 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||
School Board
Anthony Botello, Chair
School Board Anthony Botello 07P –0660, 8 Meadow Drive, abbotello@hotmail.com Nolan Schoo -07 -5282, 901 South C, Nolan@compunetwork.net Sharon Blackmer –08S-9142, 449 Whitetail Dr., sharonblackmer@yahoo.com Russ Lindsley -08 -2192, 403 S. Florence, russ_lindsley@msn.com Chad Frei -09 -3991, 24 Ashley Place Karla Krogh -09 -0904, 28 Meadow Drive, kkrogh@syringahospital.org Laurie Rockwell -09 –3496, P.O. Box 725, rockwell@connectwireless.us
Home & School Carla Wilkins P -1223, 297 Lake Road, wilkins@mtida.net Karla Krogh VP -0871, 28 Meadow Drive, kkrogh@syringahospital.org Carrie Kaschmitter S-0207, 510 South B, CarrieKasch@msn.com Laurie Rockwell T -1792, P.O. Box 725, rockwell@connectwireless.us |
 |
May 18, 2009 Dear Parents, Happy spring to all parents and students of SPPS! We can tell by the atmosphere at the school that the kids are getting very excited in anticipation of Summer Vacation! The School Board met last Thursday evening for our regular scheduled monthly meeting and had a great discussion of ongoing and upcoming School business. Our regular meeting came at the heels of a special meeting we had with the SPPS teachers on April 30. The meeting with the teachers was agreed upon by Fr. Brad, Mrs. Groom and the Board to give the Teachers an opportunity to share their impressions on the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the School. The Teachers meeting was very informative, and gave the Board an opportunity to know the teachers better and get to see the school from their perspective. This meeting further confirmed what the Board already knew, that we are thankful for having committed, caring and dedicated teachers at our School. At the meeting last week, the teachers reported on a book we recommended Catholic From The Inside Out, and to share with us their and Mrs. Groom’s plans for next steps for developing a Pedagogy, revising a mission statement, summer teacher workshop and other positive steps to think about prior to next school year. The subject of the Dress Code/Uniform policy at SPPS has been a topic of discussion brought up during the SWOT exercise. The Board has committed to developing action items to respond to parent’s comments or issues with the Uniform Policy at the School. Mrs. Laurie Rockwell requested time on the agenda and joined our meeting to discuss the SPPS Uniform Policy. This was a great opportunity for the Board, Principal, Teachers, Fr. Brad and a parent to engage in a healthy discussion about the current situation and proposed future of the dress code at the School. Most agreed that the Dress Code as written in the Student-Parent Handbook is a good start, and provides a good framework for appropriate and professional dress at SPPS. Most, however, believe that this Dress Code could use some updating due to current issues and provide more specificity in defining what is appropriate dress and when and how many non-uniform days are appropriate in the future. The Board agreed to do additional research and draft a revised Dress Code by the end of May, allow parent’s ample time for back-to-school clothes buying if needed. The next topic discussed was School Board member term expirations. At the end of this year, three Board Members terms will expire. Steve Frei, Ron Frei and Bettie Ruzicka will have served their three year terms, and the Board is very grateful for their hard work and passion for the School. The School Board Constitution and By-Laws articulate a process for electing new members, and the Board set about to put that process in motion. The School Board is to nominate three (3) candidates for an election, and the Parish/Parents are to nominate three. The Board initially nominated all the Members whose term is expiring, and Steve and Bettie have agreed to run for re-election. The Board generated a list of additional nominees, and contact will be made with these individuals as to their willingness to serve. Additionally, nominees were solicited at both Masses this past weekend, and the Board has a lot of great nominees for School Board. There were 157 nominee forms handed out to parishioners to nominate up to three candidates per adult this weekend. There were 141 forms returned with an average of 2-3 names on each, so between the two Masses there were well over 300 names nominated for School Board! Of those nominated, the overwhelming support (at least as evidence of nominations) was for the three incumbent Board members. Steve Frei was nominated 52 times, Ron Frei was nominated 28 times and, Bettie Ruzicka was nominated 29 times. In addition there were 10 or so parent/ parishioners nominated with multiple nominations. The Board will work this week in contacting these nominees to inquire about their willingness to serve. Once the Board has six (6) willing nominees, we will recommend these names to Fr. Brad for general parish elections held either next weekend (Memorial Day), or possibly the following weekend due to potential out of town families. Please be thinking about the next three years of SPP School Board and nominate a candidate to any School Board member this week, and please vote for who you think would serve the School for the next three years. Mrs. Groom provided great information to the Board in her Principal’s Update, including a balanced budget for 2009/2010 school year. She also discussed 2009/10 student enrollment. There could be a scenario where the class size objectives could be exceeded in a classroom for next year, prompting dividing classes or making some other adjustment. The Board agreed to convene a special meeting in the summer if needed to address this situation as