We will be holding our first site council meeting of the year.
Site Council Agenda
- Welcome and reconnecting
- Questions or concerns raised by Parent Groups
- Site Council Beginning of Year Tasks
- Review role of site council By Laws
- Calendar – determine when and how frequently we meet
- Subcommittees – this year
- Review Decision Making Grid
- Outline a work plan for the year
| Site Council |
| The Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century (House Bill 3565) mandates that schools will create 21st Century School Councils which consist of parents, administrators, classified district employees, and certified employees. The district’s guidelines for site-based decision making state, “Each school will have a site council composed of stakeholders that work together collaboratively and cooperatively to plan programs, make operational decisions, consider curriculum issues, adopt building policies, and rules. Each site council determines what decisions it will participate in making.”
Site-based decision making is a participatory, decentralized form of school governance and organization in which the major decisions are made by those closest to the students and classroom, including building staff (administrators, teachers, and classified), and parents. Site Council Representatives’ Commitments:
Site Council Representatives
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Notes
- Questions or concerns raised by Parent Groups
- Parents had positive comments for staff and how they were doing such a good job during CDL
- There was a concern that people might have been going on site and taking things from the Silverlea site. One particular item of concern was the bench that used to sit at the front of the school. The bench has been moved to YG’s new location. Incidentally, the YG sign was also moved to the YG site, but the structure on which it hung was not moved. We are working with the artist who created the original sign so she can restore it, and we are working with 4J to build a new structure to hold it once it is restored.
- There were some parents who were uncertain about how their young students would adapt to distance learning, but they were pleasantly surprised with how well they are doing. There are still some concerns about having so much screen time.
- There was also a question about how parents could support teachers during zoom time. At this time, we are not permitted to have any volunteers helping to manage our Zoom meetings, but we are hoping that will change. In particular, we would hope that in the future, we could, at least, have guest speakers from the community talk with our classes during distance learning.
- Several parents have expressed concerns about the amount of “screen time” their students are experiencing each day. Parents can make their own decisions about how much screen time their children are exposed to each day. Activities can be done off line.
- A few parents have expressed concerns with children getting headaches seemingly from too much zoom time. A related concern was over the way students were sitting and viewing their screens, and what could our school do to help students with ergonomics: could the school share more information on the best ways to set up the learning environment at home (e.g., neck/head angle, distance from screen, lighting).
- Site Council Beginning of Year Tasks
- Reviewed the role of site council and reviewed the By Laws
- Amended the bylaws to:
- change the time of the meetings to begin at 3pm instead of 3:15
- restore the role of supporting professional development for staff
- Subcommittees – this was tabled until the next meeting.
- Review Decision Making Grid – this was also tabled.
Outline a work plan for the year
The council agreed to develop a work plan for this year to address the following:
- How to make the new school environment feel more like our own community or feel like our “home.”
- Focus on opportunities given the current situation to do things that would have been difficult to do during normal times. Repairing taiko drums was an example. YG will look for options for repairing the taiko drums.
- Build a sense of community. We will be looking for ways to encourage and enhance a sense of connection. Some ideas that were brought up: would it be possible to hold group activities (online like class reward party with facilitated games or activites) or doing something like an online movie night.
- How to ensure students were continuing to advance academically and socially.
- Developing a process for our school community to determine our permanent location.
Agenda for next meeting
- Stakeholders Reports
- Admin
- Teachers
- Classified
- Families
- Old Business
- Review Decision Making Grid
- New Business
- Develop a work plan for the year