Scattergood Friends School Committee

Minutes 12/01/2001

The School Committee met Saturday December 1, 2001 at Scattergood Friends School.

The meeting opened with an executive session (including Ken) that lasted until brunch. (See notes at end of minutes.)

After brunch the committee met in open session.

Committee members Present: Joe Davison, Barb Garlinghouse, Lucy Hansen, Richard Johnson, Bruce Rohwer, Perry-O Sliwa, Dan Treadway, George Welch

Staff Present: Nan Fawcett, Margie Figgins, Ken Hinshaw, Nancy Ryan

We approved Richard Johnson taking a leave of absence from the HR committee for the remaining three weeks of the semester to avoid any possible conflicts of interest since he has been teaching a class at the school this fall.

The minutes of the September meeting were approved with changes reflecting that the phrase "cheaper gas prices" in the discussion of the budget be modified to reflect that it refers to heating costs.

All are requested to email copies of their reports to the recorder for inclusion on the web, unless they have other ways to get them there.

The Director's Report provided the framework for the rest of the meeting as a section was read and the accompanying committee reported.

Academics

Spiritual and Community Life

The committee wants to see the results from the Questionnaire concerning Friends in Residence. Subsequent discussion showed much interest in having access to the data even before the statistical results are prepared. Jeff has the data and is believed to be working to make it available.

Barb Garlinghouse read the questions proposed for the Community meeting about the student employment program trial. The same questions will be used in January and May.

Margie Figgins asked about when the student employment evaluation would happen. It was recommended that it be discussed with students at the May meeting, rather than March, as most upperclass students are not available in March.

Development

Care must be taken to assure donors that their pledges are needed and appreciated.

Additional donations toward the soundwall will allow freeing up money tranferred from the capital budget last meeting.

Nancy reported on Marketing and Educational consultants

Bruce noted the huge change we've made over the past few years in regard to marketing.

Nan Fawcett attended a Crisis Intervention / Stress Management conference at Grant Wood. She will share information at a future staff meeting.

Jennie Schmidt was acknowledged as doing a great job at finding opportunities for staff development.

Nan was also acknowledged as spearheading the tree planting effort at the 4-plex.

Facilities

With the additional donations for the sound wall which the school has received, the money that was transferred from the capital budget to cover the wall can now be returned for use on small capital projects around campus.

Recommend restoring $20,000 used for soundwall from the capital fund last meeting, to enable funding small capital projects on campus.

Ken is exploring the possibility of extending the soundwall by one section on the east end. The wall is expected to be completed in December.

The collapse of Enron and the poor condition of the economy suggests we may not receive all the funds we need. Recommend keeping the $20,000 for contingencies in the Spring.

We approved restoring the $20,000 to the capital budget and recommend caution in spending the funds given economic conditions.

Farm

165 gallons of apple cider were produced from the old orchard this fall.

Finances

We agreed to add an income section to the capital budget report .

We approved recallocating funds in the budget as defined in Jan Luchini's 11/29/01 Memo to the Consultation Committee. This basically involves lowering Payroll expenses by $22,000 and reallocating that money to budget lines that more accurately show these funds as assistance to the Villada family, volunteers visiting from Mexico.

The committee recommends, but does NOT require, restriciting international staff to be Quakers.  The reason for the recommendation is that Quaker staff can be classified by the government as religious workers and it's easier for them to enter the country.  

We approved the corrected policy on SFS special scholarship funds.

We approved accepting the Audit Report for the 2000-2001 fiscal year.

Perry-O recommends some school committee training on how to read financial reports. The suggestion was met with enthusiasm.

Admissions

As the committee met, Erin was at the TABS conference and was very enthused.

Committee members should listen for Scattergood underwriting on NPR stations in Chicago and other areas that have a high potential for generating student applications.

There are currently 57 students, three of which are day students and ten or so are five day boarders.
There may be several new students next semester.

Technology

Bandwidth may be improving. Still don't know if it's due to file sharing software, but it looks like we may need another 1/4 T.

Nominating Committee

The new report has "*"added  to designate conveners.
We are still searching for a replacement for Ron Knight; recommendations are of interest.  Please tell Dan, George, or Joe (Consultation committee).

Scattergood Foundation

The agreement  the School Committee approved in September has been signed by the foundation.

Survey Results

Nothing new. We need to start planning a family weekend for next summer. Volunteers are sought to assist in planning. Some committee members and staff would like access to data over the winter break. As the result of the discussion, we suggest a proposal be made to Midyear Meeting of IaYM(C) to be held April 13-14, perhaps for a weekend workcamp over weekend of June 15-16, 2002.

LRP

Ken will pull together a draft "Credo", or 1-pager, for the next meeting.

Joe asked the question: "Are we ready to drop the LRP as a special focus?" and suggested the answer: We will be when it's clearly integrated into the school's functioning. Ken sees this as a major focus for now.

Trustee Handbook

We have copies of a Trustee Handbook available for loaning. Chapter 4 is "Developing a Shared Vision".

Meeting Assessment:

We still have a tendency to ramble. Each of us needs to be sure that our remarks are on topic.

The meeting closed with a moment of silence at 3:00pm.

Discussion of Executive Session:

We will have an Executive Session for contract talks next meeting. Any additional topics should be forwarded to the clerk.

Director's Announcement

Ken announced that next year will be his last (if he's asked back).
We will begin the search process at our next meeting in January. We need to decide whether to use a search firm. It will be harder to find a Quaker head; are we willing to accept a non-quaker head? We appreciate having such advanced notice enabling a more thoughtful search process.

March Retreat Planning

Perhaps this should be related to the search process -- getting input from staff and students. Volunteers to plan the retreat are sought. There was some discussion of moving the "March retreat" to May, as the seniors will not be available at the end of March, and their perspective is important to the student input. For now, mark your calendars for the last Friday in March, and the 3rd Friday in May.

School Committee Member employment by Scattergood

The employment of school committee members by Scattergood was discussed. It was generally agreed that it is something to be avoided in most cases. We want to protect the Director as well as the school committee but still have some flexiblity when the need arises. A policy will be developed at future meetings.