Watershed Community Council

Dec 7, 2005

Present: Bina Nikrin (co-chair),  David Woolley (scribe), Kari Olson, Diane Conley, Jerry Conley, Endel Kallas, Victoria Woolley, Kent Smead, Sheila Weidendorf, Ivor Matz, Michelle Van Ryn, Margaret Mitchell, Scott Cole (administrator), Jamie Hepner (dean of students), Kristin Rubinek (faculty).

1. Verse & Introductions

2. Community Council Minutes

David Woolley proposed that minutes of Community Council meetings be posted on the school web site. The proposal was approved, with the stipulation that any confidential information be edited out first. Scott Cole will do any such editing that is needed before David posts the minutes on the web.

3. Medieval Feast

Sheila Weidendorf is coordinating planning for the Medieval Feast, which is to be held Feb 3 & 4 at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. Lloyd Brant is directing the play and says that the script is nearly complete. Keith Dunder is coordinating food preparation;  more volunteers are needed to help with food. Sheila hopes to

have jugglers and other activities to make the event more attractive to families with children. Some sort of special promotion will be done for the Saturday matinee performance, because in past years the matinee has not been as well attended as the evening performances. There will be many opportunities to help with the Medieval Feast. Class Reps will be asked to recruit volunteers, and one or two more people are needed to help coordinate volunteers (in addition to the Class Reps).

4. Dean of Students Report

Dean of Students Jamie Hepner described his approach to behavioral discipline. He recognizes that the teenage years are a time of learning, that poor choices will be made sometimes, and should be taken as an opportunity to teach students “Respect, Responsibility, and Reverence.”

Jamie also explained two recent changes:

• Teachers are no longer able to mark students as tardy. Instead, they can only mark students as present or absent when attendance is taken, and Jamie has responsibility for changing absences to tardies when a student is late to class.  Due to a backlog, there have been some long delays in recording these changes, but Jamie is now caught up and all attendance records should be updated and accurate within two days after any attendance incident.

• For the first two months of the school year, the closed campus rule was more difficult to enforce because it was treated merely as an unexcused absense. However, beginning November 17 (after faculty and board approval), leaving the campus during the school day without permission became re-categorized as a serious behavioral offense. Video cameras in the stairwell make it possible for staff to see when anyone leaves the building, and several students have been suspended as a result.

5. Events Committee

The Events Committee will be considering policies and practices for a variety of school events, such as the role of students at events, parental responsibilities, etc. More parent volunteers are needed for this committee.

6. Communications Committee – Endel Kallas

A team of faculty and parents, spearheaded by Endel Kallas, is working on SiPS issues.  There are technical issues to be resolved (many of them due to a software upgrade installed a few weeks ago) as well as training and usage issues.  The team has set a target of January 30 as a date of “rededication” of SiPS – meaning that faculty will adopt new standards for consistent use of SiPS for posting syllabi, assignments, and grades, and parents will be offered training in using SiPS.  Endel is creating a parent handbook for SiPS, which should be ready in time for the January Community Council meeting.  He will also offer training at the potluck on Dec 13.

The SiPS software itself has been renamed “Pearson Centerpoint,” and we will begin transitioning to the new term as part of the “rededication.”

7. Silent Auction – Victoria Woolley

Victoria reported that the Silent Auction grossed $7,114.  Expenses came to $663 (not counting some expenses that volunteers paid as personal contributions), so the net income was $6,451 – a great success! Victoria made the point that keeping expenses to a minimum was key.  Most of the food was either homemade or donated by restaurants. The cost of using Patrick’s Cabaret was only $195, and several volunteers worked hard to decorate the space. Those who attended the auction had a great time. In the future we should remember that it’s not necessary to spend a lot on expensive locales or catering in order to make this a fun event.

8. School Culture Committee – Michelle Van Ryn

Jamie Hepner is the convener of the School Culture Committee;  Ana Barrios, Jane Landes, and Michelle Van Ryn are also members. The committee has been dealing with issues of accountability for behavior. They would like to create a more formal, positive way to have student input into governance.  The committee has surveyed the students about whether they feel their voices are heard, and to gauge their interest in a student council. Results of the survey have not yet been compiled.

If there is to be a student council, a faculty and/or parent volunteer is needed to serve as advisor. The stipend that had earlier been budgeted for a faculty advisor has been repurposed and is no longer available.

9. Front Desk Staffing & Volunteer Recruitment

Some parent volunteers have been reliably helping to staff the front desk, but additional volunteers are still needed to cover time slots that are not yet filled.  It would also help to have someone to coordinate front desk volunteers.

It was suggested that a page be added to the web site listing open time slots in which volunteers are needed. In subsequent discussion, the idea grew into a more general purpose web page listing all volunteer opportunities at the school.

10. Faculty Perspective – Kristin Rubinek

Kristin Rubinek, the German teacher, described her experience as a new faculty member at Watershed. She said that the non-hierarchical administrative structure sometimes makes it hard to know who is responsible for what, but that she appreciates that everyone has a voice in making decisions, and that the faculty and community have been very friendly and helpful in getting her oriented.

11. Administrator Update – Scott Cole

• Fundraising appeal:  The annual fundraising appeal has been delayed due to a problem with the printers, but will go out in the next few days. The appeal will identify four designated funds, so donors can choose specific things they would like to support.

• Waste reduction:  Work on reducing waste (for which we received a grant) has moved more slowly than expected because the faculty person originally in charge resigned.  Bernadette Miller is taking over as the point person. As part of this effort, Maggie Rozycki will be having her art students make reusable cloth shopping bags. Next semester there will be a Friday elective class on ecology and sustainability. Scott expects that by June we will be on track to report success.

• Other grants:  We did not get the Kentron grants we had applied for because the foundation felt we were not needy enough (our revenues are too high!) But a few other grants are in the works, including one for a tobacco cessation program for students.

• Food drive: 11,500 pounds of food were collected.

• Main Lesson Format:  Main lesson has been reorganized, separating the students by grade level, rather than combining 9^th & 10^th grades and 11^th & 12^th grades, as was done at the beginning of the year. Both faculty and students feel this is an improvement.

• NWEA Testing:  About 85-90% of the students participated in the NWEA testing.  Testing will probably be done one more time during this school year.  Faculty will be attending another training session to learn how best to use the data from these tests. The tests can indicate how individual students are doing in specific subjects.

12. Lunch Program

A parent asked about the possibility of changing the lunch program to use a system that doesn’t require students to handle cash.  The concern is that parents have no way of knowing whether the money their students take to school is actually being spent on lunches. There was agreement among parents that a cashless system would be preferable, but how to implement it is not so clear.  Scott Cole has researched an internet-based system that allows parents to deposit money in their student’s account, which is then debited when a student buys lunch. However, it requires about $1,000 for a software license, and ongoing fees in the form of a small percentage of deposited funds.  Scott believes that somewhere between 35% and 50% of Watershed families qualify for free or reduced lunches under government rules, and that if all of these families would turn in the necessary forms the school could collect enough money to pay for the cashless lunch system. 

There will be an all-school potluck Tuesday, Dec 13, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.             

The next Community Council meeting will be Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006 at 6:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted, David Woolley, Community Council Scribe