Scattergood Friends School Committee
Minutes 5 October, 2002
Attendees:
Committee Members:
Joe Davison, Debbie Galusha, Barb Garlinghouse, Lucy Hansen, Richard
Johnson, Burt Kisling, Anita Richards, Bruce Rohwer, Dan Schlitt,
Dwight Schumm, Perry-O Sliwa, Dan Treadway, George Welch, Bob
Winchell
Staff Present:
Nan Fawcett, Margie Figgins, Heather Godley, Ken Hinshaw, Erin
Lane
Visitors
Joe Alwood
Open Session
Opened with a moment of silence, followed by introductions.
School Committe Handbook
Lucy handed out new, updated version of the School Committee
Handbook. Revisions are marked by a date in parentheses, indicating
when the change was approved. Many Thanks to Lucy for her work in
bringing it up to date. Someone suggested adding a section on searching
for a new head, to assist the next Search Committee.
Committee self evaluation questionaire
Lucy plans to hand out sections of the prepared questionaires some
of us saw last meeting -- different sections in different years, just
so it's fresh.
Expense Reimbursement
Lucy explained the policy on reimbursement of committee members for
expenses involved in coming to meetings: 25 cents/mile plus
accommodations (motel expense if no room available at the school).
Please fill out the form and accept the check -- You are welcome, encouraged
even, to make a tax-deductible contribution to the school for the
amount of the check. This helps the school track expenses; it also
helps the development committee track donations.
Minutes of previous meeting:
Approved as written.
Date of July meeting:
July 26, 2003.
We reviewed and re-approved the Mission Statement.
We reviewed and re-approved the Statement of Non-descrimination. There
was some discussion of grammatical changes and the fact that we
sometimes prefer Quaker applicants which is "discrimination". The
general feeling was that "against" is implied by discrimination, and it
fits the legal needs.
Recommended a grammatical change: ... disability, [ethnicity,
]or national origin.
Search Committee
No written statement, but the committee has sorted through 31
inquiries, leading to 23 applications, sent out questions for their
response concerning their attitudes about our conditions -- they are
down to 4 applicants on the basis of those responses. Two men, two
women, two quaker, two non-quaker (all without such explicit
considerations).
Richard Johnson has information on how the applicants learned of the
positions.
Possible weekends for interviews (Mark your calendars) --
November 1-3, 8-10, 15-17, Dec 13-15 -- maybe Dec 6-8 (but
that's school committee meeting, retreat)
The committee may consider a telephone conference call or good
speakerphone interview to help narrow the field of those invited to
come.
General
Distributed Academic Schedules, address lists, enrollment, etc.
School Committee members were given copies of the Director's
Self-Evaluation for their private review.
Dan has the list
Richard Johnson, leaving the committee for at least one year,
observed that we used to have a rule that a member could serve two
consecutive 3-year terms, and must then leave for a year before being
invited back. That rule was dropped, but he recommends that it be
reinstated; several others agreed.
Brunch
Introduction of Committee and Staff
The Director's
Report provided the framework for the subcommittee reports.
Spiritual and Community Life
The student "Galaxy Group", focussed on sustainability, expressed
significant interest in incorporating the Farm in the school program in
the long term, as we've discussed in the LRP. Passed around questions
from a survey of uses for the farm that was circulated among the school
community. Galaxy Groups may have had a lot to do with reducing the
distinction between old and new students, by mixing them together from
the beginning. This is an idea Erin Lane and Mike Watson brought from
Beloit -- it's seems to be a very important addition to the school
program. The community saw again the way some students get focussed on
the Laptops once they arrive, and tried to help the students see what
they can do to "deal" with that. Experience has shown it becomes less
of an issue as time goes on ...
Facilities
Farm
One Galaxy group is looking at various issues relating to use of the
farm, and sustainability -- how to mesh schedules between school and
farm, how to keep track of how much produce is used in the school
kitchen, ...
Finances
INS has not approved any foreign student/staff visas since 9/11/2001...
We would usually set the tuition for next year at this meeting, but
we agreed to defer it till the December meeting because the impact of
current economic conditions in the country and school is not yet clear.
The minute proposed for approval by IaYM(C), extending the
responsibilities of the school committee, was approved with enthusiasm,
with slight changes: The School Committee's role is the governance
of Scattergood as an institution offering year-round opportunity for
educationally oriented activities for all ages, consistent with the
values of Friends.
It was clear at IaYM that this school is very important to the YM,
and they were enthused about the expanded role.
Foundation
The School has prepared a history of the endowment (handed out)
determining the the initial values of the donations, so that the
foundation can develop a policy concerning how to distribute money to
the school without using principle.
We approved the following request to the foundation: The
school committee requests the Foundation to develop a policy, useful in
budgeting, for distributing money to the school.
Note that as the economic conditions deteriorate, we become much more
aware of the risk in our dependence on donations for current expenses.
We need, for instance, to ensure that any capital projects are funded
in advance to avoid coming up short. Development committee has
plenty of work cut out for itself ...
(Walter Sparks is the assistant to the Development Director --
computer database consultant and very familiar with blackbaud -- and
Nancy Ryan's son in law...)
NOTE to report writers -- Please use people's full name the first
time in a report, so readers can figure out who "Fred" is...
Admissions and Enrollment
The school is joining the Small Boarding School Association, a group of
schools with fewer than 200 boarding students.
"Small Boarding School" === < 200 boarding students
Compliments to Erin for her efforts in recruiting.
Staffing
Audit report
Ken handed out the report from the audit review by our auditing firm. Please
review before the next board meeting. The Consultation committee
will need to devote significant attention to the report, but everyone
will want to have some familiarity with it, as it will be used for our
training session at the committee training workshop (see below).
Proposed Budget
The proposed budget has been revised from the July proposal based on
improved information. Appreciation was expressed for Jan Luchini's
effort to produce a balanced budget in this constrained economy.
We Approved the proposed budget.
Long Range Planning
Updating the LRP on the web has been a continuing problem. Ken and
Margie suggest simply updating a Word document and posting the
"official" version twice each year. Given that there is less need for
distributed updates than we saw when we started, this proposal will
make it much more convenient for the staff, who are actually using the
Plan.
Approved the new proposal. The Director owns the
official version of the plan and will distribute a draft of the
document to the school committee at a school committee meeting. That
version will be reviewed and edited in time to be approved by committee
at the next meeting. The Director may approve changes at other times
and distribute the document. The official version will be posted to
the website approximately twice each year.
Copies of the May, 2001, updates to the LRP Goals were handed out.
Scattergood Website and Newsletter
Erin and Margie presented an on-line tour of a number of school
websites that illustrated both examples of things we hope to do on our
website and what the competition is like.
Exploring website ideas, and website providers. Using information
collected from current website to discard expensive items that aren't
paying off, and evaluating proposals. Definitely see a value in being
able to meet with the providers, which gives local providers an edge,
unless the prices are out of line...
Workshop
Next Meeting will be preceded by a Committee Training Workshop
beginning after Noon on Friday, Dec. 6. The focus will be on
reading and understanding financial statements and audits.
Critique
Good meeting -- should strive to get done in time to let people drive
home... Thanks to Nominating committee and new members.
Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 3:45pm with silence