Minutes - MarkKeppelHigh School Alliance General Meeting

Wed. October 28, 2009

Aztec Cafeteria

Present: Cliff Bender, David Ikeda, Kathy Ikeda, Grace Love, Lorran Yano, Crystal Hirose, Sharon Woo, Cyndi Kitagawa, Joe Leon,Catherine Ragus, Karyn Wong, Vivian Cheung, Bryant Lim, Ish Perez, Jesse Katz, Tracy Win, Joseph Leon, Joanie Park, Paul Cheung, Jennie Phan, Denise Tso, Sandy Abe, Carla Bartlett, Ivy Chin-Au, Peter Lin, Kimi Matsuda

1.0CALL TO ORDER at 7:05pm by President Sharon Woo

2.0FLAG SALUTE was led by Tracy Win

3.0WELCOME (Sharon Woo)Alumni parents Kathy and Dave Ikeda were welcomed.

4.0AGENDA ADDITIONS/DELETIONS/CHANGES/ADOPTION (Sharon Woo) - none

5.0RECORDING SECRETARY’S REPORT

Sharon Woo presented the minutes as Diana Zhou was not present. The following changes were made to the Sept. 30, 2009 minutes:

6.2 “Tiffany” should be replaced by “Tracy” in the first sentence.

Joe Leon motioned to approve the corrected minutes.Cindy Kitagawa seconded. The approval was unanimous.

6.0STUDENT REPORTS

6.1Associated Student Body (ASB) Report– none

6.2National Honor Society (NHS) Report (Tracy Win) - They participated in Tag-Away Graffiti this past Saturday. They will have a Thanksgiving event and a See’s candy fundraiser.

6.3All Athletics Alliance (Bryant Lim/Vivian Cheung) - Four students introduced a new club forming at Keppel. Co-Presidents Bryant Lim and Vivian Chung, Catherine Ragus, and Karyn Wongexplained the purposesof the club:to unify student athletes and parents, to promote sports and spread interest in teamwork and competition in the community, and to raise money for sports programs through spearheading fundraisers and charity events. Parents and students will work together for the athletic program. Some ideas the club is considering are as follows: a quota to be met by every team; representatives for each sport must raise a certain amount of money relative to the number of members; the amount of money given to each sport will depend on the financial stability of the team; if outside financial support already exists for the said sport, then this sport will receive less money.

7.0PUBLIC COMMENTS

7.1AEF Report- Lorran Yano reported that for the first time the Alhambra Educational Foundation (AEF) is making monetary donations to individual schools. At elementary schools, AEF asks each child to donate a dollar; the donation for every elementary school will be $3,500, the principal and staff are to decide how to use the money. At the high schools, money is raised through the summer school fees and the Taste of Alhambra. The annual AEF dinner also helps raise funds. Many of our Mark Keppel community have been recognized at the dinner. This year, each high school will be receiving a $7,500 lump sum donation. It will be up to the school as to how to spend the funds. Grace Love noted that we have not received official word from AEF. Lorranadded that Ed Aguirre said the money had been deposited in each account. Ms. Love noted that they want to use the money, but it was not in the account yet. These funds will lighten the load for Alliance expenditures.

7.2“The Opposite Field” by Jesse Katz

Mr. Katz is a parent at Mark Keppel. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author living in our community, and introduced his new book, The Opposite Field. The book is about his son, Max, a junior at Mark Keppel, and his time as Commissioner of Baseball at LomaPark. The story is about our community and the families in it, with a number of Keppel references. Mr. Katz is now the JV Baseball coach at Keppel. He has been invited by Mrs. Sanchez’ AP English class to speak to them about his book. He distributed postcards that noted upcoming speaking engagements. He offered the Alliance a fundraising opportunity. He can donate$5 per book sold at his November 17th Bruggemeyer Library book signing or give us some books that we could sell. Sharon thanked him and said we would discuss this in the fundraising section of our meeting.

8.0TREASURER’S REPORT (Crystal Hirose)

The Treasurer reported that we have $40,000+ in cash. We made $6000+ from fireworks.

8.1Bills submitted to be paid and approved-Sharon for fall newsletter $178.44. Dr. Bartlett moves to pay bills, Joe Leon seconded, motion unanimous.

8.2Donations and Membership - $100 donation from Carla Bartlett

9.0CORRESPONDING SECRETARY’S REPORT

Vanessawas not present, so Sharon reported correspondence.

