Meeting called to order at 6:39 p.m. by co-chair Diana Ede. Quorum established.
Principal’s Report: Denise. The high stakes standardized testing is done. Student led conferences are coming up. There will be a recognition ceremony for 9 graduating seniors who have been at Polaris since kindergarten. Mark, Jamie and Margaret who have been at Polaris since the beginning and Carol Comeau, the assistant superintendent when Polaris started, will be attend. This ceremony will be a breakfast held on April 17th at 9 am. Polaris has been around long enough that a Polaris graduate now has a child in kindergarten at Polaris.
Polaris will be honoring their Volunteers of the Year. This year’s Volunteers of the year are Jeff Block, our Fall Auction Coordinator, Hilary Seitz who leads the Coffee and Conversation for K-3 parents and the internship program with UAA, as well as Alice McArdle and Deborah McLallan, library ladies extraordinaire. Not only did they organize the book fairs but have been instrumental in getting other donations for our library.
Elementary Report: Carol Bartholomew.K-6 is gearing up for conferences. They have been continuing their discussions on portfolios. K-6 teachers have been involved in conversations on the middle school transitions. Math placements have been made for next year’s middle school students, schedules have been put together and the shadowing program has been put in place. The end of the year will focus on how the year has gone and wrapping up the year.
6th Grade Transition Report: Allie. The focus has been on the shadowing program. All 5th and 6th graders who are transitioning to middle school next year will spend one morning shadowing a middle student. The secondary students who are being shadowed are all volunteers and will receive training. There will be parents’ meetings on May 21 and May 22 from 12-1:30. This will be a brown bag lunch and give parents the opportunity to have all their questions about the transition to middle school answered. 6th grade camp is now called “Transition Strategies” and, in the fall, there will be credit and a grade attached to this intensive.
There will be no graduation ceremony for elementary students entering secondary next year. Denise said that this tradition had been taken from Chugach for elementary and Stellar for secondary. Polaris, however, is a K-12 school. There’s no differentiation between elementary and secondary as separate schools. It’s a transition the students make not a graduation. This was a good time to change the tradition. Each family group will be having their own celebration of their school year and their accomplishments as a family group.
Secondary Report: Siri Khalsa. The Fall ’08 schedule for all secondary students will come out tomorrow at the all school meeting. Teachers are now looking at intensive offerings for Fall and Winter. Announcing intensive offerings sooner will all students to do more long range credit planning. Secondary students will register for Fall intensives at registration. Registration for fall classes will be by grade level take place after fall intensives. There were some behavior problems in the lounge. The lounge was closed before break. An al -secondary assembly, led by the student officers, was held to address this problem. This has resulted in an addition to the lunch proposal and the situation is much improved.
Financial Report: Kim Pigg. Financial report and proposed budget for next year were handed out. Parent Forum has unallocated funds of $4,374.02 to disburse.
Requests for funding.
- Christina, the art teacher, has $1350 to spend. She would like to purchase display panels for student art. In order to purchase 2 panels, she needs $800 more.
- The Theatre Project still needs money for lights.
- Allie is requesting $825 for the spring 6th grade camp which has the opportunity to participate in a team building exercise at Northstar. This would be a wonderful bonding experience for these students. The 6th graders are doing a fundraiser with the Alaska Dinner Factory to raise money for their intensive. The customary cookie dough fundraiser clashed with the new Wellness policy and needed to be replaced.
Jeff Friedman made a motion to fund the 6th grade camp for $1000. The motion was seconded by Deb Blouin. Motion passed. $700 will come from opportunity scholarship, $300 from unallocated funds.
Jeff Block made a motion to give $800 to Christina so she can purchase 2 art display panels. The motion was seconded by Renata Hoskins. Motion passed.
There was some discussion about funding for the Theatre Project lights. Jeff Friedman suggested we reserve money to use as matching funds when the Theatre Project do their lighting fundraiser. If lights aren’t ordered this spring, they won’t arrive in time to be installed for the fall theater production. If the lights are ordered all at once or in larger quantities, there is a reduction in shipping costs which can be significant. Deb Blouin suggested deferring this issue until the next Parent Forum Meeting. This issue was tabled until the next meeting.
Kim requested that everyone review the proposed budget. Parent Forum needs to vote on a new budget at its next meeting on May 1, 2007.
Fund Raising: Parent Forum is looking for volunteers for fundraising including the fall wrapping paper fundraiser, Fall carnival and auction, as well as someone to take over the newsletter.
