Senate Meeting Minutes April 7, 2009

Attending: April Lindner, Janet Thompson, Colleen Davis, Jeff Jones, Rebecca Padilla, Doug Edelstein, Rob Feigal-Stickles, Sharon Miyata, Joel Jacobson, Tim Ames, Mark Greenway, Jessica Torvik, Jonathan Duyker, Ken Tarleton, Tony Renouard, Dina Zografos-Ruehle

Not Attending: Bob Poor, Theron Simpson, Robbie Cambell, Patty Lilly

Minutes approved with corrections

Update from ASB - Diversity Summit – Friday April 24

Current plan for the day – meet in Mentorship, go to the gym for an hour long key note speaker

Then two one hour workshop sessions - mentorships would be assigned an upper house/lower house mentorships would be combined

Multicultural lunch donated by area restaurants

Afternoon – performances in the gym

Back to mentorships for ½ hour reflection

There is also a plan for a half day

Senate approved the full day program

Old Business – Budget Update –

Nothing is final yet. The Academic Dean allocation was taken away, but we did get .6 Pathways money (but that makes a .4 loss) The .6 “Pathways money” would go to the next item on our priority list – which would be part of a math position. Unfortunately we can’t just move staff around with that .6 - we would have to open a new position and hire. There may be more changes when the legislature passes the budget. (It could mean more or less money for us.) This process of adjustment will continue until November.

Marni has managed to hang on to our plan, but mainly through using “self-help” money for staffing (instead of for supplies or stipends or other things.)

New Business – Transportation – changes to Bus Arrival and Departure Time

The School Board has voted to change secondary start times to between 8:10 – 8:20

This is being done to save money on yellow bus transportation

Is this worth the fight?

There was some discussion about how it is important to our program for us to start later, maybe even go back to 8:45 or 9:00. We originally went to a later start time because of compelling evidence that students do better academically with a later start time.

There was some discussion about standing up to the district’s call for standardization – and that maybe we need to be in touch with our stakeholders including parents and students to keep them informed about our reasons for wanting a later start time.

In summary – go back to our constituents for their input and at the next meeting craft a letter to the district base on what our constituents say.

There is something to be said for just quietly doing what we want to do. There is a time for that, and a time to take a stand. It is kind of hard to decide which this is.

Mentorship Committee Report

Committee has met three times since last report. They are discussing what is the purpose of Mentorship. They meet Mondays after school in Mr. Greenway’s room – you are welcome to attend.