Meeting of Tuesday August 18^th 2009, 6:30pm

Attendance: Dave Weisman, Alexis Dorny, Andrea Garza, Annamarie Cole, Les Stickles, Lauren Adler, Wendy Kanter, Jeff Kirchmaier, Mitch Englander.

The meeting was called to order at 6:37pm.

1. Approval of the June 16^th Board Minutes.

• Alexis Dorny made an amendment to the minutes.
• Dave Weisman suggested that new business be noted with an asterisk in the future minutes.
• Dave Weisman motioned that the minutes be approved as amended.
• Les Stickles seconded the motion.
• The motion passed by a vote of 7-0-0

2. Fundraising Calendar

• The fundraising calendar was presented to the COT (Circle of Trustees) and was approved.
• The fundraiser at Panda Express was rephrased to be called a retail fundraiser.
• Les Stickles will try to set up at fundraiser at Chaucer’s Bookstore around the holidays.
• Luci Flint needs some help for the flea market on Saturday August 22^nd.
• Dave Weisman will contact Luci Flint and find out what she could use help with and will send out a notice through e-mail.
• The Board discussed planning fundraising events now that the calendar has been approved. This will be put on the agenda for the Parent Alliance General Meeting.
• Annamarie Cole will speak with Bev Abrams about the best way to give each classroom the $119 the Board approved last meeting.

3. Participation

a) Classroom Coordinators

· The class coordinator position is of vital importance to the school. It is one of the Parent Alliance Boards priorities to reduce the use of paper at the school. The class coordinator will be in charge of making sure that each class has a working e-mail list and that each family in that class gets the school wide information.

· Laura Smith has volunteered to supervise the class coordinators. The Parent Alliance Board believes it may be a two person job.

· Wendy Kanter will work with Laura Smith to write a description of the class coordinator position. It would be great to have at the initial teacher conferences at the beginning of the school year.

· The Board discussed how Teacher’s may need to be involved in suggesting and finding candidates to be the class coordinator. *Les Stickles will bring this up at Teachers Council.

· Dave Weisman reported that the Tuesday News will be the Wednesday News.

· The Board discussed how Teachers and the Parent Alliance will need to be involved with the class coordinators to oversee how the information gets out. There needs to be a standard protocol of who the class coordinator reports to.

· Les Stickles and Wendy Kanter will talk about this with other staff members during the in-service day on Thursday.

· The Teachers can begin to assemble e-mail lists at the initial conferences.

· The middle school students can help get the information out in hard copy to families who can not or choose not to receive communication electronically.

· Families will now have to opt out of the electronic communication to receive a paper communication.

· Dave Weisman will communicate with Laura Smith, and then write a description of the Board’s plan to reduce paper and send it out through e-mail to begin to solicit volunteers.

 

b) Sense of Community Plans

· The Back to School Barbeque is a great community building event. It is planned for September 8^th at Stowe Grove Park. Dave Weisman is responsible for this event. He would like 2-4 people to help shop and cook. Andrea Garza will e-mail Dave Weisman a small list of people that have indicated they are interested in helping out with social events.

· The form for people to indicate if they are planning to attend will go out electronically.

· The Parent Alliance Board recognized the success of serving lunch at the second work party. The Board felt that people stayed longer at the work party because of the lunch provided, and it was a very nice social time.

c) School Directory

· The Board discussed the importance of having the school directory completed early in the school year.

· Dave Weisman will ask Tracey Greganti what she thinks the best method for producing the school directory is and bring the information back to the Parent Alliance.

d) Increasing Participation

· Dave Weisman converted a form that Peabody School uses to account for parent participation.

· The Parent Alliance Board discussed the importance of creating a system to address accountability of parent participation at Santa Barbara Charter School. This form of accountability has already met with resistance.

· Dave Weisman asked that the Board Members review the form and give feedback. This item will be put on the agenda for the next General Meeting of the Parent Alliance.

· The Parent Alliance General Meeting should be held in mid September and address all the needs for participation at Santa Barbara Charter School.

e) Communication Task Force

· Sarah Stewart will not be coordinating the Tuesday News. No one is taking over.

· The web site will be more fully utilized for school communication. The office calendar will be put on the website shortly.

 

4. Updates

a) Middle School

· There will be two classes and they are completely full. There are 54 students currently enrolled in the Middle School.

b) School Lunch

· Santa Barbara Charter School has shifted its custodial group to the same one that is used by Goleta Valley Junior High.

· A brand new salad bar has been brought to Santa Barbara Charter School to be used for the hot lunch program. It will be stored between Sonia’s and Laura’s Classrooms.

· The lunch menu will be available on the Santa Barbara School Districts Website.

· Goleta Valley Junior High will handle the accounting for the lunch program.

· 5-10 volunteers a week will be needed to transport the food and make sure it gets to the children who have paid for it.

· This program could be up and running by September 1^st.

c) Parent Alliance Representation at Events Past and Future

· Dave Weisman will introduce the Parent Alliance Board Members at the Back to School BBQ.

· *Wendy Kanter and Les Stickles will discuss the best way to move forward with the buddy family program at the teacher in-service.

5. Business

a) Alternatives to Violence Funding Assistance

· The Parent Alliance Board discussed whether to provide $500 to assist with transportation and hospitality for the AVP trainers.

· Les stickles thought the program was a positive experience last year. The students who participated got a lot out of it. It was also a great source of public relations for Santa Barbara Charter School.

· The program could probably be made more specific to Santa Barbara Charter Schools' needs now that we have had some experience with it.

· The students loved it and could use what they learned to train other students.

· It was the consensus of the Board Members that this would be a good use of Parent Alliance money.

· Annamarie Cole motioned to approve the allocating of $500 to the Alternatives to Violence program.

· Andrea Garza seconded the motion.

· The motion passed by a vote of 7-0-0.

b) Homepage Posting of Parent Alliance Minutes

· The Parent Alliance Minutes for both the Board and General Meetings should be posted on the website after they are approved.

· Lauren Adler will send them to David Paris for posting on the website.

· A summery of each meeting can also be posted on the website before the minutes are approved so that the school community can have more information available on the Parent Alliance meetings.

c) Other Web Updates

· The Agendas for all the Parent Alliance meetings should go out on the list-serve in advance of the meetings.

· The Board Members discussed ways to maximize the use of the school website. The website should be better utilized to advertize for Santa Barbara Charter School.

· Mitch Englander will look into forming a small group of people interested in discussing ways to better utilize the website.

d) Treasurer’s Job Description Revision

· This item will be put on the agenda for a future Parent Alliance Board Meeting.

The next meeting was set for Thursday, September 24^th. The General Meeting will run from 6:30-8:00pm. The Board Meeting will follow from 8:00-9:00pm.

The meeting adjourned at 8:48pm.