9.1Alliance Correspondence

Dr. Bartlett sent a thank you note and a donation for the year’s work.

A flyer inviting us to Maryann Tedford’sNovember 13th retirement dinner at El Cholo Restaurant in Pasadena from 4:30 to 9:30 pm, $23 per person. She is Grace’s secretary.

10.0REPORTS

10.1Principal’s Report (Grace Love)

10.1.1Ms. Love reported that the election for School Site Council concluded with two new members: Dr. Bartlett and Cynthia Fillpot; other faculty members are Araceli Arzate and Cynthia Bradley. There are three student members to represent the 9th, 10, and 11th graders. Seniors are elected every year; members are for three years. Meetings are open to the public; the agenda is posted prior to the meeting. First meeting is Nov. 12 at 3:00pm. We will try to have meetings at different times to accommodate parents. Mr. Arabon and Mr. Akioshi are current parent representatives. Ms. Tosada resigned; according to the bylaws, the vacancy will be filled by appointment.

10.1.2The English Language department has difficulty meeting the statewide goal. The API is the CST. The AYP is 10th grade CAHSEE, a specific standardized exam. Ms. Love is continuing to work with the department, the curriculum alignment, clarification of goals especially in writing, language fluency, and reading comprehension. Upon close look of the student achievement data it became apparent of the diversity of the EL students; the SEI program and the EL students school wide. This Friday, the focus will be looking at the EL students and sharing instructional strategies.

10.1.3Ms. Love is on the district cabinet this year. One duty is to look at some data management systems. Currently we have been using Edusoft for the last five years. It allows us to look at multiple data sources to see and analyze how the students are performing and progressing. The Edusoft company was bought out by another company, and it stopped making improvements in the product. We are looking at other systems to invest in once the contract expires. We will recommend the top three to select the new company from and shift to it next year. This is a district-wide effort.

10.1.4For the last two weeks, we have hosted two principals from Shanghai, China, to allow them to closely observe school life, student activities and governance, curriculum, and administration. They are from two career prep high schools. One school has 5000 students. The other is half Keppel’s size. Two host families have been Dr. Bartlett and Ms. Ling. The visitors are having a great time meeting new friends and learning about American high schools.

10.1.5The cross walk is still an issue. One of the major problems is that the old cross walk is at the exit of the drive through. Because of that, we cannot use the drive through as intended and that has caused delays for parents dropping off students. Having the two cities coordinate processes to solve the problem is complicated. A meeting tomorrow at the district conducted by the Superintendent may provide some resolution. Representatives from both cities and the district will be present. Ms. Love apologizes for the problem.

10.1.6Several date changes willbe in the newsletter (La Azteca): April 28 collaboration is cancelled because of CST testing. March 17 will be a collaboration day. Also for testing reasons, April 30 will be a regular day; the minimum day will be moved to April 23.

10.1.7Upcoming events: Tri-City Field Show Wed., Nov. 18, 7 pm at San Gabriel High School Athletic Field. The grand opening of our new auditorium will be Friday, Nov. 20, 6:30 pm.

10.2Faculty Report - none

10.3Sports and Athletics Report (Ish Perez)
Mr. Perez offered free samples of shaving cream and razors to take home. Regarding the sports program, there were some vacancies on the coaching staff. Long time substitute is Ms. Zamora for boys soccer. We are hiring JV assistants for wrestling. Girls basketball team has two lower level coaches being hired. Baseball program has vacancies, and Mr. Perez is interviewing potential candidates. The lifting of the association rules means that programs can now be year-round. This causes an increased strain on resources. There were approximately 8% budget cuts, and all monies have been spent. Thankfully, with the Alliance and the new All Sports Alliance club, adequate funding may be due. Thanks to Title IX, the district has given the program more money. We have made sure the money is evenly disbursed across the sports. The fall season is almost done. Girls tennis seems to be heading to finals. Girls Volleyball is in 4th place, as is boys waterpolo. Football is in 6th place; October 2 broke a 38 year losing streak. Mr. Perez is happy with Coach Bobby Madrid. Girls cross country is in 2nd place. Thanksgiving opens the basketball season.

10.4PTSA Report (Cyndi Kitagawa)

Cindy reported that PTSA scholarships will be available to students who are currently members of PTSA. Last night at the Alhambra Council meeting, one goal discussed is to promote advocacy in the community, e.g., homework issues, food quality, lunch rooms at all school sites. The parents have tried to address these issues with the district with little response. The PTSA will continue to pursue these issues in various ways. Janet Lees apparently just received a revised homework policy; this is an issue at the high school as well. Parent feedback is encouraged. Margaret Endo, chair for grad night, will distribute fliers for the dinner at MontereyPalace restaurant. Cookie sales will begin in three weeks. We also finished Homecoming last Friday; it was a short season for concessions. We served food at both the home side and the away side of the field.

