Watershed Community Council (WCC)

July 13, 2005

(Draft)

 

Present:  Bina Nikrin (Co-Chair), Andrea Bruner (Co-Chair), Tom Oswalt, Victoria Woolley, Ivor Matz, John Miller (Faculty Co-Chair), Ingunn Henrikssen (Faculty Co-Chair), Mary Newby-Elder (Volunteer Coordinator), Linda Weber, Brad Pedersen, Leslie Kallas, Barbara Clarity, Jeff Royce (Board), Paula Nordhem, Jerry Conley, Diane Conley.  

 

1.      Verse

2.      Introductions

3.      Timekeeper (Tom), Process Observer (Linda), Keeper of the Heart (Mary).

4.      Review of Unifying Principles Document

 

(Watershed High School Parents developed a document for discussion with the WHS Faculty entitled, “Unifying Principles for Discussion,” dated June 2nd 2005.  The following discussion is based upon the issues identified there.)

 

Unified Intention:  We reviewed the Community’s request that the faculty be unified in its understanding of, and agreement to provide a Waldorf Education to Watershed students.  Bina asked for clarification on the faculty’s response.  John Miller explained that asking for a unified understanding of a Waldorf Education was, in a sense, to misunderstand what a Waldorf Education is.  Its meaning differs even among those who have been formally trained in and through its discipline.

 

Policy Enforcement and Integrity:  We reviewed the Community’s request that policies regarding attendance and student behavior be consistently enforced, and that the Board develop a system to assess the integrity of this system.  John Miller reported that the student handbook is being revised, and that a system of Restorative Justice is being adopted.  In addition, Jamie Hepern has been hired to serve as Dean of Students on a half-time basis.  Jamie has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and has worked as a bouncer.

 

Closed Campus:  The faculty has agreed that a Closed Campus is in the best interests of the school and students.  Mark McGarraugh has suggested a lunch program that would allow students to purchase lunches from various “Eat Street” vendors and establishments, depending on the day of the week.  Parent support for this lunch program should be directed to Mark Mc.  Ingunn stated that there is also a need for nutritious food to be available for sale to students over lunch.  Parents might help by providing this food for purchase through the school store. 

 

School Size:  The Community expressed concern about the rate and method of increasing student enrollment.  The faculty has deemed a smaller student body to be in the best interests of the school.  At the close of the last academic year, enrollment was 131.  The enrollment goal for this year is 116.  At present, 102 students have signified their enrollment intention for the 2005 – 06 school year.  The faculty believes the ideal number of students would be 96, but this is financially not feasible.  Even at 116 we have had to reduce the size of the faculty.  However, through team teaching the ratio of teachers to students has actually gone up. 

 

SiPS Reliability:  The Community expressed concern that the SiPS system was not reliable because it was not regularly updated to include grades, assignments and the like.  John Miller conceded that teachers often struggled to find time to make the updates to SiPS.  However, he said that after discussing the benefits and liabilities of the system, the faculty concluded that they would continue to use SiPS, and would make a stronger effort to keep it current.  John believes that because nearly all teachers will be teaching fewer classes, SiPS will be easier to maintain.  Although parents offered to do data entry, in actual fact, this would probably not be a very practical solution.

 

Communication:  Tabled for discussion later in the meeting.

 

Traditions:   The Community requested that some of the traditions observed in the Waldorf lower grades, be incorporated into the high school.  At the meeting, we did not specifically address the tradition of greeting each student with a handshake as they enter the classroom in the morning. However, John Miller shared that ‘Morning Centering’ which the faculty has decided to incorporate into the daily schedule, is spiritually similar to ‘Circling’ that often precedes main lesson in the lower grades.  Morning Centering is intended to bring students more fully present, which perhaps is the same goal as the handshake.  Morning Centering will begin each school day.  Other traditions that will continue include Senior Projects and the Senior Trip to Itasca State Park.  The form and fact of the Medieval Feast is less certain, not because of faculty ambivalence, but because parents are finding it extremely time and labor intensive to sustain.  Ingunn shared that the Medieval Feast has historically built community among the students, and in this respect would be a loss if discontinued altogether.