New Officers: Kitte’. We will be electing new officers at the next meeting. We need to grow leaders out of our group. Kim does 3 jobs, the fall fundraiser, the newsletter and Parent Forum Treasurer. Cathy and Geoff Wright have done a lot of work with the website. We are now relying on the website to recruit volunteers rather than making phone calls. Diana is chair of Parent Forum. A co-chair is needed. Kim Pigg will stay as treasurer for another year unless someone else would like to take over. Deb Blouin has offered to be a volunteer coordinator. Jeff Block is looking to mentor someone who will take over as Fall Auction Coordinator.
Vision Committee: Vision committee met and talked about the mid-level transition. Polar Resurrection and their idea for a cook-off were also discussed. This would be a quarterly event, similar to Iron Chef, where the cooks must use a secret ingredient in their recipe. (Mango was mentioned.) Judges for this event would include 1 elementary student, 1 secondary student, 1 staff member, 1 parent and 1 guest. Voting on judges and ingredients would take place soon. A suggestion was made to compile the recipes.
Vision group is moving forward with the seminar in the fall. The course will be open to parents and students and will be taught by Denise and Bill in the fall for credit.
Volunteer: Kitte’ Miller and Cathy Wright.
Book Fair: Alice and Deb have gotten donations from various sources. The Aviators Society has donated a large number of books to our library. Volunteers are needed to help set up for the fair and to work the cash registers. There will also be a used book donation. The library will get first choice of any used books that are donated, teachers will then get to choose for their classrooms. The remainder will be taken to Title Wave and sold for credit for Polaris. Any leftovers after that will be donated.
Old Business
Trip Reports – One student reported on her trip to the People to People World Leadership Forum in Washington D.C. over spring break. She was one of 4 Alaskan students to participate.
Another student reported back from the 33rd Harvard Invitational Forensics Tournament. There were 8 rounds of tournaments in 2 days. Facing more experienced and more intensively trained teams, they took the opportunity to learn everything they could and enjoy the process. They put what they learned into good use at the state competition where the team came in 3rd in Policy Debate and took 2nd highest speaker points.
Community Service Proposal – Deb Blouin. An updated community service proposal based on feedback from the last meeting was handed out and Deb went over the handout. The proposal calls for a change in the format of the community service the students perform. It intends to get rid of the time card punching and make it more of a mission. Parents should be involved earlier in the process. If parents can’t help, students will be connected to a sponsor who will help them with their project. Students would be recognized at all school assemblies (2 per year) for their community service work. An opportunity to recognize faculty, staff and parents would be included. Check the Connecticut student volunteer website as a model. Discussion included questions on exactly how this proposal would be implemented. Could parts of it such as the bulletin board of community service projects be put into place right away? Should it wait and be rolled out in its entirety? Deb would like to keep it as a complete package and not implement it piecemeal. How would this be advertised to parents and students? Is adding 2 assemblies a year a problem? Deb sees these as being Polaris’ pep rallies. Polaris doesn’t have sports teams that compete, instead our school would come together to do community service. Would students want to be recognized with ribbons and pins?
Denise commented on the fact that this is the first parent proposal ever. The Vision Committee like it. Parents need to mull this over and give feedback. It’s clear that it needs more details, especially on how it will be implemented. Denise suggests that Parent Forum make this proposal its project for next year. Flesh it out, add the necessary details, set a time line for next year as to how this proposal will move forward.
Math Literacy – Kitte’ Nothing today.
Polaris K-12 History Project – Richard Emanuel couldn’t be here but the History Project handout was available.
New Business
Summer Playground Use. The Polaris playground will be having some of its drainage problems addressed. Exactly how is not yet certain. A trench is one possibility.
Summer Playground Get-Togethers Last summer Hilary Seitz and the Coffee and Conversation group came up with a series of Polaris get togethers at playgrounds around Anchorage. One weekday was chosen and each week a different playground was designated as the gathering spot for whoever wanted to show up to play and visit. That is going to happen again this summer. The schedule will be posted on the Parent Forum web site
New Student Interviews. See Margaret if you’re interested in volunteering.
End of School Picnic will be Wednesday, May 23, in the afternoon. This is the last day of school.
07/08 calendar: still under construction.
Back to School event. Molly Boots proposes an indoor event such as an ice cream social so we won’t be rained out again. Whether this event could be held in Polaris depends on space and cleaning issues. Date for this event is not set yet either. School starts on Wednesday, August 22.
Meeting adjourned at 8:20 pm.