WHS Currents for Monday, Novembere 3rd, 2008
Posted Sunday, Nov 2, 2008 by
sweidendorf
WATERSHED HAPPENINGS
November 4
Site Search Committee Meeting
November 5
Community Council meeting
November 11
Festival of Compassion
November 11
Open House
November 12
Picture retakes
November 18
All school meeting
November 20
School Board Meeting
ADMIN NOTES:
–Phil Grant, Administrator
Dear Watershed Community,
Site search committee members have already looked at many possible sites for our move next year—seven sites in detail and others just driving by. The committee intends to keep looking, and there’ll be plenty of opportunity for community feedback at the All School meeting coming up November 18. “How much can we afford?” is a key question as we search. What we can afford depends on the lease and on how many students we have. That’s because Watershed is a charter school, which means we receive lease aid from the state. Here’s how it works (It’s a bit technical, but worth learning about—after all, it’s our tax dollars at work on behalf of our school.):
By law, the state calculates possible lease aid two ways and gives charter schools the lesser amount. The first way is to see what the approved cost of the lease is, in which case the state will pay 90% of the lease cost. (The Minnesota Department of Education must approve our lease.) If our lease was approved, say, for $100,000 per year, the state would provide $90,000 in aid. In this example, Watershed would pay the other $10,000 of the lease out of its general education funding.
The second way begins with the state providing us with $1200 per pupil unit per year. Basically, a pupil unit is one student attending full-time for one school year. However, students are “weighted” by grade level. High school students are weighted at 1.3 pupil units each. Thus, we can receive up to $1560 (1200 x 1.3) per full-time student. If we have 90 full-time students, we could receive up to $140,400.
As it happens, our current lease is set at $156,000 per year. The most we can receive is 90% of that, or $140,400. (This is no coincidence. Our plan has always been to have at least 90 students, and we’re almost there.) In this example, we pay the other $15,600 out of our general education funding.
Looking towards next year, we plan to grow. That means we need to find space that accommodates our growing number of students, but doesn’t cost more than those students would “bring in” in terms of lease aid. If we plan for 120 students, for example, our aid goes up—but so does our need for space. The challenge for our site search is matching the lease cost with the space necessary to educate our expected number of students. The next site search committee meeting is this Tuesday, November 4, at 3:45 p.m. here at Watershed. If interested, stop by or let Endel know. He’s at eakallas (at) gmail.com.
Donations Wanted: (1) Does anyone have a washable, fold-up cot out there? We want one for those occasional times when a student is ill, needs to lie down, and can’t leave for home right away. Let me know if you have anything like this, or would consider donating the cost. (2) Our music program could use some good quality microphones. Again, let me know if you have some to donate or would consider donating the cost. Thank you so much.
Help Wanted: Front desk receptionist. This is a part-time (30 hours/week) position. If interested in this position, let me know.
The next Watershed School Board meeting is Thursday, November 20, 5:30-7:30 p.m. All board meetings are open to the public. If you would like to be on the agenda, please contact Endel Kallas, Board Chair, at 612-724-8467 or eakallas (at) gmail.com.
Questions, concerns, ideas? Give me a call at 612-871-4363 x206, or email me at pgrant (at)watershedhs.org. Have a great week!
FACULTY NEWS:
–Matt McElrath, Faculty Chair
Block 3: Last week’s School Board proposals were initiated this morning as we commenced our 3rd block. With an expanding enrollment above 85 students, Main Lesson class sizes were growing toward an average of 30 students before the additional course was implemented. With two social studies Main Lessons, one in Language Arts and one in Science, class sizes are back to a more desirable level between 15 and 25 students.
Athletics: The early week’s cold weather kept the runners off the pavement; however, by Thursday temperatures had risen sufficiently to bring the runners out of hibernation. The golfers also took advantage of the gorgeous weather and completed a round at Hiawatha Golf Course on Wednesday. As we transition toward winter, many of the sports teams will be moving indoors. With a membership at Lifetime Fitness, I am allowed to take a half-dozen students to the gym during the week. Throughout the winter, we will plan one or two days a week to go to Lifetime to play racquetball, swim and lift weights. In addition, the runners will move their practices to the indoor track on inclement days to train for the upcoming Turkey Trot. Finally, the basketball schedule is coming together and the team will plan to play over ten games this season. Currently, we have three games scheduled before Winter Break. Detailed game information will be provided in Currents as the dates arrive.
Student Volunteers: Students in the Economics course have been volunteering on Wednesday and Friday afternoons at the Southside Family School as part of an analysis of the volunteer market and the incentives, costs and benefits of non-profit interactions. Paul Ronan, Chris Sarles, and Racquel McDonald have been tutoring Math students and Caitlin Blose has been mentoring students on field trips on Friday afternoons.
8th Grade Shadowing: Watershed has emphasized developing relationships with neighborhood Middle Schools, as well as those with similar missions and curricular approaches. Watershed’s growing relationship with Southside is an example of this initiative. In the coming weeks, we hope to sponsor a Southside day at Watershed to introduce our school and community to interested individuals and families. If you have friends or relatives looking for high schools for next year, suggest a day of shadowing at Watershed to help develop an understanding of our courses, activities and assessments, as well as meet perspective friends and classmates.
BOARD NOTES:
–Endel Kallas
The relocation site search team welcomes your input on how to best involve you as a stakeholder in the relocation process and decision. Plans in the works for the site/relocation portion of our All School Meeting on November 18th include a preliminary on-line survey and face to face discussion. Please start thinking about:
1. Naming the 5 things you cherish most about Watershed High school.
2. Describing 3 “wild dreams” you imagine that would dramatically enhance the Watershed experience
3. Listing 3 major concerns. (What obstacles and objections do you see that we need to overcome? transportation, school schedule, etc…)
If you have more ideas on how to advance your contribution and ownership in our emerging direction please contact me directly (eakallas(at)gmail.com
Planning on attending a board meeting? Please read the following post on the Board of Directors area of our web site. (http://watershedhs.org/currents/lyceum/board/)
Introductory Remarks - Regular Meeting of the Board 10/23/08
More on understanding charter schools and how they operate…Some of you may have school funding referenda on your ballot on Nov 4th. For example, Minneapolis voters will have an opportunity to address the “Strong Schools Strong City referendum” also known as the “Vote Yes For Kids” referendum. The relationship between charter schools and such referenda are often not clearly understood. Charter Schools, acting as stand-alone school districts cannot directly raise funds via a building bond referendum or pass an excess operating levy. However, as a public school, a charter school receives the aid (operating funds) portion of each enrolling student’s referendum revenue based on the student’s resident district referendum amount.
FYI - As a voter and Minneapolis resident, I am following up with my state representatives to identify the $$ amount that would come to WHS for my charter school student if “Vote Yes” comes to pass..
COMMUNITY COUNCIL UPDATE:
–Nell Ubelhode
Watershed Community Council will meet Wednesday November 5th at 6:30 p.m. at the School. We will have brief updates from the Administration, the Facutly and the Site Search committee. This is a great time to find out what is going on at the school both on a day to day basis and in terms of planning for the future. At 7:00 p.m., Christina Beck will speak on “Inspired Thinking: Rudolf Steiner’s Theory of Human Development as it Applies to Adolescents.” Please join us for this evening. If you have any questions, Call Nell at 612-251-9758.
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