1. Karen W. (Support Our Schools): Site Council members are encouraged to contact their

elected officials and urge them to support K-12 funding. This can be done using the phone script in the "Legislative Action Needed for the 2005 Minnesota Budget" packet. A flyer in multiple languages is also attached about the March Rally.

2. Julia S. (Gear Up): Site Council members are encouraged to take action at the federal

level as well. Gear Up was recently notified that funding for Gear Up and Trio programs which were funded at the federal level in the past were not budgeted into the current federal bill. Gear Up currently receives $400,000 in support. Action sheets were passed out.

3. Robin K. (Parent): Parents are working on the Senior All-Night party and Becky

Montgomery (parent of a Humboldt alumnus) will be holding an info. session on how to coordinate the All Night party for all interested parents. Donations for the door prizes portion of the party are still needed. There is also a need for many more parents to get involved. If you know interested parents, Robins contact information can be found on the Humboldt High School website.

1. Snow Days: Coordination of this event has gone extremely well. The dance will take

place on Friday and doors close at 8p.m. The pep rally also created a lot of positive energy in the building; there was a staff/student basketball tournament. Students could buy a ticket to be on the student team, a drawing determined the teams.

2. African American Parent Day: Humboldt had a strong showing of 15 parents who

attended this event. Parents attended a play put on by Mixed Blood Theatre and a social hour in the Career Resource Center.

3. Preparing Academies for 05-06: Staffing of academies is almost complete.

The administration is still working with the 9th Grade Academy because Title I funding may shift staffing for this academy. The school is hoping for a reading specialist and math help, these are the areas with the lowest BST (Basic Skills Test) scores.

4. Budget: There has been no new budget information from the district, there is low

enrollment across the district. Site Council members and anyone else interested are encouraged to attend the Rally to support school funding. Joan Paulson is responsible for coordinating the buses (Joan had not ordered the bus as of the meeting, but was encouraged to do this).

5. Recruitment: Humboldt Senior High School has also been doing a lot of recruitment for

next school year. Humboldt staff have visited 3 junior highs to give them information on Humboldt. John has also sent letters to all the families in the 55107 zip code outlining the Freshman Academy. Private tours are also available to any interested student and their parent(s). The school has communicated with St. Matts and other private schools and there is a plan to do phone calling to 8th grade parents. Discussion: Site Council members suggested "advertising" to elementary school student so that they know about and are comfortable with Humboldt Senior at a young age. Also to market Humboldt by getting students out to public events more- seeing Humboldt students involved in the community or presenting at these events is positive "PR" for Humboldt.

1. A Parent Engagement Worksheet was used to identify what site council members can

say to parents when trying to get them involved in the school. The worksheet was also used to lay out next steps (see attached worksheet for notes).

1. Valerie attended a training on the role of the School Continuous Improvement Plan

(SCIP) and the role of the Site Council in creating the SCIP (see handout). It is important

that the Site Council does not passively sign-off on the SCIP, but that the site council read it carefully, comment on it, get revisions, and only sign off on it when we are comfortable with it. It is also important that more students read it and have a voice in it, it impacts them greatly.

1. Presentation by Gary: The school (Gary, Patty, and HILT) has been working on the 2005-2006 SCIP. They started by reviewing the 2004-2005 SCIP. The 05-06 SCIP will show a strengthened data section. The site council reviewed the goals as they are currently written. The goals represent the "what" and the initiatives represent the "how". Each goal gets one initiative that is primarily associated with it, although the initiatives are interconnected and will help reach multiple goals. You can read it as initiative 1 goes with goal 1, etc. If there is anything a site council member does not understand, email Gary.

2. Discussion: Comment that the wording is not very clear and transparent to those who are not familiar with education and SCIP "lingo". This is because it is a very rough copy of the SCIP and the wording has not been "expanded" yet. There was a request from the Site Council that the final SCIP use language that is transparent to all (parents, staff, students, and community). Comment that there is not enough in the SCIP about improving school community climate. It was clarified that in Goal 3, new immigrant students will make a larger jump (20%) in results while returning students will make a 15% improvement because there is larger opportunity for big jumps in the first year of learning in the US then there is each additional year of being in the schools. Also noted that the SCIP should address the role of students in the goals and initiatives, this could be addressed in the goal that address "environment for learning".