MKHS Alliance General Meeting Minutes – Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Present: Alice Kanzawa, Andrea Fong (ASB), Bob Gin, Carol Tanita, Cindy Saisho, Cliff Bender, Crystal Hirose, David Ikeda, Gary Baker, Garrett Hara (NHS), Grace Love, Ish Perez, Ivy Chin-Au, Janet Lees, Joanne Rosso, Joseph Leon, Karen C. Wallace, Kathy Ikeda, Larry Lue, Lisa Lum, Lorran Yano, Margaret Endo, Mary Ann Ragus, Michael Jew (ASB), Pat Ichiriu, Peter Kwa, Randy Chung, Rowena Yau, Scott Hara, Sharon Woo, Shirley Lee Chung, Susan Masada, and Susan Sanchez.
1.0 CALL TO ORDER (Sharon Woo) – called to order at 7:07 pm.
2.0 FLAG SALUTE (TBD) – led by Garrett Hara.
3.0 WELCOME (Sharon Woo) – the recording secretary was running late so Sharon read the agenda.
4.0 AGENDA ADDITIONS/DELETIONS/CHANGES/ADOPTION (Sharon Woo) –
4.1. Agenda Additions – none.
4.2. Agenda Deletions/Changes – none.
4.3. Agenda Adoption – Gary Baker moved to accept the agenda as written. There was no discussion; a vote was taken the agenda was adopted as written.
5.0 RECORDING SECRETARY’S REPORT (Lisa Lum)
5.1. Changes to Minutes – Cyndi requested to change “hose” to “house”. She also request to change “Gary Hara” to “Garrett Hara”.
5.2. Approval of Minutes – There was a motion by David Ikeda to approve the minutes with changes. This was seconded by Gary Baker. There was no discussion. A vote was taken and the motion passed.
6.0 STUDENT REPORTS (Michael Jew, Heather Iwata, and Garrett Hara)
6.1. Associate Student Body (ASB) Report – no report.
6.2. National Honor Society (NHS) Report – Garrett Hara reported that last Friday they had an Introduction Banquet for new members at Luminaria’s from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. They also participated in the TAG event in Barnes Park last weekend. NHS has no other events planned at this time.
7.0 PUBLIC COMMENTS – there were none.
8.0 TREASURER’S REPORT (Crystal Hirose) – in the Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, and General Ledger we have about $40,000 all together in all 3 accounts.
8.1. Bills submitted to be paid and approved (all) – there was a motion to make a check for the clubs who bought from the Fireworks stand. There was $1,497.19 made from the clubs, minus $104.23 for PTSA and $30.72 for the PTSA Grad Night 2011 committee. A motion was made by Joe Leon to pay $1,362.24 to ASB for distribution to the clubs who participated in the fireworks booth sales. The motion was seconded by Gary Baker. A vote was taken and the motion passed. Gary then made a motion to pay $200 each to girls and boys basketball for ads ($400 total). The motion was seconded by Larry Lue. There was no further discussion. A vote was taken and the motion passed.
8.2. Donations and Membership – there was from $5,000 Registration donations, $200 from dance fundraising money, and $700 from additional Donor Board deposits.
9.0 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY’S REPORT (Pat Ichiriu)
9.1. Alliance Correspondence (Pat Ichiriu) – there was two letters from Dr Bartlett. One letter was to thank the Alliance for supporting her program last school year. The other letter was about the Rose Parade, naming the drum major and other students performing in the Tri-City band at the Band Field Day on November 30 at PCC. They are still looking for donations. There was also correspondence from Gilbert and Valerie Lee thanking us for our donation along with the PTSA for flowers at their father’s funeral.
10.0 REPORTS
10.1. Principal’s Report (Grace Love) –
10.1.1. Marquee - the marquee was found after the move over the summer. The school is now working on getting the marquee hooked up with the computer. It is close to getting back up, but it took longer than we thought it would.
