Friends of SW Charter December Meeting Minutes

Friends of SW Charter School

Meeting Minutes

December 1, 2015

Dates to Remember

December 4: FoSWCS Coffee 8:30 am

December 4: Emergency Preparedness/Earthquake Committee Mtg. 8:30 am at Lovejoy Bakers in the Emery Building on SW Moody

December 7: No School ~ Teacher Visit Day

December 7: Last day for student portrait orders

December 17: SWCS Board Meeting 7:30 pm

December 17-21 Student Art Exhibit at the Geezer Gallery. Opening Night Party Thursday, December 17^th 6-8 pm

December 18: SWCS Staff Holiday Party

December 21-January 3: Winter Break

January 5: FoSWCS Mtg. 6:30 pm at Elephants on Corbett

Open Forum Community Comments

None

FOSWCS Open Questions (Elise)

We are still unclear who is taking care of scheduling restaurant nights. Juli and Aileah are happy to pass on information to a new person who wants to do it. Melissa will get in touch with Maliah. She had expressed interest.

The first meeting of the Emergency Preparedness/Earthquake Committee will be Friday, December 4^th at 8:30 am at Lovejoy Bakers in the Emery Building located in the S. Waterfront at 3159 SW Moody.

SWCS Board Report (Emilie)

Emilie attended the last school board meeting.

She talked about the emergency preparedness/earthquake committee we are putting together. The Board was very interested and enthused about the committee. Susan Hathaway mentioned our 8^th grade community service requirement and suggested this might be a good opportunity for students.

Emilie has done some research on earthquake preparedness for schools and she will share this information at the earthquake committee meeting.

Our building is up to the most current earthquake conditions.

Our Oregon Department of Education (ODE) rep came to the board meeting to discuss the new framework for teacher and administrator evaluation.

The ODE will also be trying to resurrect SB819 which was defeated in July 2015. This bill would offer charters in Oregon more equitable funding by increasing the percentage of dollars charters receive.

Sarah Mutal asked for the Board’s help securing sponsors for our annual auction.

Seventeen Lewis & Clark students from their place-based education program recently visited SW Charter. It was a very successful meeting.

We now have the equivalent of 1 FTE special education person on staff.

Board Committees have begun their work again. The committees are: teacher retention, mission, fundraising, and facilities. These committees came out of the board’s strategic planning retreat.

Jessica Nichols is chair of the board fundraising committee. They are exploring sustainable, large scale fundraising. This fundraising would not be replacement for our annual auction.

Art Exhibit and Staff Holiday Party (Melissa)

Staff Holiday Party — The holiday party will be Friday, December 18^th. Again, we will supply food and drinks. Parents can bring in food to school during the day on Friday, Dec 18^th. Party will be at Nesa’s house for about 22 people. Elise will send out a sign-up genius via the Friends blog and a community-wide email from Marlene. Donated alcohol can only come to school on Friday, December 18^th and must go immediately in Anne’s office.

Art Exhibit — Melissa and Jenny are planning a student art exhibit at The Geezer Gallery December 17 – 21. They have given us their two showrooms in the Emery Building. 70% of the profits from the art sale will go to us and 30% will go to the Geezer Gallery. The art opening for school family and friends will be Thursday, Dec 17^th from 6-8 pm. Verde Cocina will provide food. Juli will check with Sarah Mutal about wine for the art opening. Promo stuff will go out through Geezer Gallery. We will have a sign up coming out soon.

Mini-Grants (JoLea)

Last year we budgeted $1000 for (5) $200 mini-grants for teachers. This year JoLea sent out an email to staff, but no one turned in an application. Amanda thinks $200 is too little to make a difference. Anne will generally okay small, one-time purchases that these grants would cover.

After much discussion, we decided to table this topic and have the Friends Board discuss at a later time.

We may consider raising the amounts of the grants to (2) $500 grants.

We also have questions regarding what we envision staff using the money for. Some expressed reluctance in using the grants for technology such as classroom iPads. Some feel technology purchases should be handled by the school and also wondered how solidly grants for technology have been explored. In addition, the school has no one on staff to maintain technology.

We are also unsure how to select grant winners if we have more applicants than grants. What parameters would be used to determine who receives the grants?

Marta is interested in getting canopies for the outside gym area.

Adrienne also mentioned that we should document how the grants are being used.

JoLea will talk with Amanda about teacher needs.

Auction (Juli)

Aileah contacted ArborBrook Vineyards in Newberg. After looking at the school’s website, the winery decided to become our wine sponsor! Elephants Deli will still be our wall of wine sponsor, but ArborBrook will be our main wine sponsor.

On December 29^th, Sarah Mutal and others will be driving down to Newberg to pick up the cases. Sarah will send out an email if anyone wants to join in and do a wine tasting.

Next Adventure upped their sponsorship this year! In addition to a sponsorship, they will provide a kayak trip and a stand-up paddleboard!

Zidell will be our presenting sponsor again this year! Thank you!

We are still in need of classroom auction art coordinators for teachers Megan and Lisa.

Auction tickets will go on sale earlier this year.

Juli is looking for new ideas for the auction. In the past we have done golden tickets, but we also considered the idea of a raffle of a vacation package. This might be something to do for the spring online auction.

We also talked about games that can be played after the silent auction, but before dinner and a super silent auction wall where 10 more expensive items can be bid on. Someone would have to manage that area.

Usually restaurant gift cards have been sold at face value on the make it mine board. But Juli has seen that other auctions are putting restaurant gift cards in their silent auction and get bid way up.

Although we ask families to procure one item and donate one bottle of wine to the auction, we don’t get as much participation as we would like. Juli asked if we thought it would be better to give community members the option of procuring an item or donating money in lieu of an item. Money donated could be put toward bolstering live auction items such as Alaska Airlines gift cards for travel packages. We might be able to have a way for people to donate through the auction software. We want to make it as easy as possible and have a wide range of monetary options so that most families will be able to participate.

Student Directory (Adrienne)

We’re still working on the student directory. Elise and Adrienne will meet with Anne and Suzanne tomorrow to see how we can use the school’s information rather than collecting it on our own. There needs to be something on a beginning of the year form that asks people to be in the directory. It would be an opt-out situation.

Financial Update (Elise)

Elise won’t have a financial report from Karen until next week.

So far this school year we have earned: