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Senate Minutes – November 4, 2008

Minutes,

Attending: Tony Renouard, Colleen Davis, Rebecca Padilla, Marni Campbell, Sharon Miyata, guests from the press, Robbie Campbell, Dina Zografos Ruehle, Linda Overlie, Bob Poor, Doug Sylver, Patty Lilly, Ken Tarleton, Janet Thompson, Karl Englert (for Rob Feigal-Stickles), Jeff Jones, Jessica Torvik

Not Attending: Tim Ames, Doug Edelstein, Jonathan Duyker

Minutes accepted with minor changes:

Old Business

Senator Feigal-Stickles final proposal: At the very end of last year the Transformation Team made a recommendation about Reading, Mentorship and Reflective Scholarship. Let’s agree to uphold what the Transformation Team decided. If there are any exceptions they need to come to Senate. (Reading will take place during Mentorship on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Then 10:25 – 10:50 will be “sacred” Mentorship time on both days. Some of the purposes of Mentorship are to personalize education for all students, and to build a positive school culture. 2:30 – 3:00 on Wednesdays and Thursdays will be Reflective Scholarship when students can get started on their homework or make up tests or work on projects with a pass.

Discussion on Proposal

Senator Lindner brought one comment from a constituent in favor of keeping things as they are now

Senator Miyata was unfamiliar with the recommendation from the Transformation Team

Senator Ruehle explained the recommendation from the Transformation Team – that we had started with problems with Mentorship and ways to strengthen it, and come up with the proposal

Caveat – interruptions to Mentorship need to be approved by Senate

The Senate believes this time (Mentorship) is inviolate.

Mentorship is a class and needs to be treated as a class. Not any more inviolate than any other class.

Question was called

The vote

Proposal was approved in a voice vote. There was one nay vote (Senator Greenway because he felt the proposal was not clear, he would like to hold all class time sacred)

We will do a Senate Report and elicit staff discussion at the next staff meeting

Senator Davis asked about the consequences of failing mentorship (non attendance). Senator Jones replied that it is graduation requirement. If a student fails the counseling office will send them back to the mentorship teacher to work something out to make up the credit and do an official grade change.

Karl Englert (standing in for Rob Feigal Stickles) asked if we could make failing mentorship an E.

Senator Miyata explained that Mentorship is set up as a Pass/No Pass class and we could not change it to an E without giving grades instead of Pass.

Senator Greenway warned that we have a waiver that we have to renew yearly with the Union in order to have this extra class and they would be sure to object (on our behalf) if we had to give grades.

There was a brief interruption during the meeting when Senator Torvik came in and introduced us to our new friend William Lee (her son).

Meeting was adjourned at 3:45 as there was no other business and so we could go vote!