Mrs. Groom gets updated enrollment information. Mrs. Groom gave the Board updates on Artists In Residence program, MAPP testing, Leadership Conference attendees and busing. Additionally the Principal asked the Board for a recommendation on a standard recourse for late and overdue library books, specifically at the end of the school year. The Board agreed on a standard replacement value of overdue/lost library books, and that students/parents would have to reconcile library fines prior to receiving commencement privileges, and/or registering for next year. Mrs. Groom also reported on an informal survey of parents regarding the Hunger Banquet and that the majority of parents support for that program. We do not have a regular scheduled Board meeting until August, but will be meeting on an as needed basis to wrap up the above mentioned topics prior to next school year. Sincerely,
SWOT Implementation Schedule Phase 1
March 9, 2009 If you have not heard, the SPPS Board is pleased to announce the addition to our Parish and School family with the birth of Presley Taylor Schoo, born March 4 to Dawn and School Board member Nolan Schoo. Dad reports that baby and mother are doing well, and Presley’s brothers love having a little sister. The School Board met last Thursday, and discussed several topics that may be of interest to you. We discussed two Action Items as a part of the implementation SWOT. A Board member reported on visits he made to observe three SPPS classrooms last month. As you recall, the Board recognizes that to better understand the strengths and opportunities at our School, we should visit classrooms and observe the curriculum, classroom activities, student behavior, etc. These visits have been made by almost every Board member, and have provided a great opportunity to observe our School first hand, and discuss school topics with students and teachers that otherwise may not be apparent to Board members. We spent a fair amount of time discussing another SWOT action item, which is the Action Item of the School Board sponsoring two SPPS students to a “Leadership Camp” this summer. The Board has developed an application that for all 7 th grade families for consideration. The Camp is open to 7 th and 8 th graders who would like to develop their leadership skills to consider attending the camp, and the Board encourages any SPPS students in these grades to consider attending. We feel strongly enough that leadership, within our students is very important, that the Board will sponsor two 7 th grade students and pay the tuition for this camp. We feel that sponsoring 7 th grade students is important, in that these students will come back and be leaders at our School for their final year at SPPS. Scholarship winners will be asked to make a presentation to the staff and students of SPPS, summarizing their experience at the Camp. The Leadership Camp is June 15-18 2009 and located near Coure d’Alene. Austin Blackmer attended the camp in 2008, and is scheduled to talk to Mrs. Killmers class to explain the camp. Scholarship applications will be given to the 7 th and 8 th graders on this day. These applications are due March 26, and selections will be made at our next Board Meeting in April. Fr. Brad and Mrs. Groom reviewed the Board approved SWOT action plan, and discussed implementation items and are working to finalize the action items. Please see the final Board Approved SWOT dated February 2009 on the SPPS webpage. Mrs. Groom gave her Principals Update consisting of topics regarding the recent Hunger Banquet, newly established “robo-calling” technology, student and parent participation in Adoration, and 2009/10 student enrollment and teacher needs. The Board was asked to consider a 3% increase in Teacher salary to continue to work toward the Diocese recommended salary compared to local public schools. The Board voted to approve a 3% salary raise and to maintain 4 full time teachers for the 2009/2010 school year, pending financial analysis by Finance Committee. The Board read and discussed a letter from a SPPS Parent, and will provide response and recommendations to Fr. Brad by our April Board meeting. Sincerely, Sts. Peter and Paul School Board
February 17, 2009 Dear Parents, At Thursday’s meeting, we read a letter from Most Reverend Michael P Driscoll, Catholic Bishop of Idaho. Bishop Mike wrote to the Students and the School Board of Sts. Peter and Paul, thanking us for the letters each class and the Board sent expressing our appreciation of Fr. Brad. As you recall, letters were sent to Bishop Mike as an action item in the SWOT process where parents and parishioners identified one of the very best strengths of our School was the fact that we have a caring Pastor that works wonderfully with the students. See a copy of this letter on www.myspps.org/schoolboard.htm Prior to the meeting, Mrs. Groom made us aware that a parent has expressed concern about the program SPPS has during Lent referred to as “The Hunger Banquet”. Fr. Brad asked that the Board make time in the agenda to discuss the program. As many of you know, The Hunger Banquet is a program where students experience, first hand by either eating a feast or as little as a bowl of rice and water, how different people of the world experience the abundance or lack of adequate nutrition. A SPPS Parent attended the meeting and explained that some parents at our school have some objection to this exercise. After a lengthy discussion, the Board voted to continue with the Hunger Banquet, but realized that if parents had strong objections they should call Mrs. Groom and discuss their concerns with her. Parents may also call to express their support for the program. Mrs. Groom gave her Principals Update and