School Site Governace Meeting Agenda

Thursday, June 4th
Animo Venice Auditorium


Objective:
1. Review existing committees and goals
2. Create plans and roles for completing unfinished business before summer

• Introductions, review objectives

• Next Meeting Date: Thursday, August 20th

• Public Comments (10 min)
o Revolution Foods (15 min)

• Committee Reports— (3 min each)
 Fundraising
 End of Year Ceremony-June 6th
 Better Attendance
 Community Partnerships
 Recruitment
 Hype

• Policies to be voted on— (10 min)
 Detention Committee
 Service Learning Committee
• Report, Discussion, Motion/Vote

New Business— (20 min)
• Spanish Placement
 Do we have an adequate measurement of placing student into Spanish classes?
• Club Establishment Process
 Can we codify how to establish a club here at Animo Venice?
 What is the process for establishing official clubs?
 Who is involved in the process? When can it take place?
 How many students are needed? How do they raise / get money?
 What is their connection to ASB?
 Is there a stipend / release time for advisors?
• Master Schedule
 How can we be more transparent about changes regarding committee objectives?

• Committees Collaboration Time (10 min)
• Share Out (5 min)
• Agenda for next meeting
• Adjournment

Proposed Change to Community Service Policy

Summation of Current Concerns:

1. The mission of Animo Venice Charter High School is that we prepare students for college, leadership and life.
1. Students feel that AV curriculum needs to do more to prepare them for “leadership” and “life” since classes and projects often do not have enough real-world application.
2. Many students are not fulfilling their community service requirement of 40 hours before they graduate, because they don’t know where/how to engage in community service.

Date of Last Meeting: 5/8/09

Proposal:

• Animo Venice will offer a community service elective in which students will research, advertise and enact community service opportunities (Ms. Erickson has expressed interest in teaching this class).
• Students in the class will come up with a menu of community service options and presentations of these options for the student body
• Teachers will purposefully connect their curriculum to these community service opportunities
• Set an expectation that teachers make at lease two connections between their curriculum and community service opportunities next year.
• Take time over the summer to brainstorm community service options so teachers have time to incorporate into curriculum.
• Time will be given in PD over the summer and throughout the year to plan a service learning project in each grade level and to connect community service options to curriculum
• Set an expectation that there be a service learning project in each grade level
• Develop a “Pathway to Leadership” in which we vertical team service learning in 9^th through 12^th grade
• Plan an all-day community service field trip for ninth graders
• In 10^th grade, students have input in their community service field trip
• In 11^th grade students are given more autonomy and, in 12^th grade, students enact their own service learning (waging a “resistance” to a social injustice).

Benefits:

We will move purposefully toward our mission. Students will be empowered to go out into their communities to serve and to lead. Students will connect their learning to the “real world”. Students will have the opportunity to explore career interests. Students will fulfill their community service requirement and be more likely to graduate.

Possible Concerns:

• Apportioning responsibility:
• Logistics of summer brainstorm session
• Coordinating of elective and community service field trips
• Time for grade level meetings to coordinate service learning projects and curriculum
• introduction of grade level meetings?
• Setting expectations for staff (who and how?)

Other Questions:

Any and all suggestions, questions, or comments on this proposal can be directed to Alyce Prentice or Karlo Silbiger (aprentice@animo.org, ksilbiger@animo.org).

Proposal for Fundraising Committee

Fundraising Committee

Summation of Current Concerns:

Currently, our school’s budget has been slashed due to deficits in state funding. Our school’s ADA is being cut $200. All together our budget has been cut by almost $300,000. The principal and the budget committee had to be creative in cutting money from different line items in the school’s budget. Our committee hopes to fill in the deficits as well as create new line items in the budget that will directly benefit student achievement or student quality of life.

Date of Last Meeting: Saturday, May 9^th, 2009 NEXT MTG: Friday, June 5^th

Proposal:

A. Yard sale: we originally talked about doing the yard sale the first weekend in Sept – but that’s actually Labor Day Weekend and school starts on the 8^th right after that weekend. If we want to do the sale a week before school starts, it needs to be the last weekend in August; August 29^th and 30^th.