10.1.2. School web site - We are trying to get a better price on our web site. The plan is to share the hosting fee with 3 schools. This will be vetted through the School Site Council (SSC). SSC meetings are open to the public, and there is an opening for a parent on the committee. The committee also has 3 new teachers on it: Cynthia Bradley, Page Phillips and Araceli Arzate. The next SSEC meeting with the new members is on November 19. The web site was a voluntary site started by a teacher. It is good on the front page but it isn’t updated regularly. So we are working with a company that works with schools. San Gabriel has been using this service for many years and it is very nice. The company will train 15 people and we can include parents from the Alliance and PTSA, too. It is easy to use and update, and parents can update the information themselves. Also this web site has a translation site, so it can be translated to Spanish or Chinese. They charge $4,200 per year. They also do the layout and photo shoots. You can choose the style and feel for your site.
10.1.3. Parent Portal - There is the new piece equipment required in order to use the Parent Portal. The semester grades are required to be posted on the Parent Portal, anything else is optional. Some teacher may post quizzes.
10.1.4. Student Achievement - Had meeting on student achievement yesterday. When we get the numbers they will be shared.
10.1.5. Retired teachers - Went to a meeting of retired Keppel teachers. Will keep in contact with this group and include them in information sharing in the future. Took some construction pictures to show them and they were appreciative to see what is going on campus. They are very excited.
10.1.6. Tardiness update - We started doing “tardy sweeps”. We had put off tardiness checking during construction because of the extra time it took to get to class with all the construction going on. We did one today and one last week. We are going to do more when the fence by the gym comes off. We have detention with the tardy sweeps. Detention is the next day after school for ½ hour. Tardy sweeps are working well so far.
10.1.7. School schedule update - On November 11 there is no school. On October 30 we are on Collaboration Day schedule. On Thursday and Friday they are out at 11:12 am. On the 11/13 there is the Great Shake evacuation drill at 10 am. We are asking for parents to help be part of the Great Shake. The CAHSEE is being repeated for those who missed it o November 4 &5. There is Powder Puff football on November 12 at night. We will be selling food during the day on campus. There is a tri-city band field show. November 13 is the tri-city band performance at 7 pm at Keppel. On 11/14 it is Homecoming.
10.1.8. Attendance - Student attendance is good – about 98% last year. That is really good, especially for high school.
10.1.9. Sound system - The sound system update is that we cannot seem to make contact with the company we were using. Thus we are starting all over but with a much more elaborate plan. We may decide we no longer want to support this. We will let you know when we get the quotes.
10.2. Faculty Report (Joanne Rosso) – no report. See the Principal’s report, above.
10.3. Sports and Athletics Report (Ish Perez) – Ish is celebrating wife’s birthday today, so Carol made a report for him. Girl’s tennis and swim teams are going to CIF.
10.4. PTSA Report (Cyndi Kitagawa) – not much happening. Quite a few new 9th grade parents attending meetings. PTSA is getting new people coming in and active on our volunteer lists. We are touching bases with all the new members. Scrip is for sale for holiday gifts. See Lisa. Senior committee is busy fundraising. On November 21 they are having a dinner at Monterey Palace restaurant and selling cookies for Grad Night. If you have any new or gently used items to donate contact Jill Gussman. There is a Craft fair at Almansor Park and the kids will sell hand-decorated items like post-it notes and clips. Please help support this event. There is still time to submit entries for the Reflections contest up until 4 pm on Friday.
10.5. Fundraising Activities Committee Reports:
10.5.1. 2009 Fundraisers (Carol Tanita) – there was a meeting last week. There are requests to have another dance. Checking on bands in the area. Also thinking about a social mixer, so maybe the Alliance can put together another program like we had for Donna Perez. It would be a meeting between the school and parents. The committee is also considering a Bingo/dinner combination event. There is a local event that sells a “family ticket”. The older children show videos and watch the young children. The entry price includes two Bingo cards and then others are sold on site. There are prizes up to $500 cash. If we got Charlie’s Trio for the location, we could charge $10 and make $5 per family. We can also do a simpler dinner like hot dogs. We would expect to generate about $2,000 profit – which isn’t that much. Also considering a talent show or sing a thon.