informed us that the fee for bussing will remain assessed to individual families and not by a flat fee. This is due to State of Idaho regulations concerning public school district funding not benefiting private schools. She and Nolan Schoo are working on an automated phone notification system. Mrs. Groom requested that the Board develop guidelines for coach/player behavior and we will discuss this further at our next meeting. She briefed us on 2009/10 student enrollment and professional staffing will included on the March meeting agenda. We discussed a book that Ron and Glenda Frei were generous enough to provide to the Board and to Mrs. Groom for our information. The book is titled Catholic from the Inside Out by The Core Group. This book has been a very interesting read about a Catholic School and ways this particular school addressed topics similar to those we are working through here at SPPS. We would recommend any parent with an interest in our school to read this book. We discussed the draft Action Plan for the SWOT process, and with minor modifications, we voted to recommend the submission of the SWOT results to Fr. Brad for his consideration in conference with Mrs. Groom. We are very excited about continuing to improve our school by working on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats identified by the parents. Please look for a copy of the final SWOT on the SPPS webpage soon. As a note, due to scheduling, our next Board meeting will be March 5, 2009. Sincerely,
January, 12, 2009 Dear Parents, Happy New Year! We hope that your Christmas Season was joyous and you are finding the early days of 2009 bringing peace, health and prosperity. The SPPS School Board found scheduling a meeting in December very difficult with all the activities that the Season brings, and reconvened last Thursday for our first meeting of the New Year. As typical, our meeting was active, informational and filled with updates on SWOT action items. One of the most exciting outcomes of last week’s meeting was that Ron Frei, acting on behalf of The Camas Prairie Foundation for Catholic Education , awarded Mrs. Groom four (4) $750 Tuition Scholarships for a student in each classroom. These Scholarships will be awarded by staff and the Principal based on need to students who practice diligence, perseverance and charitable virtues. The School Board is humbled by and extremely grateful for the generosity and leadership of The Foundation in assisting Catholic Education on the Camas Prairie. The Board further discussed adopting a Pedagogy based program for subjects at SPPS. Ron and Glenda Frei have purchased Pedagogy books and those should be received by the Board prior to our next meeting in February. Russ Lindsley updated the Board that letters written by each class to Most Rev. Michael Patrick Driscoll Bishop of Diocese of Boise, have been sent to articulate how much the students of SPPS appreciate and benefit from having a full time Pastor (and a darn good one at that!) at the School. As mentioned in November the School Board will gather and disseminate information on a Leadership Camp in Coure ‘d Alene that any 7 th and 8 th grade SPPS will be encouraged to attend. To promote developing leaders in our School, The Board will sponsor two SPPS 7 th grade students for scholarships to attend the Camp. The details of what is required to compete for those scholarships will be rolled out during Catholic Schools Week, so please ask your students to start thinking about their contributions to community, charitable works and how, as leaders in our Community, they can help the underrepresented and our School. The Board has begun a program to make unannounced visits the School, both in class during teaching and on the campus amongst the students, to observe firsthand the curriculum, student behavior and general school activities to better understand opportunities for improvement brought up during the SWOT process. Visits were made by two Board members in December and those observations were shared with the Board and Mrs. Groom. More visits will be forthcoming. Finally, the SWOT Action Plan was discussed, and the Board agreed to make a final review and edit and update as necessary and approve in February. More updates on the Action Items will be coming as they are finalized. As always, it’s an honor to serve, and if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact a Board member. Thank you for your interest and support of our School. Sincerely, Sts. Peter and Paul School Board
November 17, 2008 Dear Parents, This meeting was held Wednesday October 29 at the SPPS Library and attended by six of the Board members. This meeting was intended to generate discussion by the Board on the SWOT Topics raised by parents, and a brainstorming to develop Action Items. We found that the Board was very engaged in the issues, and we had long discussions on the best course of action. Ultimately, we agreed that all Topics were worthwhile to pursue, but felt we need to begin with the highest priority. We developed Action Items for the top 3-4 Topics and feel very good about the direction the School is headed. Because of the complexity of the Issues, we have drafted an Implementation Strategy with Phase I of the issues, and will vote to recommend these to Fr. Brad this week. Once we have voted, and have a Phase I Implementation Strategy, we will send notification and post on the SPPS website for parents review. At this most recent Board meeting last week, we did however develop a few action items for immediate implementation. In response to identifying having a energetic Pastor is a Strength of SPPS, the Board will draft a letter and ask the students of SPPS to draft a letter to the Bishop