Since this is going to be a rather ambitious undertaking, before the end of the school year, I’d like to get flyers out to all the families to give them information when & where and to ask for donations and assistance to run the yard sale – attached is a sample flyer, let’s review and finalize what we’d like to do.

In order to collect and organize donations, I think we need to get started 1 or 2 weekends before the actual date of the sale –I don’t think we want to be doing that the day of the sale as it’ll take too long to set up. I will make some calls to the Salvation Army to get information on remaining un-sold items.

We’ll need to find out when would be the soonest we’d be allowed to start bringing donations over to the new location (on California)

B. Spaghetti Feed & Raffle: attached are samples of raffle tickets I get from our basketball club; basically consists of 2 or 3 perforated parts with sequential numbers on both parts of the tickets and a description of the drawing and prize. Planned date will be the 1^st weekend in October; October 3^rd (Saturday).

I will make some calls about party rentals for tables and chairs. This is another activity that I think we need to get flyers out early to families so we can get donations ahead of time – if we wait for school to start, with all the other things happening at that time, I don’t think we’ll have time to get notices out and to collect the donations.

C. Movie night: first showing is planned for Halloween, this year Halloween falls on a Saturday. This event will help bring in community members to our school. We can also create a concessions stand to raise more funds during the event.

D. Sports Concessions: to be further discussed after the new school year starts so we know which families will have team members to help run the concession stands. We will need to form a solid group of parents to consistently help with this. We also need strong communication between the athletic director and parents running the concessions.

Adapted from Susie Schwanke

Benefits:

This committee will help alleviate some of the cuts that were made due to the state cuts in school funding. This committee will organize and mobilize volunteers to help make each event successful.

These proposed events will not only bring in funding but will also help the school build relationships with the community.

Possible Concerns:

The sheer breath and scope of these events will be challenging. Logistically, many of these events need to come together during the summer. This will pose problems because as a committee, we will not meet regularly. Most of our communication will come via email.

Any and all suggestions, questions, or comments on this proposal can be directed to Ms. Ramos jramos@animo.org or SUSIE SCHWANKE skootterpie@aol.com.

Proposed Change to Detention Policy Detention Committee

Summation of Current Concerns: After polling both teachers and students, both groups express general dissatisfaction with the current detention system. Teachers and students agree that detention is not an effective deterrent to misbehavior, detention is not tracked nor implemented effectively, and there is concern from both parties about the efficacy of detention minutes doubling until Saturday detention is prescribed.

Proposal: The Committee would like to suggest that Animo Venice considers moving to a lunch period detention system. The detention list would be run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, student offenders would be retrieved during the announcements portion of 2^nd period on those days, given a small lunch, and moved into a classroom to serve detention during lunch. All detentions will be the full lunch period.

Benefits: The Committee feels that this system would solve many problems. The security guard or dean would be responsible for retrieving the students, escorting them to the detention room, and monitoring for the duration of detention. This will ensure that all students serve their detention in a timely manner, detention policies will be consistent as the same person will always be monitoring, and serving detention during lunch is perceived as a harsher punishment by students. This will also allow students to have the afternoons free for office hour and practice attendance.

Possible Concerns: Teachers will be responsible for being present in the detention room, as the room will move from class to class on a rotating basis, which requires teachers to be willing to give up approximately one lunch every three months. Also, as the security guard will be monitoring detention on Tuesdays and Thursdays, teachers will need to be willing to assist with lunch supervision on these days. Students may attempt to circumvent the retrieval process by finding ways to leave class early on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so all teachers will need to be diligent about maintaining the integrity of their classroom bathroom policies and the like, especially on those days.

Other Questions: The Committee is still debating what activities students should be participating in while in detention. Options include a written reflection or various discipline-related readings. We will need to decide as a staff to commit to what student offenses are detention worthy and implement with consistency, and communicate this clearly to students. We also discussed the possibility of changing the discipline reaction to free dress and dress code offenses, including the possibility of tee shirts reading “TODAY I CHOSE NOT TO DRESS FOR SUCCESS. TOMORROW I WILL MAKE A BETTER CHOICE.” for students who are taking advantage of free dress days.

Any and all suggestions, questions, or comments on this proposal can be directed to Sara Sheffer, ssheffer@animo.org.