Senate Meeting Minutes April 21, 2009
Attending: April Lindner, Tony Renouard, Janet Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, Sharon Miyata, Joel Jacobson, Tim Ames, Marni Campbell, Bob Poor, Linda Overlie, Dina Zografos Ruehle, Mark Greenway, Patty Lilly, Ken Tarleton, Jonathan Duyker, Colleen Davis, Doug Edelstein
Not Attending: Jessica Torvik, Rob Feigal-Stickles, Robbie Campbell
Minutes approved
Principal’s report: As to the Academic Dean position that was funded in the budget, that money has been returned to the building as a 1.0 FTE that we could use as we wanted which has allowed us to balance our budget better. We have moved down through the Math position on our priority list. There may be more changes when the legislative budget is finalized, but Marni doesn’t know anything concrete.
Remodel moves forward, and plans change as we go along, as we reevaluate what will really work and what won’t (portables along 110th outside the current math classrooms)
Mentorship Committee Report:
The mentorship committee proposes the following as a way of addressing issues impacting mentorship for the 2009/2010 school year.
For the school year 2009/2010 we propose that students be assigned to mentorships from the tenth grade into mentorships that correspond to eleventh grade teachers that they will have or have had when possible. Twelfth grade students may remain with mentorship teachers they currently have or be placed with a twelfth grade teacher that they will have senior year.
In addition mentorships should be balanced in numbers per teacher and per grade level.
There was some discussion about this plan. The benefit is that 11th and 12th grade teachers would generally (not a perfect plan) have students they already know or would know in class. However, it eliminates student choice. Many people seemed to think that students are choosing rather randomly now, based more on their friends than if they know the teacher. There was some discussion about 9th and 10th grade mentorships and what will happen with them this year? Will the kids move as a cohort in mentorship to 9th and 10th. All these questions are in the “popcorn popper” of the Mentorship Committee. Some need to figure out for next year and some are bigger questions about what is the meaning of mentorship. Get feedback from constituents and we can vote on this next time if we are ready.
Start time update: Marni submitted a waiver to stay at 8:30 – it has passed through two levels of approval at the district. We are cautiously optimistic that the waiver will be approved. If we decide to stay at 8:20 that will not be a problem to change back.
Constituent feedback – A significant numbers of Special needs staff wants everyone to start at 8:20. LA department wants to keep the 8:30 start time. Ken Tarleton’s constituent (his wife) wants a 9:00 start time. We will continue to discuss.
Diversity Day update – it will be this Friday. Tentative schedule is as presented at the last meeting.
New Business: ASB Requests Impacts on Mentorships
Class meetings : Election meetings during mentorship 5/6 and 5/7
Can we do this during reflective scholarship
Senior meeting 5/27 – propose we move that to reflective scholarship on 5/14 or 5/21
Meeting extended 5 minutes:
Mentorship Rep meeting rescheduled to Thursday 4/23 – passed in a voice vote
Adjourned 4:19
Next meeting May 5