Friends of Southwest Charter School

Meeting Minutes

February 3, 2015

Elephants on Corbett 6:30 – 8 pm

Dates to Remember:

• February 5th  –  FoSWCS Coffee 8:30am
• February 5th  –  Wall of Wine Collection Begins
• February 9th  –  Auction Tickets go on sale online
• February 16th – Presidents Day, No School
• February 26th – Classroom Art Project Preview, Great Room
• February 28th – Annual Auction, @ The MAC, 5pm
• March 3rd FoSWCS Meeting @6:30pm Elephants Deli

Open Forum Community Comments

On January 28th, Katt Beckley attended the first meeting of Portland Charter School Parents. This group is working to spread awareness regarding the large discrepancy between money allocated for each PPS student vs. each Portland charter school student. They are also trying to get teachers better salaries so that we can retain quality staff.

What we can do to improve equity:

• Eliminate 20% administrative oversight costs
• Receive access to local taxes or bonds

The group would also like to increase the numbers of low income and diverse students. It is hard for charters like ours to attract low income students because we don’t offer transportation or hot lunch.

Kathy said there is a PPS bus from Capitol Elementary that comes to pick up 2 kids in the S. Waterfront.

Statistics have shown that every year there are more and more students who want to attend charter schools. More parents want choices.

At SWCS, 20% of students would qualify for free or reduced lunch. But we don’t get many parents turning in the form.

Next meeting of this group will be Thursday, February 5th at Alliance Charter in Oregon City. Childcare is provided.

Playground Safety Committee

Elise, JoLea and Kathy are organizing a clean-up of the playground area.

Some of the things they’d like to do:

• Put the compost tumblers in storage
• Relocate worm bin
• Remove garbage and milk cartons
• Hang up the chalkboard
• Re-paint the 4-square lines. Possibly add another court.
• Explore how to keep screen in the drain clear.
• Explore adding a wall to keep the woodchips in the garden area and/or push back the bark chips towards chickens.

We have some motivated 5th & 6th grade girls who are excited about beautifying the play area. Kathy helped them research it and they turned their proposal into Anne.

Buddy Bench is now named Map (Meet and Play). Harmony and her husband will paint it.

Brittany and Elise are working on the yearbook. They like Peekaboo. Tentatively, they have planned for a 40-page softcover for $15 and we will sell for $20. Money earned from yearbook sales to families will cover purchasing yearbooks for the staff. Each teacher will submit a paragraph for the yearbook. Brittany and Elise will work with Kathy on student cover art competition. There will be special pages for the graduating middle-school students and a timeline of important local, national and international events.

Board Retreat Update – Aaron

Two Saturdays ago, the School Board had a retreat at Edgefield from 8 am – 5:30 pm. Their goal was to identify the 3 biggest things the school wants to focus on in the next 5 years. They came up with 4:

• Facility – looking for the next building, how much to put into our current location
• Fundraising from outside the community,
• Teacher retention
• Revising our mission statement; Branding our school for what we really do.

The School Board’s fundraising committee will get together this Thursday at McMenamins on Hawthorne. The Board needs someone who knows how to get the big money.

Staff Appreciation Committee Update – Melissa

Random Act of Kindness week is February 9 -13. Mike’s class are making posters that inspire kindness. They’re also going to do cards and deliver them to anyone they want.

If anyone wants to do something in a classroom, get in touch with Melissa. Several people said that would try to put something together for classrooms.

Kathy has some supplies to make mobiles, etc.

Crafternoon

Liz, Melissa and Carrie will coordinate.

We’d like to schedule for Sunday, April 12. Christina will run the date by Anne.

We’ll put the message out to parents and teachers to see who would like to manage a crafting station.

We’d also like the kids to participate by either managing a crafting station or selling their handmade creations.

Aaron suggested checking with Home Depot to see if they would donate kits.

We’ll serve light snacks – apples, popcorn.

Auction – Carrie

We’re thrilled with the amount of procurement that everyone has done! Thank you!

Carrie will be scheduling get-together at her house to go over and group auction items.

Sarah M. is rockin’ the sponsorships.

Sarah Anderson will be speak on auction night and will be bringing back alumni to speak.

Elephants has donated 5 cases of wine for the tables!

School Board has decided that this year’s auction monies will go towards funding the Field Work Coordinator position, IT, and school counseling services.

Jonathan will MC. Kathy will be Vanna.

We need helpers on auction night to bring silent auction items downstairs to bagging area.

Financial Update

Nicki could not attend tonight.

We raised more with Pizzicato’s Dough for Dollars this year than last year. We’ll have another Pizzicato fundraiser coming in March.

Hopworks Restaurant Night is on Monday Feb 9th from 4-11 pm. You need to mention SWCS for 20% to go to school.

Fulton Pub said no to a restaurant night this year! We’re going to ask Cha Cha Cha, Little Big Burger, Hillsdale Pub, or Raleigh Hills McMenamins.

Final Community Comments

The first All School Lunch will be Friday, February 7th. We need 3 parents to help for 1 hour from 12-1 pm. Everyone is going to eat at the same time. Christina, Carrie, Mandy and possibly Melissa volunteered to help out.

Google Docs version of February 2015 Minutes