RHS Site Council – Bret Phillips, Secretary 2014-2015
May 4, 2015
6:30 – 8:30 PM
Members Present
John Wollersheim – Principal
Gary Dion – Vice President
Lisa Buesing – Parent Leader
Mary Swanson – Treasurer
Jake Greener – Student Rep (9)
Isabel Edgar – Student Rep (10)
Heidi Kramer
6:35 – 6:36
6:36 – 6:50
6:50 – 6:55
Minutes
Jim Norris
Lisa Aidan
Mark Engdahl
Liz Erickson
Diane Moeller
Patty Zellmann approved with no changes.
(Mary) Rosemount Benefit Fund Account Review
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Total Balance: $87,980
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Arts (uniforms) and Scholarship ($12,800 donations received) balances increased. No change for Academic and Athletic.
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After two $500 scholarships, Site Council fund = $1,187
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(Jim) Funding needed for Car Crash event. Total event cost is $1,500. Jim proposed Site Council consider providing some funding. After discussion, Site
Council approved $500 donation for the event. (Subsequent to meeting, John sent email to initiate this approved action.)
(Lisa) Parent Leader Meeting
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Lisa led discussion of the Elementary School Choice Survey section of the meeting notes handout. That led to some discussion about magnet schools and in particular, Diamond Path. (John) talked about Diamond Path objective to have its International Studies focus carried forward through high schools.
6:55 – 6:58
6:58 – 7:18
Currently, no program in place. John has previously broached the possibility of establishing an IB (International Baccalaureate) program.
(Isabel and Jake) Student Council Report
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(Isabel) Five officers picked for next year. Candidate new members need to apply by Friday, 5/8. Interviews will be conducted next week.
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Neon Dance was “a hit” and made money.
(John) Class Rank
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John has gathered feedback from a number of RHS groups and their perspectives are generally aligned with that expressed by the Site Council: o Use of percentile is unnecessary and really perpetuates class ranking system, even if not formally communicated to colleges or students.
Percentile (Cum Laude, etc.) will be used instead of having recognition based on pure GPA to alleviate concerns regarding inequities across grading systems. o Elimination of class ranking system should occur with next school year rather than waiting.
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(John) Other district schools have indicated overall satisfaction with what has been proposed by the District Office (DO).
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John asked if there was any additional feedback to be considered, stimulating more discussion. (Heidi) What happens when multiple students have the same
GPA but cross percentile boundaries – how will it be decided which students are recognized at which levels? John will voice that question to the DO.
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(John) DO will take additional input for another month. Decision will be reached

7:49 – 8:07
7:18 – 7:22
7:22 – 7:27
7:27 – 7:49
RHS Site Council – Bret Phillips, Secretary 2014-2015 within the coming months.
State Testing Day Feedback
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John asked for feedback. A number of council members expressed dissatisfaction about the structure and value of the day to those students that weren’t involved in testing (and even those that were for a limited portion of time during the day) – general view was that the curriculum was too lax (movies, etc.).
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(Patti) Raised suggestion that rather than worrying about separation of students doing testing from those that aren’t so that testing students aren’t disrupted, only students required to do testing should come to school on testing day. Nontesting students could stay home which would allow for additional homework and study time (especially valuable to students already tight on time due to extra curricula activities). John indicated that was an idea worth consideration.
9 th
Grade Orientation
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(John) Mr. Brooks, who in the past has been a key orchestrator/leader of the gymnasium portion of the event, is retiring. With that, John and others have been thinking about changing the orientation to be less in the gym (band, singing the school song, etc.) and be more topic oriented.
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A number of site council members (including parents and student council reps) voiced concern about this change. We think that perhaps some restructuring of orientation might be good, but we don’t want the gymnasium fun event to be eliminated. We think it is enjoyed by many of the incoming 9 th
graders and helps them move into high school life.
Attendance Policy
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(John) Old policy is being replaced. Dr. Conboy is drafting new penalty guidelines for unexcused tardies and unexcused absences. The other district high schools haven’t yet started working on the new policy (only RHS at this point). John outlined those proposed consequences for thresholds of unexcused events (warning, detention, Saturday detention, parent meetings, withholding class credit, etc.). John also mentioned his concern about costs of policing/monitoring and consequence activities (for example, possible drain from available budget to be used on more positive educational needs if Saturday
Detention supervisor needed to be paid).
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Although there was agreement that students having propensity for being tardy or absent (unexcused) is a real concern, a variety of concerns about the outlined consequences were expressed – including concerns of severity of consequences for things like 2-4 occurrences of being late (without discrimination between barely late, late, or very late?).
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Site Council did recommend that the other high schools need to start working this policy in concert with RHS, especially since the new policy needs to be in place for the coming school year.
Bond Survey Results and Superintendent FAQs re: State Funding
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Both documents were discussed, somewhat in conjunction.
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There is some good news in the “Bucking the trend” section of the survey – positive scores trending up from previous results for the School Board and school district leaders. Also noted results in page 2 of the survey (Support for improvements and High performance ratings.
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(Mark) Did anyone in site council get surveyed? No one in the meeting was. It was a phone survey with 73 questions.
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(Diane) Asked about what’s happening with the universal pre-K. Still being promoted at the state level.
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(John) Transitioned us into discussion of Superintendent’s FAQs where it is noted that the House and Senate majorities have proposed increases of 1 % or less per year to the general education formula over the next two years. Our district has been asking for reasonable increases of at least 2% per year and

8:13 – 8:15
8:15 –8:30
8:30
8:07 – 8:12
8:12 – 8:13
RHS Site Council – Bret Phillips, Secretary 2014-2015 indexing future funding to at least the inflation rate. It’s further noted that if increases are limited to 1%, our district could face budget cuts of nearly $20 million over the next three years. Teacher cuts would be part of the outcome.
John also expressed concern about the incongruity between possible $20M of cuts and the bond survey.
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(John) Good idea for anyone so inclined to contact state representatives and leaders.
Graduation
(John) Reviewed graduation (rehearsal and graduation day). There is a graduation page on the RHS website. John described venue (stadium) and venue alternatives
(gymnasium and PAC) in the event of bad weather. PAC is also an alternative for those that would like to be more comfortable while watching the ceremony.
End of Year Survey
(John) Survey will be emailed out to council members. John requests input to provide ideas/guidance for continual improvement of Site Council process.
Spring Scholarships
(Lisa) Briefly touched on. John describes as being a fun event and anyone that would like to join Lisa can do so.
Future of Fundraising
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(John) Displayed the National Honor Society website in relationship to drawing attention to pro-bono needs (e.g., legal assistance).
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John and we talked about continual needs for generating funds (scholarships, helping kids, etc.). We haven’t dealt with this much and really need to put more attention on it. John will be meeting with an external person who can be hired to help with establishing mechanisms for generating funds (“offices of development”).
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(Diane) Reinforced idea that alumni would be a good source for funding.
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(Heidi) Expressed desire to help in any way possible.
Meeting adjourned. John thanked everyone and expressed appreciation for what the Site Council does. Mark led a heartfelt thank you back to John for his guidance, leadership, and dedication.