Site Council

In Attendance: Courtney Leonard, Londa Rockholz, Lisa Strauch, Nancy Pollard, Lisa Albrich, Jessica Schabtach, Wade Powell, Lauren Scott, Aaron Matney, Sarah Appelbaum, Christine Pettingill, Deon Saraceno, Lydia Norton, Jessica Land, Stephanie Cannon, Gerrie Widdicombe, JoAnne Moorefield, Peggy Farris, Marilyn Curtis and Amy Duncan. Guest Presenter: George Russell

October 14, 2008

  1. Introductions again (we have some new students – Lauren Scott and Aaron Matney, from Sheldon).
  2. Minutes from the last meeting – approved.
  3. George Russell, to talk about the 4j local option levy renewal (not allowed to advocate for it, so being careful not to)
  4. There IS a school district levy on the ballot this November, and it’s very significant.
  5. It’s a renewal of a previous levy, from 2001. It actually doesn’t expire until 2010. But, this is a general election and it only needs the majority of votes cast. Otherwise, it would require the double-majority (passing vote and 50 percent of electorate to vote for it). In the last election, a Bethel option passed, but did not achieve it b/c they didn’t have over 50 percent of the people vote in the election.
  6. Renews the current local option levy. Same tax rate.
  7. Equivalent to 10 percent of our budget – ie, enough to operate 2 high schools a year. In addition, a city levy a couple of years ago relieved stress for supporting athletics, nursing, counseling, etc. The court then said it was not legal and it went away, but because we had the local option levy, we were able to sustain most of that without making significant reductions. So this levy is significant.
  8. This is also important b/c it comes at the end of the ballot. And last time, a number of people didn’t vote b/c they didn’t get to the end of the ballot. So make sure people know to keep on going.
  9. Ballots mailed Oct 17 – this week.
  10. Eugene has usually been successful with ballot measures, and so we don’t have any reason to think this will turn out differently. However, the economy has changed significantly. So it’s OK to be optimistic, but don’t be complacent.

Question from JoAnne: Where can you go to help canvas?

Answer: EEA. Also, there’s something this weekend (Stephanie).

Nancy: Cost per housing is something like a dollar or a dollar fifty.

Marilyn: to clarify, if people vote for this, they will keep paying what they have been paying. It won’t increase.

George: the rate stays the same, but depending on assessed evaluation, you could pay less or more. In the current market, assessed evaluations going down.

4.IB Report, Marilyn – EIHS is going through its 5-year review cycle. This one is quite extensive, requiring us to go through quite a philosophical reflection as a staff. We started the process at the IB Summit. We, as a teaching staff, looked at the standards relating to curriculum – what were the IB standards, and how were we, as a school, achieving them? Subsequently, we had a smaller meeting, with a teacher from each subject area, and we went through all the results and discussed the findings. Speaking personally (Marilyn) – what started as an overwhelming chore has become something of incredible value. The reflection piece is always good – to look at what we are doing, why and how. We looked at ways to strengthen our curriculum and programming.

  1. For our October 28 special session (Courtney) – we all have a lovely mint green sheet. On it, there are four sections IB asks us to review – curriculum, philosophy, organization of the school and the student. When we meet to have a special session on Oct 28, we will be discussing this. In the philosophy section, IB is looking for the extent to which we marry IB and International Education. We will be considering the EIHS Mission statement and other aspects to our philosophy. We will fill out a form that allows for feedback regarding practices in need of strengthening and proposals for improvement. For the curriculum section, we will review how we see it, develop it, give support to it, and build capacity for IB at our school. In the student section, we will examine how we encourage a climate of service to the community. Also, how much are students a part of curriculum planning, and how much do they reflect on their own process? In regards to the October 28 meeting itself, we are hoping to encourage students and parents to come to special session and give feedback. At this session, we will break up into smaller groups representative of all of our community.
  1. Student reports – Executive student meeting at the 5th Street Market last Sunday – they have set up and run the freshman elections on each campus. We are having our next meeting on this coming Sunday. We are going to initiate the beginning of the design contest and the penny wars. This year, we’ve decided to give money generated through penny wars to the Kiva foundation. We are also going to ask our parents to match the money generated. We also see this as a way to teach economics.

Stephanie – asks for clarification of who the Kiva foundation is.

Wade – explains how they give small loans, based on individual requests, in developing countries. So we make a loan, of say 400 dollars for a sewing machine, and then they pay it back over say the next year, and then we can re-loan that money. It’s a well-respected organization. Wade has researched it well.