10.5.1.1. Other suggestions for fund raisers - Karen had an idea for no work fundraiser -- use photographer to do a portrait shoot of friends and family. The organization makes money from the sitting fee. Each family gets one 8x10 print for the sitting fee. The photographer makes money from the purchase of additional prints. There are also promotional trophy awards products like blinking items for football games. Karen will do this for no profit so that money goes to the school. Karen shared that the picture program is good before the holidays because many people like to buy photos for gifts. There isn’t much involved – just need a space to make the pictures. It is also good for dinner dances to have photos of the group. It is a good money maker because you don’t have to do much work.
10.5.1.2. Support clarification - Larry shared that the purpose of the Alliance is to support items not provided by the school district. The school funding committee will provide their report on disbursement of $10,000. We think that between the e-waste and fireworks we can make about $12,000 so need other activities that we can get to help meet $25,000 goal. We need a fundraising committee to take on this project. We are looking for people to help plan the fundraising activities. Carol is willing to be our technical expert and help get them started. Karen volunteered to be of part this committee.
10.5.2. E-Waste (Sharon Woo) – the activity on Saturday from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. They arrive at 8:30 am. It was suggested that the flyers could be put up in industrial parks or other big companies. This year Mr. Donnelly received requests from the teachers to recycle e-waste. He is storing the items and will give the e-waste to the Alliance. The teachers are also bringing in the personal e-waste from home. Last year we had a lot of e-waste in July because we cleaned up over the summer. The e-waste is fundraising for Keppel’s portion of the tri-city band expenses. E-waste is anything that you can plug in except large appliances. We get the best money from monitors and TVs. Thanks to all those who helped with the flyers, distributing them and bundling them.
10.6. School Funding Committee Report (Alice Kanzawa) – we have $24,000 of requests but are budgeted to release $10,000 at this time. It is difficult to award less than half of the requests. For many requests, only a portion rather than the full amount was funded. However we still came up with a final figure more than $10,000. Of the ones not funded at this time, they were prioritized to be awarded on the next disbursement. Alice made a motion to increase the allocation to be disbursed at this time by an extra $2,000. Karen seconded the motion. There was discussion -- Larry asked about the delayed and partial requests. For example, Dr Bartlett requested >$5,000 for trips and band activities. Some of the other trips were denied. There were multiple requests for cameras but only one request was approved. Alice explained that all requests were prioritized. All requests were also checked if it could be filled by the wish list, and if so the requests were moved there. Lorran asked about money not made by the API score of 806. Last year the school site council got $100,000 to be used for raising school scores. But the API kids were 35 points down. ELD had only one request in, which was funded. The ELD students are a focus issue by the staff and the district and their needs are more related to the curriculum rather than supplies. We are focusing on things that we can and should do. We reached out to the district for help. The criteria for funding had to do with equal funding for sports teams, big ticket items that could be shared by teachers were funded, and other big ticket items. A lot of field trips were not funded. We funded overhead projectors instead. Cliff said he is concerned that teachers are not requesting quality products through the district. Grace said all purchases must go through the district. That way the computers purchased are accountable to the school as school property, and is up to the district standards (compatible). Grace recommended that the funding committee go back and make sure all the laptops are for department use rather than for individual teachers. Of the $12,000 proposed to be disbursed, there are 3 computers for $500 each ($1,500 total). Kathy shared that in the library system all items are bar coded so that at the end of the year she can find the equipment that has checked out during the year. Larry made a motion to table the “extra” $2,000 motion and remove the computers and cameras from the list. The rest of the requests can be granted and don’t require the $2,000 to finish the distribution. Cyndi seconded the motion. A vote was taken and the motion passed.