Senate Meeting Notes

Tuesday, Sept 21, 2010

 

In Attendance:  Overlie, Tarleton, Strong, Ames, Sims, Gurmu, Nielson, McFarland, C. Davis, Kuhns, Comiskey, Keyser, Sylver, Brandon, Hudson, Greene, Linett, Renouard, Feigal-Stickles, Loughborough, Miyata, Jones, Lynch, Padilla

Agenda

I.        Introduce New Members

II.    Election of Secretary and Chair

a.      Jessica Torvik accepted nomination of Senate Secretary—passed by voice vote

b.     Tony Renouard accepted nomination of Senate Chair—passed by voice vote

III. Committee Reports

a.      Mentorship

                                                              i.      Need to form committee for 2010-2011 school year

b.     Attendance

                                                              i.      See George Breland if interested in serving on Attendance Committee

c.     Principal’s Report

                                                              i.      ET Position

1.     Education Technologist—position is currently open

2.     Role—to assist teachers with using classroom technology and online tools

3.     Stipend = $2000 to $3000 per year

4.     Process for hiring this position?  Should be a hiring committee?  Or a Senate vote?

a.      Loughbourgh—people are accustomed to getting support and service that may not be able to be provided by a teacher working a 1.0 FTE.

b.     Tarleton, Sylver, and others—support taking this to a hiring committee

c.     Hudson—if we go with interviews, this position will not be filled for another 2-3 weeks

d.     Renouard—asked if anyone would speak in favor of a Senate vote.  No one accepted. 

e.      Called the question—all voted in favor of filling this position via hiring process with interviews.

5.      CBA—stipended positions must be offered to certificated staff first.  If no one applies or certificated candidates do not meet qualifications, position can be opened to classified staff

                                                            ii.      Open House

1.     Sen Hudson sent a proposal via email.

2.     Staff input is being requested in the PAC after school on Wednesday

3.     Sen Hudson—it is unreasonable to ask families to visit 7 classrooms in one night.  Students have practice doing this.  Families do not.

4.     Sen Feigal-Stickles—“open rooms” at Open House often lead to individual parent-teacher conferences.  What about shortening opening Introductions and increasing passing time to 10 minutes.

5.     Sen Hudson—the opening/greeting in the gym could be cancelled.  Perhaps there could be a gathering of families from 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM.

6.     Sen Tarleton—Parents prefer to spend time in teachers’ classrooms.  Most understand that teachers do not have time for a one-on-one comment.

7.     Sen Linett—what do parents want from open house?

8.     Parent Reps—want syllabus, want to see teachers and their classrooms

9.     Sen Feigal-Stickles—has a proposal that will be emailed (10 mins per class, 10 mins passing period)

10. Sen Sylver—remember that 9th Academy is on a different schedule

11.  

                                                          iii.      Mentorship—expectations, Rights and Responsibilities

1.     Mentors are requested to distribute and read with mentorship students

2.     Signatures are good tohave on record

                                                         iv.      CSIP Update

1.     Tabled until next Senate meeting

IV.            Old Business

V.   New Business

a.      Volunteer Fair

                                                              i.      Proposal

1.     Sims—ASB planning for Wed 11/18 during mentorship.  Feature clubs and volunteer opportunities.  Hold in PAC or half of the gym.  PE teachers are willing to use gym.   There will be 2 shifts (9/10 grades, and 11/12 grades—each shift gets 25 minutes).  The fair will feature clubs AND volunteer opportunities.

2.     Hudson—last year, it was too crowded in the cafeteria.  Can we use the whole gym?

3.     Davis—PE mentorships can move elsewhere.  Requests that ASB students be very careful when moving tables—the floor is newly refinished.  We can put a cover over gym floor.

4.     PE classes before mentorship—would need to relocate to allow for set up.

5.     Reading will be cancelled on this day.

6.     Sen Jones—how can we get kids to make the best use of this time?

7.     Sims—has a notebook of clubs and organizations we’ve used before.

                                                            ii.       Sen Ames—moved to suspend voting rules.  Seconded.  Passed by voice vote.

                                                          iii.      Sen Feigal-Stickles—calendar check—notes that November already has a number of days without a mentorship.

                                                         iv.      Sen Ames called the question.  Seconded.  Passed by voice vote.

b.     Patrick Loughborough Proposal

                                                              i.      TechLine ticket process

1.     Purpose is to ensure an equitable process.

2.     Either call or email TechLine to request service or support.

3.     TechLine will attempt to solve problem.  If unable to, will add to Patrick’s queue.

                                                            ii.       Collaborative Share on network

1.     Student-Student share often contains questionable content.

2.     Patrick—2x per year has been “policing” the Student share folder.

3.     Does not want to continue this task.  Several ideas:

a.      Eliminating Student-Student share folder.

b.     Using an automated clean-up program that looks for profanity and/or other objectionable content.

4.      Sen Lynch—how often used for legitimate purposes?  Could same purposes be served with just the Staff-Student share folder?

a.      Frequently used legitimately—class folders, library folder.

b.     Staff-Student share has more restrictions

5.      Do students use this folder?

a.      Sen Brandon—tends to replace email—allows students to share documents.  Students cannot access email accounts at school.

b.     Sims—most students use USB drives to transfer documents.

6.      Loughborough—what about a point person to clean out folder?

7.     Hudson—seems like Security should be involved here.  If kids are posting inappropriate material, this should be handled by Security.  Hudson needs to discuss with our Security staff.

8.     Sen Linett—need to find out if this folder has educational value

9.     Sen Brandon—students should be made aware that their material is being monitored.

10. Sen Lynch—students should also be made aware that our public machines are under public scrutiny.

 

c.     PG and E Discussion

                                                              i.      Sen Lynch—NHHS has 3 years to come into compliance with the new Professional Growth and Evaluation System.  There are 4 Domains (componenets) of the new PG and E system.  Consider phasing in 2 domians this year, with others coming in subsequent years.

1.     Sen Renouard—is this feasible for admin?

2.     Sen Hudson—yes, as long as one of the domains this year is Instruction.

3.     Sen Overlie—the classified staff PG and E format is in development right now.

                                                            ii.       Sen Renouard and Lynch—this is like a rubric for teachers

                                                          iii.      Sen Hudson—this only applies to new teachers for now.

                                                         iv.      Sen Renouard—need to discuss this proposal with our constituents.

                                                           v.      Sen Hudson—we will be having discussions about the 4 Domains with CFG’s on Sept 29, 2010.

VI.            Questions

a.      New AP’s?  Yes—2 new AP’s were hired last spring.

b.     Student Population?  We continue to add kids.  Currently at 1128 students, including 5 new students today.  We had a staffing adjustment for special education.  Still not enough new students to warrant more FTE.

c.     9th grade classes—over 25 students per class

d.     Full FTE of counselors?  Wait until October 1 enrollment count.

e.      Instructional IA’s?  Currently 3 open positions.  Very good candidates in the pool.

f.       Need more parents for Senate—have positions for 5 more parents.  Sen Tarleton is recruiting via Yahoo groups.

Meeting Adjourned at 4:13 PM.

Next Senate Meeting—Tuesday, October 5, 2010

 

 

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