March 10, 2011 Minutes
Attendees:
Kelly Bryant (Co-chair), Caitlin Racey, Jodee Reed, Caleb Banta-Green, Katherine Ropp, Melanie Shelton, Kim Post, Dave Middleton, Beth Armitage, Jodi Russell, Zara Kublin, Sam Star, Karen Dugan, Robin Lofstrom, Lisa Dunn, Jenny Boget, Jen Millen, David Sommerville, Suzanne Waller, Byron Waller, Lance Adams, Megan Ratcliffe, Sarah Kopf
Chair’s Report:
Opened with positions on the FOSB board that are still open.
- Middle school chair (could be elementary chair if that was preferred and Kelly Bryant switched to Middle school chair)
- Elementary Treasurer
- BLT elementary
- Secretary
We haveadded David Summerville and Suzanne Waller as signers on the bank account.
Next time FOSB will meet is our retreat on April 9th. Jane Davies and Kelly Bryant are looking for topics and these are some options:
- Alternative Education Survey results
- PTA or not to PTA
- Communication Improvement
Robin Lofstrom has graciously offered to host the retreat at her house.
BLT report:
We have enough funding in our new budget from the district to pay for everything in our current program without a parent grant.
The district is finally funding K-8’s as they are required to.
The district funded all the WSS proposals for K-8’s.
We are funded for a full time librarian.
FTE’s will no longer be broken down into units smaller than a .5 FTE.
Kindergarten is still full time and the cost for families is $237.00 per month.
Zara Kublin is going to write a thank you letter to the school board and the K-8 WSS committee from FOSB.
Principal’s report:
Jodee Reed talked about the change in superintendents and about the principals meeting with Dr. Enfield, the new superintendent.
Budget cuts at the district's central office are going ahead and things will be business as usual until the end of the year when Dr. Enfield is reviewed.
Jodee Reed told us about the discussion happening at school about growing our elementary program and increasing to 2 classes at every grade level from our current level of 1.5 classes. This would mean no more multi-age classes but only looping. There is much discussion going on amongst the staff and this will continue. This would add about 90 students and the timeline is still being discussed with a staged and gradual change being recommended. The earliest time we might see a change is fall of 2011 which would probably see us adding .5 of a kindergarten class and .5 of a first grade class.
The district perceives Salmon Bay as having extra space in our building and this would let us control how this space is filled.
Volunteer Coordinator Report:
Megan Ratcliffe reported for both positions and said that the tours are going well and have had decent attendance.
She reminded people that even if you have a sibling of a current student they still need to be enrolled and chose Salmon Bay as your school of choice.
Playground Committee:
Robin Lofstrom reported that the design is going along beautifully and they could really use some more people to take an active role with the committee. There is an open house coming up on Wed. March 23rd from 6-8:30 in the Salmon Bay Cafeteria.
Fundraising:
Sarah Kopf reported that the Jog-a-Thon date has been changed to Friday May 20th.
Alternative Education:
Caleb Banta-Green reported that the alt. ed. survey has had about 25% participation so far and Jodee Reed is going to do a robo-call to remind parents to take part in it.
Jodee Reed talked about the fact that John Miner is putting together a proposal of the policies that alternative school principals would like to see supported regarding alternative education.
Gardening Committee:
Jen Millen reported that the gardening committee is having a work party on March 19th from 10-1 and would love to have lots of people attend. Ballard Tree Service donated wood chips and the school district is sending a gardener who will provide tools.
Budget-
Kelly Bryant gave an overview of what the budget committee has been working on. She handed out the proposed budget and asked for feedback or questions.
David Summerville talked about the guiding principles behind the budget committees’ work.
We discussed whether to fund the volunteer coordinators and if so at which level? It was decided to fund the volunteer coordinators at last years’ level of 19 hours per week (which had been cut to 15 hours this year). The cost to FOSB is approximately $25,000.
We also decided to fund a 0.2 FTE increase in art in the elementary school.
Much discussion followed…..
Someone brought up the idea of funding a math specialist and Jodee Reed talked about her idea of expanding the reading specialist position to maybe include some math support.
Sarah Kopf asked what it would take to get keyboarding for all the kids and Jodee Reed explained it would be hard to fit that into the all school curriculum.
One important part of this discussion is that if FOSB purchases the additional Full Time Equivalent teachers/staff (FTE’s) before Jodee Reed submits her final budget than we will get them at an $8,000.00 discount. This is based on the fact that parent groups (such as FOSB), pay the average price for FTE's when submitted as part of the school budget. After the budget is approved, we would have to pay actual costs for additional FTE's.
We talked more about the extra FTE’s for art and thought we could get Barb Leuty for more hours in the Elementary and either use her as a resource for the middle school or set aside money for middle school artist in resident program.
A proposal allowing the budget committee to approve up to an additional .2 FTE for art to be purchased by FOSB and added to Jodee’s pool was motioned, seconded. There were some thumbs up and some thumbs neutral but no blocking votes so consensus was reached.
