IHS Site Council Meeting, Tuesday October 9, 2012

In attendance: Rebecca Hammons, Wade Powell, Stephanie Cannon, Susan Ventura, Janell Schoellhorn, Kaycee Schoellhorn, Jesse Formick (J-dizzle), Christine Pettingill, Lisa Albrich, Marilyn Curtis, Kyle Yamada, Jessica Schabtach, Joanne Moorefield, Steve Smith, Londa Rochholz, Peggy Farris

Marilyn Curtis convened and asked us to review the minutes.

Meeting Time Our first order of business was considering changing the start time to 4:15 and finishing at 5:15. Janell Schoellhorn noted that CHS and Kennedy get out at the same time and bottlenecks people coming over from there. Kyle and Christine often won’t get out of class until 3:45 at CHS on some days.

Kyle was wary of extending the meeting later and getting home later. Steve noted that we could finish earlier than 5:15.

There was near unanimous support among those present to change the meeting time beginning to 4:15.

Reports Jesse Formick reported on student government. The picnic was last Friday. IHS T-shirts are on sale. We tossed around the idea of selling T-shirts at the international fair

The parent group didn’t meet—Susan Ventura has been overwhelmed with a load of 60 Kindergarteners. The next parent meeting is Nov. 27.

Report on the IHS Assembly Steve reported that the assembly was a success. The theme this year was the Power of You(th). The students enjoyed it. Kaycee singled out the slideshow of teachers’ childhood photos.

Enrollment Total enrollment is at 983, whereas the district projection was at 944. Steve pointed out some quirks in the scheduling. For example, with 90 sophomores at Sheldon we must either have two classes of 45 of three of 30. This is in part the product of having 67 students at Churchill 10th grade and needing to split that into two classes. As a result, we lose the option of splitting the Sheldon 10th grade into three sections.

Steve noted that we could not offer a breakout Spanish Immersion class. Stephanie asked if this would impact accreditation for Spanish Immersion.

Eugene IHS EEF Grant We need to prioritize our grant proposals to increase our chances of getting funded. So we have a single proposal, the Eurasian Conference. Wade said we added a couple hundred dollars to the proposal for food and drink. This is for students who forget their lunch and brings the total proposal up to $2,400.

Jessica asked if the date of the Eurasian Conference is actually May 15, but the date has been changed. The original day was an end of trimester day at Churchill, in addition to other conflicts. There was also a misprint on the month. The actual day is March 15.

We approved the proposal. The International Studies CAM is gone, so that will be removed for the final proposal. Rebecca suggested changes to capitalization in the text.

Eugene IHS Professional Development We have two teachers, Donn Osterlund and Jocelyn Harley, who will be completing the John Saphier workshops this year and will report back to the staff.

Joanne, Deon and Christine also attended “Facing History, Facing Ourselves,” a social studies workshop. One of the goals was to get students to take more responsibility in “owning” the curriculum. There is a triangle of concepts, “think, know, act.” It is normally a multi-day workshop, but condensed into a day. The Holocaust, the fragility of democracy in Germany in the 1920s, bullying, etc. were topics explored. Joanne sees a lot of areas where we could pull individual pieces into our practice. Christine felt like is was a good experience, but not useful in itself, that it was more of a preview of useful material. Deon felt it modeled good teaching practices and not just delivered via PowerPoint.

Rebecca noted that the district is loaning out books on John Saphier’s work to those who are interested.

Eugene IHS “What we value” Steve introduced this discussion so that we can be proactive in influencing the changes that will affect our school. We broke into small groups that mixed together a variety of stakeholder groups to discuss the following questions:

 In terms of content and structure, what are the most outstanding features of Eugene IHS?  What characteristics contribute to making Eugene IHS a unique educational experience?  As you communicate with others about Eugene IHS, what are your best selling points?

Steve collected the notes from the three table groups. Christine identified “connectedness” as a major theme. There’s a structure we share across campuses. Marilyn identified “accessibility.” We have no admission requirements, and we are consistent across campuses. Rebecca identified “integration.” Wade noted that Kaycee valued the strength of the cohort group between all students, regardless of whether they take the full diploma or not. Steve concluded the meeting at 5:00, but next month we will go until 5:15. Respectfully submitted by Kyle Yamada.