Governing Council elections are coming up on May 3; two parent positions and the one community-member position are open.
Student Council's Spring Fling also coming up, Saturday May 7. Natasha Paz is the council president; she has given Tracey the OK for the Parent Association to have an information table. They will be looking for some parent volunteers to help with setup etc.
Maternal/Child Health, NM GRADS, and the Socorro Boys and Girls Club have asked about hosting a school lunch BBQ. All families would be invited, but the focus would be on celebrating fathers. This is an event they have held at other area schools with good success. It is usually held near the end of school, and they would need some helpers for setup and cooking. Since the idea is to hold it on CVCS property, this would need to be approved by the Governing Council. There was some discussion about whether it would be a good idea (or not) to suggest pairing it with Spring Fling, but in any case we should avoid back-to-back events.
The CVCS Budget Committee approved the purchase of team medals for the school Science Olympiad team, which placed third in the state. There was also some discussion of a trophy case, which turns out to be more expensive than anticipated. School administration would need to determine exactly where to put one (wall-mounted somewhere?) before anything could be obtained, and we would not want to buy something that could not be used in new school facilities. Future action needed.
Ruth Milner relayed some comments about the Facilities Committee meeting of 2005/03/08, where two planners gave presentations about creating "program plans" for new buildings. The planners specialize in architectural analysis, environmental psychology, and creating such programs. Ruth reminded everyone present that the parent survey form, due on April 8, includes a question about ideas for our new facilities.
Tracey Hamilton proposed that the PA provide an end-of-school-year breakfast for teachers on the last day of school - nothing too fancy; perhaps fruit, waffles, etc. Details TBD.
A list was handed out showing the items that were brought up at the last meeting by attendees and from the Christmas performance questionnaires returned by parents (available in the notes from the March meeting). Unfortunately, there were only a handful of parents at this meeting. Key questions that will need to be addressed are:
In general we agreed that the PA can really only act as a conduit for some items, particularly those involving parent concerns about curriculum, safety and health, etc. However, we can more appropriately take the lead on the communication and school community and support tasks. The complete list has been given to CVCS administration.
One note: in order to welcome new families, we would need to know who they are! A suggestion was made to add a question onto the enrollment forms for permission to give contact info to a PA representative.
The next meeting of the Parent Association was set for Wednesday, May 4 at 6:30pm, in the school multi-purpose room. Tracey and Ruth will organize that meeting. Agenda items will include a presentation from Ms. Echols' 5th-grade class. We need to find ways to encourage more people to come to these meetings. Although it is critical to have a clear idea of the PA roles, such discussions are not much of a draw. We should find out more about what kinds of information parents are looking for that might be more interesting/useful to them. Perhaps a few people can work during the summer on getting better organization in place, rather than attempting to do this in the meetings. It would be useful to have additional feedback from others on what they see as the best role(s) for the PA.