10.5Fundraising Activities Committee Report (Sharon Woo)

The Alliance currently does not have a fundraising project. Ms. Woo encourages ideas. Money will need to be raised for new lockers. Mr. Katz is offering a fundraiser involving his books. Ms. Woo prefers the $5/book fundraiser offer instead of the selling books offer. She asked Ms. Love if it would be appropriate to advertise the Bruggemeyer Library book reading on the website. Ms. Love suggested that Ms. Woo contact Mr. Donnelly regarding the wording of the website notice. Ms. Woo thanked Mr. Katz for the offer of his donation.

10.6School Funding Committee Report (Sharon Woo)

The committee met and allocated the amount of $10,000. Ms. Love has asked the Office of Instruction to inventory electronic equipment donated by the Alliance. In 2007, we approved money for a Canon printer, Samsung printer, and HP printer, but they were not fully funded by us. We were given $10,000 to fund andhad a left over of $624 (after all receipts were turned in). Would it be appropriate to fully fund the three printers? The Treasurer has a copy of the receipts and amount of reimbursements. Dave Ikeda suggested we inventory the equipment from 2008 on since that was when the inventory request started. Sharon thanked the members of the funding committee: Ms. Woo chaired the meeting, with JoaniePark, Keith Matsuda, and Paul Cheung, new parent committee members.

10.7Wish List Report (Sharon Woo) – No newrequests

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10.8Lockers Report (Sharon Woo)

Currently Sandy Abe, Rowena Yau, Candy Ho, and Sharon Woo are in the committee. The school keeps track of each good locker by recording it on an index card with its combination and a student’s info on it. There’s no list of bad lockers. This week, Rowena, Candy, and Sharon recorded all the good locker numbers. The missing numbers would be the bad lockers. They looked over the broken lockers.Locker numbers of existing lockers were recorded. Some lockers were lost over the summer due to construction. Which lockers were lost and how many was not known. There was no record. Ms. Woo is contacting locker companies for potential repairs. Rusco is such a company. Rusco told her Duane Russell contacted them in 2005, and received a quote of $27,000 for 3489 lockers. We are not sure which lockers were included in this quote because Mr. Donnelly said we have 2200 lockers. Ms. Woo is creating a spreadsheet of functional lockers and broken lockers. Mr. Perez noted that there are sections of lockers with a section for trash that takes the place of four lockers. That trash section could be converted to lockers rather than be used for trash. Ms. Woo had already recorded the locations of these trash doors, which attract vermin, and plans to ask the locker person. There are sections of lockers that are 2-high and non-functional.We could replace these with 3-high lockers to get additional lockers to use. This replacement must be discussed at the district level, Ms. Love noted, as there may be restrictions regarding movement (i.e., asbestos in old walls). Dr. Bartlett noted that lockers will be needed outside the new band room in the new C building. There were no plans made for lockers in the new construction. Ms. Love noted that it might be difficult if not impossible to move lockers currently situated in classrooms (i.e., room 119). Ms. Woo added that parents have asked that if they pay for lockers, could their child have a locker. Ms. Love advised against it. The quote for the lockers will be good for only one month. Is there money in our account for lockers? No.Members were asked to think of a fundraiser for the spring to raise funds for this and for a chairperson. If there’s no spring fundraiser, profits from fireworks could be earmarked for lockers.

11.0NEW BUSINESS

11.1Nominations (Sharon Woo)

Alliance has been without a parliamentarian for some time. Sharonnominated Joe Leon for parliamentarian. Joe was our co-corresponding secretary/mentor so we need a new person to take his place. She nominated JoaniePark. We need nominations for co-recording secretary/mentor because Lisa Lum stepped down. Ms. Woo volunteered to serve as interim. Paul Chung moved and the motion passed.

12.0UNFINISHED BUSINESS - none

13.0ALLIANCE BOARD MATTERS - none

14.0ADJOURNMENT 8:17pm

NEXT MEETING:7 p.m. Jan. 27, 2010Aztec Cafeteria

Respectfully submitted by Dr. Carla Bartlett, MKHS Alliance member, on behalf of Diana Zhou, Recording Secretary