MIT Meeting Minutes

Date:

(Minutes not official until approved by the MIT Board.

Board Members in Attendance:

Principal: Lynda Fischer
Primary rep: Annie Rueda Brown
Vice-principal: Craig Baldwin
Primary rep: Geoffrey Mattens
Co-chair: Erika Jennings
Int rep: Heather Freeman
Co-chair: Steve Escandon
Int rep: Diana Jackson
Co-chair: Brad Proffit
Middle school rep: Shellette Dubois
Treasurer: Linda Hood
DHH rep: Christian Heydemann
Asst. Treasurer: Marikay Gillingham
Communications Director: Allan Townsend
Recorder: Karie Dostert
Volunteer coordinator: Kim Magana
Co-recorder: Sara Pearson
CPC rep: Kory DeMun
Parent enrichment: Lisa Miller
Scrip: Linda Park

I. Welcome and Ratification of Board

A. The meeting was called to order at 7:10 PM. Staff introduced themselves, followed by introductions from the incoming board.

B. Ratification of the Board: Before business could begin, the elected and appointed board needed to be ratified. A motion was made and seconded to ratify the elected board. Elected Board was ratified at 7:16 and the appointed members were ratified at 7:17, through a vote of the membership.

C. Community Building Exercise - Erika Jennings lead the meeting in a Community Building Exercise centering around gratification. Many members of the board and parents expressed their gratitude in a variety of ways. Personal, professional, educational thanks were given.

II. Innisbrook report – Erin Vasser

(Moved up from later in the agenda)

A. Erin introduced the Innisbrook program, stating that the goal this year is to earn $20,000. Packets are going home with Students on Friday.

B. Gone Green: Erin informed the group that Innisbrook has “gone green” – the majority of paper is created from recycled materials, all products are recyclable after use, 70% is made in US, and all literature is printed on recycled paper. High quality is still there, but now it’s green. They have taken steps to reduced the amount of paper in packets and have done away with carbon-copy order forms. Erin reminded parents that students may not take orders from strangers. We get 50% of profit.

C. Web Orders: There is now and easy to use order system on the web. Participants enter all info online, print out a voucher sheet and hand in with the money.

III. General Reports

A. ASB Representatives – BJ not present, but Steve reported on the elections held on Monday. New student representatives are:

Alex Zucoi (sp?)– Pres

Harrison Baxter – vice pres

Emily Craig - secretary

Jackson Fair – treasurer

B. Principal and Vice-Principal – Lynda Fischer / Craig Baldwin

1. Lynda stated that the hot topic of the year is math. The new curriculum is more challenging for Madrona due to multi-age structure. Teachers and staff will be keeping track of all experiences and will look for places to make modifications. Lynda stated that it will take about a year to figure it out and is begging parents for a little patience. There will be another District meeting to explain the curriculum – Lynda is waiting on the date; maybe early October.

2. Lynda also discussed the umbrella goal this year: exploring creativity. There will be a video from the author of Out of our Minds shown at the October MIT meeting .

C. Co-Chairs – Erika Jennings / Steve Escandon / Brad Proffit

3. Steve – just a thanks for being here. We want your continued support. Hope to see you again.

4. Brad – wants to bring MIT back to what it used to be – parent-teacher cooperation in support of the school and the students.

5. Erika – welcome any emails about things that you are working on/questions/comments. If anyone has any question or would like to be added to the email list, please email Erika Jennings at empathic_negotiation@hotmail.com.

D. Treasurer – Linda Hood

1. Linda stated that MIT has a healthy balance sheet this year, with a lot of money in the bank. There are currently about $52,000 earmarked for classrooms ($21,500 for Restricted funds, which is Children’s theater).

2. A note about the profit/loss statement – Looks like we made a profit last year, but it’s money that we collected for camp last year, but didn’t pay until after the fiscal year. So it looks like we made a lot of money last year and are in the hole this year.

3. Replacing pizza feeds with MIT Grants, which pays for things around the school, including new chairs for library, new playground equipment for little kids, new computers and calculators for middle school.

4. Entertainment Books: Starting at the end of Oct., we’ll be selling Entertainment Books to fund an artist in residence program. Each book is $25, 50% of which goes to the artist in residence program.

E. Volunteer Program Manager – Kim Magaña – Kim reminded all parents to get their volunteer paperwork in, every year. She encouraged all parents to get involved in some capacity.

F. Parent Representatives

1. Primary – Annie Rueda Brown reported that curriculum night was well attended. SND is preparing for their autumn Olympics. Geoffrey Mattens reminded everyone to email him or Annie with any questions concerning the primary grades.

