Meeting Minutes

Meeting notes submitted by Janet Sleath 

Present:  Sam Star, Janet Sleath, Steve Havas, Pamela Pakker-Kozicki, Janet Gryczan,  Rebecca Sadinsky, Sandi Tennyson

Seven CSCA members present – Twelve CSCA members are required for a quorum. 

Meeting called to order at 6:45PM

1. Oksana was not at the meeting as she was attending a celebration for the principals and other faculty of schools who showed improvement on the recent state calibration of schools (TCS moved up from level 3 to level 5).

2.  Sam attended a recent event at Coe school at which Susan Enfield, Michael DeBell, Reuven Carlyle, and Harium Martin-Morris spoke.  At the meeting it was mentioned that graduation rate from Seattle schools increased from 67% to 73% between 2010 and 2011.  The recent survey done on behalf of the school district showed that 82% of parents/families approve of their classroom teachers, with the school board getting a lower approval rate.  Susan Enfield will be leaving in June, and the board plans to make an offer to a new superintendent by then.  It appears that Susan may have been put off by the political aspect of the job. Susan mentioned there will be more cuts coming. 

3.  At the last CSCA meeting, Oksana put in a plug for more teacher salary support from CSCA.  Aimee Bramble will call a budget committee meeting in January where this will be discussed.  Aimee and Sam will encourage new people to attend the meeting. 

4.  There was a discussion about the $5K allotted by CSCA for math tutors. The math teachers have indicated that they’re having difficulty finding math tutors and have requested that some of that money be put toward buying new graphing calculators. It was agreed that tutors are more important, particularly since tutorial time has been reduced, and that the teachers should be encouraged to use the money on tutors rather than calculators.  Families who can afford to buy graphing calculators could be encouraged to do so.  Explorations in Math and SPU may be good places to find math tutors for homework club.  Sam will talk to Oksana about the homework club. 

5. The CSCA received a check for $50 from the funds remaining after the SSIA closed. 

6.  Oksana has approx. $1500 left out of the original $5K that the CSCA gave her for building community and enforcing positive behavior. 

7.  Rebecca and Sam are planning to make calls to families who haven’t yet responded to the request to pay the enrichment fee, and are developing an appropriate script.  Janet Gryczan offered to help with making calls.   Approx. half of the families have paid so there are probably about 120 phone calls that need to be made.  We are behind on the fundraising drive.  The next fundraising event is the “warehouse” party and silent auction.   

8.  The CSCA has received $19,800 in enrichment fee revenue, plus pledges for an additional $3-4K. It’s unclear whether these figures include funds that are being given in installments.  To date we’ve received $5765 (cash in hand) from the annual fund campaign – the goal for the campaign was $7K.   

There was a discussion on whether it’s possible for the CSCA to send out an e-mail from the officers regarding the annual campaign in a different format than that used for the Blast, so we could include graphics. Steve will look into this.

9.  It’s unclear what percentage of TCS families are receiving the Blast.  We did a good job collecting e-mail contact information for the freshman, but the contact info for other classes is less complete.  The CSCA may want to consider mailing out confidentiality waivers.  Unfortunately, we can’t do an “opt-out” rather than an “opt-in” due to privacy laws.

10. The proposed amendment to the by-laws regarding giving students the right to vote at CSCA meetings if they attend at least three general CSCA meetings or committee meetings was deferred to another meeting due to the lack of a quorum.   

11.  There was a discussion regarding a proposed new standing rule stating that teachers and staff are automatically members of CSCA, that they are all welcome to attend meetings as voting members, and that they can pay the $10 dues if they chose to but are not required to do so.   It was agreed that it would be good to get an ASB representative to give a report, similar to Oksana’s, at the beginning of the meetings, so they could leave early.  The students in ASB could sign up on roster at beginning of the year for specific meetings and could receive community service hours for attending the meetings. There is probably some value in having the same kids attend regularly. 

12.  There will be an evening Open House for prospective students and their families on Feb. 9.  Liz Wolk, who is the chair of the welcome/outreach committee as well as the fundraising committee, will be there, and Sam will also attend.  After the Open House, prospective students will have an opportunity to come for a tour during the school day.  Rebecca knows of a sophomore mum who’s a parent educator and thinks TCS walks on water, and who would probably be willing to give a testimonial for TCS.  The high school nights held by the middle schools are coming up.  Each middle school organizes this differently.  Sam will check in with Liz on whether there is anything we should do for this. 
  
13.  It was noted that the Alumni brunch, which was organized by Jon Greenberg and Wynn, was held after WWU students were back in class, and that a significant number of TCS alumni go to WWU.            

14.  There was a discussion of how we could get more people to attend CSCA meetings.  It was suggested that we have 3-4 meetings per year with some kind of draw, such as a discussion about the upcoming budget, speakers, etc., in order to get people more engaged and involved.

It was suggested that the CSCA consider holding an auction based on services, such as weeding, piano playing for dinner party, etc., with maybe a few bigger items donated by businesses.  It would be good to get the students involved and have them take this home to families.  The fundraising committee will be meeting on Jan. 19th at the Uptown Café in Belltown. 

We don’t really have a community building committee (CBC) at the moment.  Instead, we have different chairs for each event that the CBC was planning to put on.  There is concern that theater night may not happen.  It was suggested that we change the monthly CSCA meetings so that the administrative part takes place in the first half of the meeting and the rest of the meeting is a discussion on building community.  The main functions of the CSCA are fundraising and building community, which in many ways are the same thing.

Meeting adjourned at 8:40 PM.