Teller CSC Meeting Notes – May 2, 2017
Participants: Patrick Kraft, Ryan Archuleta, Kirpal Singh, Andi Miller, Lynn Kutner, Monica Sawyer, Eve Burton
Guests: Laurel Hollenbaugh (Discovery Link and Enrichment Supervisor)
Start Time: 5:00pm
End Time: 6:30pm
Discussion Items
Topic / NotesWelcome two new parent representatives on the CSC / ○ Eve Burton is one of two new CSC parent representatives and joined us tonight.
○ Melita Jones is the other new CSC parent representative and was not able to attend tonight’s meeting.
Budget update / The budget for 2017-18 is looking tighter than we thought back in January/February. Going into next year with a $45k operating budget; a healthy operating budget is $120k.
● Entire staff is working to maximize carry-forward $ to bring into next year (pinching pennies)
● Hoping that final student enrollments next year will actually put us a few students over our enrollment estimate (we have a waitlist in every grade but 4th).
● Why are we here?
○ We hired a genre studies role that was not budgeted for.
○ Also some large purchases made that were not accounted for in last year’s budget.
○ Backwards planning days, during which each genre study units got mapped out for teachers, incurred substantial sub costs (7 backwards planning days, with 15 subs per day).
Position Vacancies for 2017-18 / Sabrina provided an update on progress toward filling all positions that were budgeted for in the 2017-18 school year:
○ Will be interviewing and hiring for an Assistant Principal. The first round of interviews will be conducted by the Personnel Hiring Committee. Likely will interview 5-6 candidates. The top two candidates will interview with Sabrina (as principal) and the Instructional Superintendents, as well as a building walk-through. So far, we’ve received 3 resumes. Hoping to hire by end of May.
○ Hiring for a .5 4/5 teacher – has been offered to an exciting candidate.
○ Still looking to hire for the 3rd grade position (Ms. Sparks’ position).
○ Dana Bell will be taking the 1st grade opening (Ms. Evans’ position).
○ Katrina Swanson, who has been student teaching with Ms. Lang, will take the Kindergarten opening (Ms. Moloo).
○ We interviewed candidates for a 1.0 HGT position. We thought we’d found a candidate for the role. There is another candidate who we are confident that this person will be warmly received.
○ Ms. Taft will job-share with another art teacher (Jennifer Crawford) next year.
○ Also in 1st grade, Ms. Mazooji, will be job-sharing with Karen Ryan. Both candidates would prefer part-time roles, though Ms. Ryan will assume the full-time role while Ms. Mazooji is out on maternity leave.
○ Gabby’s role has been hired for in the front office.
○ Fred Gonzalez (Facilities Manager) is retiring.
○ Pearl (our custodian) also is leaving to take on another role.
○ Most paras are staying, though we have 2 para openings (one due to retirement and one in a position that is currently unfilled). We are considering hiring a para that specializes in restorative justice.
Sabrina plans to share an update on staffing with the entire Teller community toward the end of the school year, once hiring decisions are finalized.
Master School Schedule for 2017-18 / Sabrina and Laurel Hollenbaugh (Discovery Link and Enrichment manager) have been working to solidify the master school schedule for next year by the end of the year.
○ The goal is to keep this schedule for at least 2 years (the schedule has changed each of the last three years).
○ The CSC reviewed 2 options for next year’s schedule. Key changes reflected in both are:
■ Longer lunch/recess block, with some overlap as one grade finishes lunch and the next begins; no longer requiring students to remain in the lunchroom for 20 minutes (instead, requiring them to stay for 10 minutes)
○ Note: There will be some tweaking that will have to happen around how these transitions take place during the first month of the school year, so patience will be needed as this gets fine tuned.
■ There will no longer be multiple recesses during the day, but there will be regular “brain breaks” throughout the day.
■ Writing is explicitly reflected as its own block on the schedule.
■ Pride time is shortened from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, but new resources will be made available to help teachers better understand and effectively utilize that time.
Next Steps / ○ Next year’s CSC will need to finalize/update the Teller CSC bylaws.
○ Minutes/notes from April 25 “Teller Talks” meetings need to be posted
● The slides from the sessions need to be posted.
● Lynn will write up notes about suggestions for future meeting topics, as raised by meeting participants.
● Sabrina will ask Gabby to post the slides and notes.
○ Next year’s CSC meetings
■ We are going to hold off setting the regular meeting day/time until the start of the school year.
○ Thanks to CSC members who are ending their CSC terms this year:
■ Ryan Archuleta
■ Patrick Kraft
■ Kirpal Singh
■ Kate Smiles