of the Diocese of Boise, explaining how important Fr. Brad Neeley is to our Parish and School and how blessed we feel having a strong Pastor guiding our kids. Also, the Board invited Dave Wimer of the Finance committee to brief the group on the status of our Parish and School financial interests in light of the recent economic situation and potential growth at the School. Good news, is that the Parish and School are financially stable and with many supporters and benefactors. The subject of Pedagogy was brought up by parents as an Opportunity for continuing outstanding teaching techniques, and the Board was happy to invite Mrs. Glenda Frei to talk to us about this very interesting holistic teaching. We will be looking at ways to recommend more of this holistic approach into the future. Two other issues brought up in the SWOT process that we discussed were the topics of the cost of busing SPPS kids and conduct of students. The Board has asked Mrs. Groom to research a few scenarios with District 244 and we expect to vote on a recommendation next Board meeting. We also have expressed some interest in making a better effort for Board members to visit classrooms, activities and lunch recess to observe the kids to better understand how our kids conduct themselves and whether there is room for improvements. The members have committed to these informal observations and will report back to the Board in December. One of the most exciting Action Items we are working on is in response to the Strength that was identified that our SPPS Kids are leaders… all of them. The Board could not agree more, and we have tentatively developed a program to encourage those kids who demonstrate leadership and develop those students who may have leadership qualities that need to be refined. The School Board will sponsor two scholarships to a three day Leadership Camp near Coeur d’Alene. This camp comes very highly recommended by parents of GEMS and we feel our students should be encouraged to attend. The camp is open to grades 7-12, so we encourage all of the SPPS 7 th and 8 th graders to show interest. The School Board is looking into sponsoring two 7 th graders in the spring of 2009. There are many details to work out, but we feel this is a great way to encourage leadership in kids that will come back for their final year at SPPS. This is a very exciting time for our School. The Board is very encouraged by the involvement of the parents and are continually impressed by the professionalism, love for the students and desire for excellence in the Sts. Peter and Paul School staff and administration. Thank you for your interest. Sincerely, Sts. Peter and Paul School Board
10/13/08 We had our regularly scheduled School Board meeting last Thursday, with the SWOT prioritization being the primary topic of discussion. The meeting was well attended, with most Board members, Fr. Brad, Mrs. Groom and several parents. In addition to the SWOT topic, the Board was informed by Mrs. Bernadette Edwards on the progress of our SPPS website. We were very excited to hear from Mrs. Edwards that the website is up and running and loaded with a lot of great information regarding our school. Mrs. Edwards has done magic with the layout and design and how the information is displayed, and the website will continue to grow. We are convinced that the possibilities of the information on the website are almost endless. The Board is very appreciative, and would like to thank Mrs. Edwards for taking her time and great talent in web design and making our website an excellent communication tool. If you have not already done so, please visit www.myspps.org and let us know what you think. The Board continues to be amazed and extremely thankful for the dedication of parents in trying to improve the already outstanding resources our school provides. To this end, a group of parents met early this month after the last SWOT meeting and took all the information we received from parents and how the comments should be prioritized. This sub-committee group ranked the comments by the number of “SWOT dots” each received from parents. This will help focus the School Board to which issues should be addressed first, based on the majority of parents and their highest priorities. The next step in the process is to take the ranked issues and develop action items to address them. This group has begun that process. Attached you will find a matrix of the comments, with suggested or proposed “tactics” as a tangible way to address the concern. This is our starting point. The Board will convene a special meeting in the next two weeks to sit together and work through these comments, the proposed tactics and develop “who” will take on the task, the “when” it will be completed, and “what” is the tangible measure of success. Our intent is by the next regularly scheduled Board Meeting of November 13, we will have a good list of action items, completion dates and measures of success for the Board to approve and recommend to Fr. Brad for implementation. In reviewing the attached matrix, please remember this is a draft/working plan, and only the top five (5) issues from each category are represented. The tactics may change, and we will assign who is responsible for the tactic, when it should be complete and how we know when we are done after a thorough Board review. We want to make sure the Parents are involved as much as you would like to be, and hope to keep you informed of our progress. As always, if you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact any one of us. Thank you for your interest Sincerely, Anthony Botello, Chair, Sharon Blackmer, Secretary, Ron Frei, Steve Frei, Russ Lindsley, Bettie Ruzicka, Nolan Schoo
|
|
|
 |