 

Parent Education and Involvement:  Regarding involvement, one of the WCC’s priorities this year, starting with the current meeting, will be identifying ways in which parents can volunteer.  John Miller shared that there will be a need for volunteers to staff the front desk on a regular basis.  Mary Newby-Elder talked about her new role as volunteer, Volunteer Coordinator.  She passed around a written description of her position and emphasized her commitment to serving (not directing!) the faculty and school. Mary also made it clear that it is not her goal to personally perform all the volunteer work that needs to be done.  Her function will be to create a system by which parent volunteers can be identified and developed. 

 

Regarding education Bina observed that parents have benefited from the education provided at some of the past All-School meetings, and suggested that we continue to consider this venue.  John Miller reminded us that Novalis provides parent education.  Bina suggested that we include these Novalis classes on the WHS school calendar.  She also recalled Christina Beck leading a very worthwhile study of the book, “Between Form and Freedom.”  Christina will be rejoining the faculty on a part time basis as the Enrollment Coordinator.  John shared that there have been occasions in the past when no more than 3 parents have attended a Parent Education event.  He suggested that we consider forming a parent led book study.  Linda Weber expressed an interest in doing some form of volunteer work to support the development of a parent education opportunity at WHS.

 

Organizational Development:  The Community expressed a desire for closer collaborative work among the Faculty, Board and WCC for the purpose of developing a stronger organizational framework reflected in the school calendar and the development and enforcement of major programs and policies.  It was suggested that our web page could serve to support these goals by enhancements such as a bulletin board that would advise of changes to the calendar, and reminders of what is already on the calendar.  Similarly policy and program issues could be raised there.  The challenge is finding someone with the skills to make these enhancements, maintain the page, and pay for these services.  It was also suggested that much of this work could be addressed by the newly formed Faculty “Communications” Committee, which can include parent representatives working shoulder to shoulder with Faculty representatives.  Among other things, the Communications Committee might undertake responsibility for the community-wide weekly updates. 

 

Community Development:       

 

John Miller started our discussion by emphasizing the importance of including the WHS Student Council in our concept of “Community.”  He stated that historically the Student Council starts the year with strong student interest and participation.  However, by the end of the year, the interest and participation has fizzled out.  The Student Council has no budget, no mission and no consistent outside support.  This is certainly a body that stands to benefit from further “Community Development” efforts.

 

Other ways to foster Community include developing the role of Class Representative and the relationship between Class Sponsor and Class Rep.  To this end, we will host a Class Rep – Class Sponsor event early in the year to better inform both reps and sponsors of their importance to community development.  Introducing the school to new families is another way to support community.  In particular, our parent volunteers can be helpful in orienting new parents to WHS and the opportunity/expectation for parent involvement.

 

The relationship between Faculty and parent volunteers needs to be nurtured.  One way to do that is for Faculty to regularly attend Community Council Meetings.  Bina provided John Miller with a Faculty sign-up sheet for WCC meetings.  Bina also volunteered to train Faculty in how to better use parent volunteers.

 

Communication:

 

We started our discussion with the Parent Handbook.  Ivor volunteered to contact Katie Kraemer to help in pulling the handbook together.  John Miller suggested that the Parent Handbook be combined with the Student Handbook to form a single comprehensive, WHS Handbook.  This idea met with approval all around. 

 

There was concern expressed about how quickly a handbook could be pulled together.  The Faculty is in the process of reviewing and revising the student handbook.  Also, ideally, the Student Directory would be incorporated into the Handbook. 

 

Since students need to be aware of school policies right away, the Faculty will complete their work on that part of the Handbook in time for the first day of school.  The goal will be to complete the remainder of the Handbook by mid-September.  Jeff Royce will check into establishing a reasonable date as a deadline for this work.  

 

As stated earlier in these Minutes, The Faculty has formed a new Communications Committee.  Deb, Jane and Maggie will all serve as Faculty representatives on it.  Parent representatives are welcome to serve on it as well.  After some discussion, this seemed like the wiser course of action, rather than to have a separate CC Communications Committee. 

 

Again, there was agreement that there is an absolute need for a community-wide written weekly update.  How, who and where this will be published was not decided, but it was generally agreed that the Communications Committee will address these questions. 

 

Other:  

 

We need to identify parent leaders for the Silent Auction.  Historically these have been 10th grade parents, with that class receiving 20% of the proceeds to support its Senior Trip.  It was not clear whether a date has been reserved for the Silent Auction.

 

An All-School potluck picnic might be better timed for just after school begins rather than just before.   

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

Andrea Bruner

Community Council Co-Chair

 

Next meeting is Wednesday, August 3 at 6:30 p.m.