2. Intermediate – Diana reported that the classrooms have split up for math into levels – and it is going well. The Giving Tree will happen again this year during the holidays. Last year Madrona supported 19 families, about 79 actual people. Diana encouraged everyone to to think of ways to get the kids more involved with the program, so that kids are empowered and learn about the benefits of service and helping others.

3. Middle School – Shellette reported that the middle schoolers are going to camp on Oct. 15th and are doing a Fair Trade fundraiser for the remainder of the week.

4. DHH – No report tonight.

G. Communications Director – Allan Townsend

1. Allan reported that he continues to work hard on the website, madronabearfacts.com. This website should be a resource for parents, staff and student. He happily announced that this year he is not doing it alone – he has created a webteam with parents and teachers. The new volunteer parents are Chris Steed, Lori Elliott, Donna Nakashima, Jay Paul Freydenmaker, and Monica Edwards.

2. He also reminded everyone that Scrip could be purchased online through PayPal. Although using PayPay costs the school slightly more, the hope is that more parents will purchase scrip if they can use a credit card. Let him know how it’s working.

3. There was a brief discussion about how to keep the website as secure as possible, given that there is student information posted. Allan assured parents that children are not identified by name on the Bearfacts website. All individual class websites are managed by the district and parents must agree to have student information posted. He encouraged everyone to email with questions/comments, etc: info@madronabearfacts.com

H. Committee Representatives

1. CPC – Kory DeMun, Citizens Planning committee –Kory provided a detailed discussion about what the group does. They meet once a month to discuss district-wide issues and present them to the board. There are 3 main business items they are working on this year.

a. Food service – the school district needs to cut their costs and address the deficit from last year. They are still keeping the limit of $10 per child. No resolution yet, but it’s still being discussed. There is a good letter of explanation on Edmonds school district webpage.
b. Bussing. Kory is in this sub-committee. Again in an effort to cut cost, the district is discussing a hub system, where students would either drive or bus to a ‘hub’ school and then transfer onto a bus to Madrona. A discussion followed about the drawbacks of the hub system. The district will be tracking ridership in Oct. They also come into the parking lot and track the parking congestion. They are trying to ridership and are looking at ways to do that.
c. Enrollment and boundary issues: The subcommittee is investingating the potential impact of the following closures and consolidations: Closure of Woodway school and Evergreen in 2009; consolidating Terrace Park with Brier Terrace. This would leave Madrona and Maplewood as last K-8 schools in the district.
d. Kory reminded parents that all meetings are public and they can attend at any time. The schedule will be posted on the website.

2. Safety – Call for volunteers to attend next meeting (Thursday Oct. 2nd at 9am). There was a handout to remind everyone of parking lot procedures. 270 cars go through in 10 minutes in the morning, so everyone needs to follow the rules for it to work.

3. All for Kids – Lisa Hollek absent so Linda Hood stepped in. The goal is to raise $20,000 this year. This is the opportunity for parents who do not want to fundraise or purchase scrip to simply give money to the school.

4. SCRIP – Linda reported that this is our 3rd major fundraising arm at Madrona. We raise $14k-$16k a year with the scrip program. A flyer will be coming home soon. Linda sells SCRIP on MWF by the office. We cannot reload the cards.

VI. Events

1. Bear scare – Saturday Oct. 25th, 6-8pm. ASB is going to do Haunted House. This year there will be a $3 fee per child, adults and volunteers are free. Discussed the possibility of using “presale” and “day-of” tickets. Annie Rueda Brown brought the Green Halloween idea before the group. She passed around a handout from the Green Halloween lady encouraging parents to think of other options besides candy to hand out during Halloween.

2. Spring lecturer ideas: Erika asked that parents/staff email ideas they may have about potential speakers/topics. Does anyone know a speaker that could discuss media literacy?

3. Art Walk/Italian Soda social – Lynda mentioned that she would love to have silent auction as an art supply fundraiser on the same night.

4. Brad announced that there would be no Family Dance this year. Instead they will focus on Carnival this year and alternate every other year with the Family Dance.

5. Scheduling conflicts on Dec. 11th and March 24th were discussed but it was decided to keep the MIT meeting dates firm.

IV. Cafeteria Scholarship proposal

Linda Hood discussed a new cafeteria scholarship proposal. Until last year, MIT had a budget to cover for students who couldn’t afford lunch. She suggested that we reinstate a $100 line item in the budget to pay for these students. After a discussion, a motion was made and seconded to reinstate the $100 line item. All were in favor and the $100 line item was reinstated through a vote from the membership.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.

Madrona MIT

Madrona K-8 Nongraded School