• School Community Council Minutes

    September 17, 2024

     

    Present: John Louviere, Mason Cardon, Connie Rawlins, Lyndee Agee, Amanie Crosbie, Don Darrington, Kathryn Christiansen, Stefanie Thatcher, Teri Rhodes, Shane Jones, Brady Fonnesbeck, Kathy Bullen

     

    We were welcomed by John and the time turned over to Shane.

     

    Shane reviewed the membership on the council and suggested that we take Ryan Grunig off because he is a parent and teacher and he would be counted as a teacher. He has served several years as well.  Connie asked to be taken off the committee but Mason will stay on one more year. That will leave one teacher spot available and we have 4 parent positions available. We will send out an email to parents to see if anyone is interested and set up an election if needed and will work on getting another teacher.

    Shane asked for a nomination for Chairman for the year. Stephanie nominated John to continue and the motion was seconded by Don. All were in favor of John continuing to serve as chair.


    Shane reminded everyone about the School Community Council Training that will be on Tuesday, October 8th from 6:00 – 7:00pm. It will be a Zoom meeting and hopefully we can get some new members by then.

     

    We have a $70,000 carry over on our Trustland budget which is  more than we would like. Shane explained that the target is around 10% overage. If we have carry over for multiple years, they’ll ask why.  A lot of it has been because of wages we put to younger teachers.  We’ve had an increase in students so we would like to lower class sizes in the English classes by adding extra English sections and split the AP Physics class.  Our new Physics teacher Kade Ogden did his recruiting, took classes this summer and now has 39 students in the class.  Our AP Biology numbers are big as well.  We would like to use additional FTE towards Kasey Alder as testing coordinator. Testing space is hard to find so we will probably pull a little from TSSA and buying some computers for ELL and the Success Center.  The Amendment to the Trustland that we are proposing will include these items.



    Sky View will be going through Accreditation this year. It is done through Cognia. Shane said that this time will require some work on everyone’s part and we will need the council’s help on February 19th.  The Accreditation team will be here all day. We won’t have to do anything different, but just show what we are doing and fill out the reports.  

    We pay $1400 a year, but we don’t use much of their products, then we pay $10,000 for the year of accreditation plus expenses.  As we go through the year we will pass on reports, etc. as we get ready.

    John asked why we do the accreditation? The Admin said that it is required, but we are held more accountable to the state than to the accreditation team. Stephanie mentioned that it is also nice to have someone from the outside to do it. Don asked if the state specifies who we have to use.  We must use a regional accreditation company.


    Shane talked about something new that we are doing this year. Some teachers got together last year, decided they wanted to push the students to be in class.  They came up with having an RCK score for students. It includes expectations for students, teacher and admin.  Teachers will commit to keeping students in class, to start on time and to keep the first 10 minutes of class as sacred time. Teachers will be in hallways between bells, welcoming kids to class, helping other kids and walk around the hallways on their prep.

    Nothing has changed from a grading standpoint but an ongoing conversation with teacher and student about tardies and absences.  10% of grade can be part of RCK score. The goal is to change behavior. Mason said students are communicating more and the number of students using RCK hour is up.  John said he’s been doing a lot of research with community manufacturing and it shows that a high number of employees here in Utah don’t show up on time and don’t let employers know when they don’t show up.  They haven’t seen that anywhere else in the nation.  John commended what we are doing.  Kathy Christiansen said it is important to learn content as well as life skills. Teri mentioned that it is a compliment to public education that helps them learn those skills.

    Brady did a first data crunch with attendance with the first 7 days of school this year compared to last year.  At first it showed higher rate of absences this year - then realized that this year was different - teachers are better at taking attendance this year.  

    Mason came up with a matrix to keep RCK scores. We will see use of 3 stars - Relationships, Character and Knowledge.

     

    We need members to be on our Library committee.  They would need to review some books, some of which are district wide.  Shane said are looking to see if any parents would be willing to sit on that committee, if needed.  It’s pretty straightforward.  He asked if anyone would be willing to serve on that committee.

    John and Don volunteered  to be on the committee.  

     

    Meeting was adjourned until Tuesday, October 15th