<p> Local School Council MINUTES April 16, 2015</p><p>1. Call to Order: 4:12pm 2. Welcome and Introductions: Members present – Sharon Bray, Carolyn Wood, Renee Steckl, Brian Kish, Tim Guiney, Mario Herrera, Judge Bowden, Jennifer Kimball. Members absent – Paige Cucchi. Guest present – Griffin Kish (Grady student). 3. Approval of Agenda: 4:13pm 4. Approval of Minutes: 4:13pm a. Sharon will contact Dr. Rives to request the PPT for Math from last meeting and post that in lieu of the math information in the minutes. 5. Principal’s Report: a. Mr. Guiney will create a plan for the last two weeks of school. b. Grady Cluster planning – next community mtg. May 13, 6pm, at Maynard Jackson High School. Joint meeting with Jackson. Next committee mtg. is May 1, 8:30am, at Hope-Hill ES. c. SACS accreditation visit Sun-Thurs (6 people, begins 3:30 Sunday) Faculty meeting to deliver report 4:15pm on Tuesday. d. Prom is Saturday night! e. Budget allocations may have some ramifications on our facilities. At this point, the board has not yet voted on the reductions/abolishment plan “right-sizing” Currently scheduled to be voted on, on May 4. We are less affected than many schools, but if approved, we will lose 1 administrator; lose 1 social studies allocation (but we had a vacancy, so no one is lost, just no one new is hired); lose ½ allocation language arts but will need to increase Latin from 1.5 to 2 allocations; we gain 1 Spanish allocation. No reductions in Science and Math. Some of the flexible money was used to pick up one school clerk 1 position. CTAE lose 3, down from 12 to 9. French down from 2 to 1.5 f. May 5: Inman facilities community mtg. next proposed time g. Milestones: Apr 29-May 13. The district-created end of year test will be qualitatively different than the test from December h. Graduation update: the district is considering an early release on Graduation Friday. District is looking at logistics for a midday release for all schools with an afternoon graduation scheduled. i. Accolades: debate team took the state championship in a number of categories, GA Forensics Coaches Assn Hall of Fame. Journalism programs: GNN, Southerner (3), Nexus, Robotics qualified for world championships, Orchestra/Chorus myriad scholarships and recognitions. 6. LSC Summit report (Renee Steckl) a. LSGT (to replace local school council): 9-11 parents and community members, principals , 1 student. Spring 2016. They’ve “always wanted to have” a group with power to do something. They’ll describe it to the community and then have a vote. Does this make the group more liable if they’re making bigger decisions? b. The attendees from the Grady cluster met together and discussed different communication methods amongst the schools. All felt that communication from the school upwards has been “the biggest problem.” David White joined them and responded that no one knows how to answer questions. c. Fulton and some others are already doing this. d. Looks like full scale implementation for us will be 16-17. Need to decide if principal is a voting or non-voting member. 7. Old Business a. Master Planning Sub-Committee update (Brian) – met w/Facility (issues relating to communication bet school facility & aps), around 60 responses from teacher survey, ½ page student survey. Goal is to pull together a letter/report.5-6 floating teachers unless we get some new allocations. WE should know after May 4. Need technology in the trailers b. Elections – have begun! You can vote in the office or online. Renee and Sharon are running for re-election. Paige will not. So seat 3 is open. Mr. H proposes dropping the Required State ID and proposes signing a roster instead, so anyone can do it. School can decide how to handle identification. It’s not dictated by the district, etc. Bring ID if you have one, and sign if you don’t, with a statement certifying that you’re the parent on each page. Motion made (5:18pm) to have form including student name, parent name and signature as a state ID alternative. Teacher and Business Partner (1 yr) seats: Mr. Guiney’s process for last time seemed to work well. Bylaws say we hold elections in May, so remind Mr. Guiney at May 11 LSC meeting. Sharon will post notice on GradyGram about Business Partner position election. c. Graduation – it would be nice if there were more info given to first-time graduate families re:traditions, expectations, etc (VISIONS OF THE FUTURE, attire, ticketing/who you can invite, etc) There have been a lot of questions about tickets, what color gown, etc. Maybe a Special Edition GradyGram? d. Field Space Sub-Committee update – is going better than at last meeting e. Cluster Planning update – No decision has been made re:IB. There is an impression out there that Grady wants IB but others do not – which is not necessarily true. There is currently no clear mandate from the community re: IB, AP, STEM, etc f. Testing – AP testing starts during Milestone and then there’s the APS testing at the same time. “There is nothing but testing from Spring Break until the end of the school year.” But we’re trying to be as positive as possible.</p><p>8. New Business a. May 18, 6pm, Humans of Grady (on the FB page) and also Dave Winter goodbye party. </p><p>9. Public Comment: Q (Griffin Kish): seeking clarity re: senior schedule for last 2 weeks before graduation. Do they come to campus or go to graduation rehearsal, etc? A (Mr. Guiney): ordinarily the district would make a decision, but ours has not for this year so it’s up to the school. There are several things at stake to include attendance expectations placed on the school. Final grades have to be posted pretty much 2 weeks before last day of school in order to process HOPE and graduation processing. Mr. Guiney has questions, no concrete answers, but will have a roundtable to include some students after SACS is done to develop a solution. Conversation: Whatever’s decided, we should have an answer for students and parents as to why it’s different this year from previous years, how does this new process actually work, and what options exist (perhaps an explanation of what qualifies as excused and unexcused absences). We need to make a decision and get the word out, as rumors are flying already and nobody can plan until there is a plan and expectations have been laid out…It’s likely that this issue is not even on the district’s radar. Even if we don’t have everything sorted out, if we can make and communicate a decision about even just what the last day is, that will be helpful. 10. Adjourn 5:56pm</p>