Hastings PTA looks likely to co-sponsor.) All School Council Members voted to support this idea, but Lynne Stinson was not present to advise us. We agreed to be cosponsor if Lynne and the PTA officers agree. Jessie Steigerwald will be working on this event and looking for help. SCHOOL COUNCIL ELECTIONS: The PTA now has to nominate only 2 people to fill the slate of School Council vacancies, rather than hold an open election and let any party interested run. Currently if 6 qualified people are willing to run for School Council the PTA nominating committee still can only endorse 2 to be on the ballot. This is awkward and discourages good people from participation if they are not nominated. A MOTION WAS MADE: that the PTA change it's bylaws so that future School Council Elections be held using statements of interest written by any and all interested parties. These statements would be sent home to all parents in order to choose School Council representatives, rather than have the PTA nominating committee endorse two candidates. All present voted in favor of recommending this change. This recommendation will be brought to the PTA by Jennifer Hertzel. SCHOOL SURVEY: The purpose of this survey will be to form this year's school improvement plan. Because of the open ended nature of the responses, the survey data is too raw, too self contradictory, and too long to be sent out to the community as it is currently tabulated. We agreed to meet as a subcommittee on Thursday, March 25 at 3:45 to sythesize the data. We should be able to use the library at that time. In preparation for this meeting council members should please pick out 5 main strengths and 5 main weaknesses revealed by the survey. Once we have made conclusions and have a recommended plan of action/ response we should publish the results of the survey. There should be a report made to the children at an All School Meeting of their survey results. VOLUNTEERISM TASKFORCE: Liz Cooper, and Jess Lindley of the PTA will meet with the School Council sub committee on volunteerism to plan a volunteerism meeting and begin discussion of implementing steps for improvement. After this planning meeting the joint committee will invite representatives of all major PTA committees to a wider meeting to decide what steps to take to improve voluteerism. We discussed how to solicit teacher input. It was made clear that with regard to in-class volunteering teachers don't agree on the role of volunteers. The focus of the meeting will be volunteering for programs that are whole school programs rather than in a particular individual's classroom. NEW SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN: March 25th (3:45) meeting will be to synthesize survey results. April 8 (3:45) meeting will be to see where the new improvement plan will focus and make a draft of the goals for 2004-2005. We will subdivide sections to write if Lynne Stinson wants our help. This final plan will be reviewed in the Fall when the School Council meetins. REVIEW OF 2003 2004 GOALS: Postponed until Lynne Stinson could be present. CHARTWELL'S PREPACKAGED FOODS: A parent asked that the subject of chips, candy, and Poweraid (etc) sold in the cafeteria be brought to school council. Janet called the Chartwell Representative at Hastings, Sue Brown, to ask her to at least inform parents of what is sold in the cafeteria as none of the prepackaged foods appeared on the menu sent to parents. Sue agreed to bring this request to the Chartwell employee at the High school who makes the monthly menu. Lynne Stinson arrived at the meeting and let us know that this is a systemwide issue, that the principals are negotiating the town contract with Chartwell and discussing the relative merits of selling prepackaged foods to keep lunch profitable vs. raising lunchroom prices. Most all the principals agree that they do not want non-nutritive food sold in the cafeteria. Concerned parents can communicate by Email to Susan Botan, Manager of the budget and at Hastings to Sue Brown of Chartwell . 781-860-5807, but this is a contractual issue that administrators are working on. BIRTHDAYS: Arising from a similar concern about candy and cake at class celebrations, A brief discussion of alternate way of celebrating birthdays was held. Lynne reflected that some school have a birthday book club where a child gives a book to the school library or classroom library in honor of their birthday. Some teachers now celebrate children's individuality by composing a class list of a person's good qualities on their birthday. It was felt that this discussion needed to be held among the teaching staff as they needed to direct what went on in the classroom. RECESS MONITORS AND LUNCHROOM AIDES A parent asked that School Council discuss ways to better train recess monitors and lunchroom aids so they would shout less, circulate among the children rather than chatting in small groups, and have more positive interactions with kids. Lynne assured us that she is already working with the aides on this and is addressing this concern.