January 2006 minutes

January 11th 2006

  1. Finance Report
    There were many thank you notes from teachers who received some of the $7016 of fall grant money. The Barnes and Noble book fair netted $1025 for CHS The amended budget was presented and approved. The carry forward from last year was about $3000 less than we assumed, so the amount for Grants was reduced in the budget from 10,000 to $7,000, leaving us $3000 to give out for Spring grants (there may be more based on the net income from our fundraising dances)


  2. Discussion about the PE Requirements concluded in a unanimously approved statement from the 20 members of the CHSPO present:
    We recognize the importance of PE, but we request that there be more flexibility and pathways available to meet the PE requirements, including school and community sports and other parent supported activities (such as ballet, crew, professionally supervised training) which have the components required by statute. Families should be able to request and have waivers approved each year of highschool, rather than wait until the student's Senior year. The current policy adds unbelievable stress to the parents and students who have full schedules of classes and makes it almost impossible to graduate!

    Health education should be required but should be allowed to be challenged by passing a written test, allowing students who have mastered the health material to be able to take a new class instead of repeat material they may know. Parents are encouraged to write to the District School Board (email via the Olympia School District web site) their opinions and comments before the meeting on January 23rd, when this will be discussed (and probably voted on at the next Board meeting). Also, please email Cynthia Wolfe at cncwolfe@comcast.net, since she will be attending the District Board meeting on Monday evening and present the parents' statements there.


  3. The first Parent Education night was on the 19th, providing a chance for parents and students to have formal and informal discussions with police, youth services, and juvenile court representatives. Free pizza dinner was served.


  4. The deadline for submitting proposals for the Spring teacher Grants will be March 1st. We need a coordinator for the Spring Grants.


  5. Committee reports
    Senior - There are over one hundred signed up for Grad Night party. The students need to get busy organizing the Prom at Indian Summer on June 3rd. Junior - Will be putting on the Father Daughter dances, April 1st and 22nd Sophomore - Raised $2500 with the no fuss fundraiser Freshman - Susan Lindskog and Teri Weaver are the parent Representatives!


  6. Grocery Vouchers
    121 have signed up with Safeway as of just November. As of January Top Foods has helped us raise $1750.


  7. Newsletter
    Many volunteers showed up for the last letter and the work was done in just 1 ½ hours! The deadline for submissions to the next newsletter is March 6th. The work party to put out the letter will be March 27th.


  8. Concern Time with Teri Poff
    Staff have been discussing switching to the semester system. A decision will be made soon. There are many reasons to switch to a semester schedule: a) All but 6 Washington state highschools are on the semester system b) Less time would be spent on working on schedules, on the semester system c) There would be more time available for a course, enabling better mastery of the subject, probably d) The WASL testing dates will always interfere with final exams on the trimester system e) The state mandated Skyward record system was built for semesters only, so our school now has to spend a lot of time trying to integrate the Skyward data with our trimester data

The main CON to switching to a semester system is that many teachers will have to adjust their curriculum.
Submitted by Cynthia Wolfe