Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
April 10.
Attendees, staff/faculty: Leanne Francis, Jessica Rosenfeld, Tracy Peoples, Alisa Chriss-Price, Julia Whitt
Attendees, parents: Vincent Leddy, Martin Rawlings-Fein, Jeff Cowell, Lisa Kelley, Karen Thompson, Liz Janes
and others (missing sign in sheet)
We said a few words about the passing of our inclusion specialist Tom Ryan, who passed away earlier in the month.
1) we reviewed the three-column overview of a previous year’s BSC to identify valuable programs and their source of funding, and eliminate items that have not materialized or are no longer feasible for $ or staff reasons. 1 parent suggested that we should have a parent technology volunteer committee to expand tech tools in the classrooms.
2) Tracy discussed progress forming an English Learner’s Advisory Council (ELAC) per district requirements, however she had only identified one parent so far.
3) The afterschool program survey prepared by Liz J. was to go out in the Wednesday folder on 4/11. (NOTE: As of 4/29/2012, several families said they had not received survey.)
4) Elections for SSC leadership positions. Alisa Chriss-Price was nominated and accepted position of Chair. Vincent Leddy had accepted position of vice chair in previous meeting. Liz J. will be secretary through the end of this school year but will be leaving SSC after that, so a new secretary will be needed.
5) The next pre-SSC agenda planning meeting will be Tuesday, May 1 at 5:30 in Tracy’s office. The next SSC meeting will be Tuesday, May 8 at 5:30.
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy School Site Council
Attendees
SSC Faculty: Tracy Peoples, Leanne Francis, Jessica Rosenfeld, Alisa Chriss-Price, Julia Whitt (Absent: Tom Ryan)
SSC Parents: Vincent Leddy, Lisa Kelley, Jeff Cowell, Martin Rawlings-Fein, Karen Thompson, Liz Janes
Also present faculty/staff: Susan, Betty, Aaron, Dara, Brandon, Shawn, Michael, Tiesha
Also present parents: Kellie, Steve
Special guests from SFUSD: Margaret Chiu, Brent Stephens
1) FOHM report: issue about Camp Mosaic funding miscommunication, tabled by Tracy Peoples.
2) Read SSC Bylaws and members present signed, over some objections that language targeting specific ethnic groups might be not relevant to our school. There was no consensus between those for and those against, as to how to resolve it. The issue was tabled for another meeting.
The signature page of the bylaws required for 4 SSC members to have titles: Chair, Vice Chair, and secretary. I (Liz Janes) can be secretary to the end of this school year. Vincent Leddy agreed to serve as vice chair. No one volunteered to be Chair. Tracy Peoples agreed to consider it but did not want to decide that evening. Thus we have no official bylaws yet as there was no signature by a chair.
3) Reviewed the proposed budget for next school year. Funding for classroom teachers, principal, and secretary is same as this year; FTE for Targeted instructional which includes parts of positions held by Glenn Castro, Shawn Maceira, Sandy Navarro and Vanessa Olona is cut from 2.53 to 2.38. The SSC will have to take up this issue in a future meeting to figure out the best distribution of less resources.
There was an outstanding issue raised about unpaid salary for the early part of this year for Shawn Maceira. Tracy reported that the district would be paying Shawn for those hours with carryover PTA funds. It is not clear if these were funds deposited by FOHM or PFC to the District to cover extra hours for district part-time positions.
4) Reviewed a proposed parent survey to evaluate satisfaction with before and afterschool programming. Some edits were suggested that will be added to the final and distributed via the Wednesday folder the week of April 2. This will hopefully be additive to other feedback loops planned by Susan Tramontana for the program.
5) Next steps/next meeting: a. determine flexibility in bylaws, b. look into options for addressing budget shortfall, and c. review the BSC.
If Tracy or Alisa could send a .pdf copy of the bylaws to the SSC to read in advance of the meeting that may save some time.
