Watershed Community Council

Oct 5, 2005

Present: Bina Nikrin (co-chair),  David Woolley (scribe), Linda Weber, Kari Olson, Diane Conley, Jerry Conley, Paul Thompson, Leslie Wilson, Betty Edwards, Endel Kallas, Vickie McCurdy, Victoria Woolley, Barbara Clarity, Mare, Scott Cole (administrator), Mark Gutman (faculty), Ingunn Henrickssen (faculty)

1. Verse & introductions

2. Communications Committee Report – Barbara Clarity

Members of the Communications Committee are Barbara Clarity, David Woolley, Scott Cole, and Deb Pelinski. The committee has met twice and has established goals for an overall plan for communication between faculty, parents, and students, and with external organizations.

The immediate plan is to restart the Snippets newsletter.  Barbara Clarity and David Woolley will produce Snippets through the end of 2005.  All information for Snippets will come through the Board Chair, Community Council Chair, Faculty Chairs, and the Administrator, and is due by noon each Wednesday. The committee will assemble the information and pass it to Scott Cole for review. Snippets will be posted on SiPS each Friday.

3. Silent Auction – Victoria Woolley

The silent auction will be held November 4 at Patrick’s Cabaret, with a “global cabaret” theme featuring wandering entertainers, food and drinks, along with the auction items themselves. Admission will be $15. Parent volunteers are working on food and décor. Victoria has designed an invitation, and printing of the invitation is being donated by Insty Prints of Golden Valley. The plan is to mail invitations to all Watershed families, as well as alumni and friends of Watershed, City of Lakes Waldorf  families, and Minnesota Waldorf school families. Walt Gregg is the donations coordinator.  Everyone is encouraged to solicit donations of items for auction and send them to Walt.  Donations of food are also welcome.

There will be a meeting of silent auction volunteers on Tuesday, Oct 11, 7:00 pm, to stuff envelopes and continue planning the event.  MORE VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED!

4. Faculty Update – Ingunn Henrickssen

• David Horstmann may be released from the hospital soon, but still faces a long recovery.  He is sorely missed; the faculty has been struggling to fill in for both his teaching load and his leadership in the restorative justice program.

• Main Lesson:  The faculty is still on a learning curve with the new approach to Main Lesson, but see a great improvement over the way it has been done in past years. Students are getting more work done in Main Lesson.

• Lunch Program:  A lunch program has been put together with a rotating schedule of local restaurants providing food for sale every day, at a typical cost of $3 to $4.  Ingunn will write a notice about the lunch program for Snippets.

We have some students who would for qualify for free or reduced cost lunches, but our school does not receive funding for free lunches as other public schools do. It was suggested that a fundraising effort be undertaken to address this need.

• Medieval Feast:  Lloyd Brant will direct the Medieval Feast again this year, and would like it to be presented as dinner theater again.  The date is set (what date???) but parent volunteers are needed to coordinate finding a location, food procurement, and other details.

• Class Rep – Faculty Liaison:  There is still a need for the faculty to decide which faculty members will serve as liaisons to the parent volunteers acting as Class Reps.

• School Culture & Events Committees:  These two committees have been combined, because the same faculty members were involved in both.  Planning is underway for community service days.

5. Administrator Update – Scott Cole

• Development Committee:  The Development Committee is up and running. Members are Scott Cole, Patricia Neal, Leslie Mackenzie, Jeff Royce, and Mark McGarraugh.  They plan to get an initial fundraising appeal out by the end of October.  The committee is holding breakfast meetings at the Sunnyside Up Café.  The next meeting is Oct. 19 at 7:30 AM.

• Enrollment Committee:  Christina Beck is the convener of the enrollment committee. More members are needed. Christina would like to form this group to do more public relations work in the community.

• Student Council:  Mark Proksch is the faculty advisor.  Student Council has been slow to get started due to other burdens on the faculty, but some progress has been made. The evolving plan is for the student council to be open to any students who would like to be involved. The students who have indicated interest so far are interested in working on the school’s waste reduction project.

6. Board Update

Budget cuts have been required due to the decision to keep David Horstmann on the payroll during his illness, and because the state did not fully fund our Special Education program as hoped.  $18,000 has been cut from staff development/training for this semester.  It was decided not to pursue Q Comp funding from the state because the administrative overhead required would have consumed most of the possible funding that we might have obtained from it.

The board needs help with funding. Anyone with grant writing experience or connections with foundations, etc. is invited to volunteer their assistance!

7. All School Meetings

The next All School Meeting is scheduled for January.  There was a general consensus that this is too far off and that we would like to have another All School Meeting before then, but no specific action was taken.

Community Council meetings will be held the first Wednesday of every month. The next meeting will be Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 6:30.  Parents are encouraged to come a little early for socializing.

Respectfully submitted, David Woolley, Community Council Scribe