  1. Parent Report, Study Abroad Fair – Opens with kudos to Gerri, for organizing study abroad fair, in Churchill Cafeteria. Valerie Maher volunteered when no one else would lead the endeavor – we’re thankful for the work. We have 20 organizations confirmed. About 200 people usually attend. The information goes out to Crow, Applegate, Lorain, and other schools in Lane County. It’s a tremendous endeavor, and it benefits our entire community.
  1. Amy – Oct 3 report – we reexamined our goals as a school on the October 3 Staff Development Day. We reconfirmed our dedication to an international education and to high standards of curriculum, and officially broadened our goals regarding retention and delivering an IB-level curriculum to all of our students (reflecting the philosophical reality that’s existed for awhile now).
  1. Courtney – East-West Exchange Program: Kendall and Courtney are going to Honolulu and bringing back teachers from Indonesia for two weeks. These teachers will be coming to the International Fair, the next site council meeting, and our parent group meetings, and will integrate with us into our classrooms. They’ll be visiting Roosevelt and Monroe, also. Also, in Hawaii – Kendall and Courtney will be attending a workshop with the author of “Worksheets don’t grow Dendrites” with the teachers from Indonesia.
  1. Courtney – The French Immersion students and parents are requesting a change to community service requirements so that French Immersion students could count hours completed earlier in their high-school careers toward community service than are currently allowed to count toward it. All Immersion students have to complete 50 hours of their community service in the language in which they have been immersed. It is more difficult for French Immersion than for Spanish Immersion students to find opportunities to complete their hours in the Eugene Community, and some of the French Immersion parents and teachers would like to plan community service trips over Spring Break, when they wouldn’t be likely to be counted toward senior community service for juniors or toward junior community service for sophomores (b/c most of our community service is completed during the first half of Junior year and then all of senior year, effectively discounting spring break community service in both Sophomore and Junior years).

Lisa S – Wonders if we have control over this, because she’s previously heard that a lot of the way we do community service has been controlled by IB from above.

Craig – Questions if IB would count community service from Sophomore year Spring Break toward the full diploma requirements. Courtney will look into this.

Jessica – If it changes for one group, this is likely to start a groundswell of requests for Spring Break community service trips to count for other situations as well.

Wade – Perhaps we could do this for both Spanish and French, to keep it equitable.

Craig – doesn’t like this b/c of the Pandora’s box reason and our community service is already so complicated regarding what we can and cannot do.

Peggy – has concerns about opening the gates of exceptions, like we have done with the rule about not doing community service on the campus where you attend school. It opens questions about if you can do it for this trip, why not for that one? Etc.

Sarah – echoing what someone already said , has concerns about the equitability issue regarding financial ability – ie, Spring Break community service only counting if you can afford to go on one of these trips. Can we use Goldman Sachs money to send others?

Wade – Wouldn’t solve the problem in the long term. Plus, we already have our scholarship fund.

Amy – Likes opening the Pandora’s Box issue in this case b/c thinks that EIHS staff should discuss the issue as a staff.

Christine – Also thinks that this should not be a one-shot deal that only applies to some students. Also, asks for background information: where do FI students currently do their community service hours?

Courtney – Currently, mostly as Camp Rigalo (spelling?) – most of the current community service focuses students on giving back to the community in which they have participated, and is not international in scope.

Craig – And, that summer camp is not a sure thing. It depends on a lot of parent and volunteer hours, and may not happen every year.

Lisa S. – Has always wondered why community service is limited to Junior and senior years and why there are all these particulars about it.

Jessica – Has also often wondered this, and figured out that it seems to be tied into the issue of giving credit for it as a class, and having to do the hours within some approximate timeframe of when the class happens (and the teacher logistical issue of keeping track of it also happening when they are responsible for that class.

Sarah – The community service process is overwhelming, and perhaps best kept at the junior/senior level, b/c freshmen are already overwhelmed.

Courtney – We’ll bring this back to the junior/senior teams.

  1. Scholarship Application: Courtney goes over the form in front of us. The intent is to create travel opportunities for students with the greatest financial need and the least possibility for travel without these applications. Courtney goes over the form and explains the weighting of the categories and numbers – again, toward highest need and least travel experience.

Stephanie: Thinking about students on Free and Reduced lunch. Sometimes this kind of opportunity is what turns a student’s life around. So, when you say a you are looking for a truly exceptional student, what does that mean?

Courtney: Someone with high financial need, and heart and soul, and commitment to the world, and the desire to travel.

Lydia: Expressed concern that students might be dissuaded from applying if they’ve had prior travel experience, but are in financial need, or whose travel experience has been out of financial need.

Amy: Says she thinks the committee is likely to consider all information that the students give.

Lydia: You should make that clear.

Courtney: OK.

Afternote: HUGE KUDOS to the Scholarship Committee, from all.