November 2010 Minutes

Commencing at 7:10 pm

Kelly Bryant, Chair

Jane Davies, Chair

Caitlin Racey, director

Sarah Kopf, director

Melanie Shelton, educator

Caleb Banta-Green, Alternative Schools Coalition rep.

Beth Armitage, director

Suzanne Waller

Anna McAllister, Treasurer

Keith McLaren, educator, Principal Intern

Jen Millen, Gardening

Sam Star, BLT

Beth Boram

Lance Adams, Playground Committee

Rosemary Daszkiewicz

Lisa Dunn

Renee Gersdorf-Duncan

Carita Polin, educator

Rae Keyes

Rolf Sonnerup

Jodi Russell, director

Brian Williamson, educator

Robin Lofstrom, BLT, Playground Committee, PIE

Outstanding needs:

• Related to the district:
• MSP/WASL:  How will test results impact our school and our alternative programs?      
• Student assignment plan:  There are two upcoming regional meetings.  Please attend if you can.  The district is proposing a geographic zone as part of its assignment plan for Salmon Bay, something which would threaten the ability for new families to make a choice to attend our school as the geographic zone would come before other tiebreakers. 
• Fundraising:
• Auction:  We still need a chair. Auction kick-off party is on Saturday, November 13th, at Caitlin Racey’s.  We need a Procurement Chair, and an Auction Chair.
• Scrip:  We are losing Alodie Loney because her family is moving. 
• Leadership positions:
• MS Treasurer position:  Open.
• Budget committee:  This new committee needs volunteers, as well as a Chair.
• Open director slots:  November is a time when people who are interested in serving as a director to FOSB are elected to that position.  Beth Boram, a new parent in the Kindergarten program, offered to step-up, and was elected.  Her email address is e_bethboram@hotmail.com. 
• School events:
• Fair Trade Fair and Pancake Breakfast:  Last year, the fair and breakfast funded Bridges to Understanding.  It was a great event, but without a committee to move it forward, it will be difficult to sustain the event.  The funds from this event will not fund Bridges to Understanding.  The funds will be used instead for WEP scholarships. 
• Elementary Spaghetti Feed:  We need volunteers.  Middle school music program will be performing, and ASB is offering babysitting services at $5/child in the gym (the funds will sponsor their dances).
• Program support:
• WEP:  Jay is managing the ski program.  WEP is run through FOSB – we need someone to be the liaison between FOSB and Jay to keep WEP moving forward.

Principal’s Report:    The district now publishes a “school report card,” available online.  Copies of that report were distributed.  Unfortunately, the district refused to separate our elementary goals and program from the middle school goals and program, so it appears that there are blank spots in the report.  There has been ongoing discussions that schools who are graded as 4 or 5 will have some autonomy to deliver their own programs, make their own hiring decisions, etc.  However, it would not necessarily put them in a place where they are no longer participating in assessments like the MSP.  MAP results charts the growth of a student over time, and it’s felt that there is some correlation between these results and the district’s report card. The results of the 4th grade math scores are concerning to parents and staff; the staff and BLT is looking at ways to improve math instruction, and is trying to make sense of the results.

Alternative Schools Coalition:    Six to eight weeks ago, the coalition met with the district’s Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Susan Enfield.  The result of that meeting is that it’s now clear there will be no external audit of alternative schools; additionally, the coalition now has a de-facto director, John Minor (principal at Thornton Creek).  There is work on an internal self-evaluation tool.  Earlier in the evening, a small group of parents met to review the quality indicators, something which may form the core of that self-evaluation tool.  The indicators were a document created some years ago by alternative school principals and community members, and Caleb Banta-Green has offered to work with the indicators in order to create a more meaningful data-driven series of questions; the current language of the quality indicators makes it very difficult to make real measurements against them.  The coalition will be meeting before December 9th.   

The district seems to be leaning towards referring to alternative schools as “innovation sites.” 

BLT Report:    The BLT is reviewing the C-SIP, and setting our goals in regards to math, reading, and writing.  They are discussing math instruction, and looking at finding ways to parents to work with students to improve learning.  They are also evaluating how teachers can coordinate math instruction.  That work will continue.

Survey of Alternative Education at Salmon Bay:    Those in attendance at the FOSB meeting were surveyed about what resonates for them regarding alternative education at Salmon Bay.  What’s going well was the focus of our discussion, rather than a review of how things used to be and how we can “be” in the future.  The motivation for the discussion was to help assure our enrollment, as tours are coming up and we want to keep our demand high by highlighting what works.  The following is a list of items that participants shared:

• WEP
• Camp
• Small middle school
• The goal of shared decision making
• Staff is committed to building relationships with parents and students
• Friday sing
• Looping, and mixed-age classes
• Making History
• The energy and joy here
• Peace and justice assemblies, song, emphasis
• PE every day
• Library
• Recess
• Shakespeare plays
• Experiential learning
• Sense of community
• Reading Buddy program
• Soft entry to 6th grade
• No-cut sports

Adjourned at 9:20 pm.