Next meeting: prep for April meeting, 4/3 5:30 pm
April SSC: 4/10, 5:30 pm
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
Faculty/staff members present: Tracy Peoples, Leanne Francis, Jessica Rosenfeld, Tom Ryan, Alisa Chriss-Price, and Brandon Lew. Also: Julia Whitt, Art Sato, Shawn Maceira, Kelly Clark, Susan Tramontana
Parents present: Liz Janes, Marty Fein, Jeff Cowell, Lisa Kelley, Karen Thompson. Also: Kellie Seringer, Terry Asten-Bennett, Angel Grillone, Andrea Lloyd, Suzanne Taviansky, Whitney Berry, and others.
Guest: Mary Richards, SFUSD Human Resources.
1. The faculty/staff membership to the SSC has changed. Ms. Alisa has rejoined the group, and at the last meeting an alternate was undecided, it will either be Brandon or Ms. Olonna (sp?) who was not present at the meeting.
2. Tracy reminded everyone that this year, one week before each SSC meeting, there will be an agenda planned one week before, and all the SSC are encouraged to attend if they want to add items to the agenda.
3. Our guest Mary Richards reviewed the status of our principal and the process that the District uses whenever there is a first- or second-year school administrator. Here is an excerpt from her letter:
“Ms. Tracey Peoples is serving as the interim Principal at your site for the 2011-2012 school year. We are scheduling site interviews on April 14, 2012 and May 5, 2012 for appointments for the 2012-2013 school year. Please let us know (by February 16) if your School Site Council (SSC) would like to interview candidates, including your current administrator, or if they would like to recommend Ms. Tracey Peoples as Principal for the 2012-2013 school year.”
The SSC recommendation is only one of may factors that inform the District’s decision about whether to reopen the position. Ms. Richards said that the recommendation did not have to be unanimous to be considered.
If we want to make a recommendation, it is due to Margaret Chiu by next Thursday, February 16. SSC members present agreed to meet on Wednesday, February 15 at 8 am at school to have the discussion. Because it is discussing personnel matters, this meeting will not be open outside of the SSC. In the meantime, parent members of the SSC are making efforts to gather parent input about school climate generally, to inform its decision and represent as many as possible. We hope that the faculty and staff will do the same.
Thanks
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Members from staff: Tracy Peoples, Brandon Lew, Tom Ryan, Jessica Rosenfeld
Members/Parents: Lisa Kelly, Vincent Leddy, Jeff Cowell, Liz Janes
Also present: Julia Whitt, Karen Thompson, Sarah Kern, Alison Adams
1) Members of the SSC and active members of the PFC are invited to attend the district-wide school summit, Saturday, February 11, 8:30 am to noon at Everett Middle School. The district provides useful training opportunities for SSC current and prospective members, on topics such as budget, fundraising, academic standards, etc. To register please go to http://www.sfusd.edu/en/councils-committees/school-site-council.html.
2) All families are encouraged to login to School Loop. You need your child’s student number (also called HO number) which is printed on some of the correspondence from the district or available from the school office. HMCRA’s school loop webpage is http://hmes-sfusd-ca.schoolloop.com/.
3) We had a presentation from James Fredericks of the Stanford EPGY program, an online self-paced learning tool for K-8 math and 2-6 language arts. It would cost approximately $5K/year for HMCRA to purchase a site license available to all students, at school or outside of school and during the summer, to be given accounts to this resource.
Mr. Fredericks provided us with two Cisco grant sources but both programs list schools as ineligible for those grants. Teachers would consider using the tool if the funds were raised elsewhere, however they have also been using free programs such as Math Blast and Khan Academy videos for similar purpose. If anyone is interested in applying for a grant to fund this program, please email peoplet
sfusd
edu.
Next SSC meeting will be Tuesday, February 7, 5:30. Outstanding tasks include reviewing the SSC bylaws and naming members to posts; scanning and distributing the BSC; revisiting the status of FOHM as our afterschool provider.
Other important news: Terry Asten-Bennett is stepping down from Treasurer position of PFC. This critical volunteer role ensures that funds raised through PFC events go to vital school needs including extra staffing in the kindergarten classrooms and in literacy programs. If anyone with basic math and spreadsheet skills would like to volunteer, please reply to this post.
Other important dates:
1/24 and 1/31: Financial Literacy For Families
2/10: Valentines’ Drag Show
