School Council Minutes
2014-2015 School Year
October 29, 2014
Annex Library
6:30 pm
Members Present: Marisol Hodge, Vice-President; Monica Ramirez,
Secretary; Michele Brown, PTC President; Lorenzo Cano, Bruce Eichman,
Mike Hendricks, Michele Hendrix, Delia Meyer and Michael Valdes
Ex Officio Members Present: Becky Finley and Mrs. Satsky; Principal.
CALL TO ORDER: Marisol Hodge called the meeting to order at 6:36 pm
and led the opening prayer.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: No minutes were presented for approval. .
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: The agenda was sent out by email to
members. Bruce Eichman made a motion to approve the agenda and was
seconded by Delia Meyer.
OPENING REMARKS: Marisol Hodge thanked everyone for attending the
meeting and for their attendance/participation at the Halloween carnival.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Finance/Tuition:
No official report
Buildings and Grounds:
No official report
Development & PTC:
No formal report
 Michele Brown provided an update on the strategic plan (see
attached report for details)
NEW BUSINESS
Principal's Report
Mrs. Satsky’s report:
School Enrollment: 161
Weekday Children’s Program Enrollment: 24
We welcome our newest families to St. Peter:
Imij Armstead 1st grade
Vincent Tatum 5th grade
Hayden Tran K4
We have 6 families who are in arrears in their tuition payment and the total
for all six families is $3,618.05. All six of these families have
communicated dates that they will be able to pay or have made payment
arrangements with Ms. Mireles.
Mrs. Satsky brought a letter from a parent to council related to the following
discussion.
Amendments/Additions to the Handbook Policy:
Tuition:
All tuition and all fees are non-refundable. This is clearly stated on parent
enrollment contracts. Signing the enrollment contract indicates acceptance
and obligates the parent to tuition payments for the academic school year.
Refund requests based upon financial hardships are to be directed to the
Principal. Tuition, either collected in monthly installments or pre-paid for the
year, is non-refundable. Any decisions regarding refund requests are at
the discretion of the Principal.
A motion was made by Lorenzo Cano to approve these amendments and
was seconded by Bruce Eichman. The council voted unanimously to
approve.
Withdrawal:
When a student must be transferred from St. Peter Prince School during
the school year, parents are required to make an appointment for an Exit
Interview with the Principal at least five days prior to withdrawing. This
allows the school time to ensure that all finances, tuition, and cafeteria
charges are cleared, and all library and textbooks are returned. When all
charges are paid in full, service hours completed, the parent exit interview
conducted/concluded and all academic requirements met, St. Peter Prince
School is permitted to forward cumulative records to the student's new
school. Written notification from the parent must be received by 15th of
the previous month to avoid charges the following month.
Michele Brown suggested amending the withdrawal to an exit interview by
a 3rd party to illicit an honest response from families leaving St. Peters.
Fundraising:
Catholic Life Raffle Tickets went on sale on Oct. 10th. Students will be
selling these tickets after Mass on the 4th Sunday of every month. Elsa
Torres is looking into having students sell tickets at Walmart/Sam’s. There
is a link to a promotional video of last year’s drawing on our website under
“Advancement” along with other information about the drawing.
Gala Meeting:
There is a Gala planning meeting scheduled for Nov. 5th at 8:00 a.m. in the
cafeteria and is open to anyone who would like to be involved in planning
the Gala.
UIW Brainpower:
Students from UIW were on campus on Oct. 24th to demonstrate and train
our students on track and field events such as how to throw a javelin or go
further in the long jump. Theater students from UIW are coming to do a
puppet show for our early childhood grades on Nov. 14th at 9:30 a.m. Our
students will also attend the Trick or Treat activity at UIW and Incarnate
Word High School on Oct. 31st.
Multicultural:
We will have our second multicultural program this year on Oct. 31st after
Mass in the Parish Hall. The multicultural elective students, along with
students from UIW will present fun and interesting facts about Mexico.
Parents are welcome to attend the presentation.
School Council Committees:
I propose the following committees for the School Council that would align
with the Strategic Plan and the needs of the school:
*Marketing and Development
*Enrollment
*Facilities
*Fundraising
*Volunteerism
Pastor's Report
No report
Member Items
 Becky Finley informed council of upcoming Advent mission
workshops on December 1st and 2nd with presentations from Fr. D.
Morales
 Bruce Eichman reminded council members that safety was key
during car line pickup. That he had viewed several parents using
cell phones during pickup.
CLOSING REMARKS:
Marisol Hodge thanked everyone for their time and also for attending the
council meeting this evening.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Mrs. Satsky led the closing prayer.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 pm.
Our next council meeting is to be scheduled on November 19, 2014.
Respectfully submitted by:
Marisol Hodge, Vice-President
Monica N. Ramirez, Secretary
St. Peters School Strategic Plan Update to School Counsel, 29 OCT 2014
Background and Current Status/Where are we
From DEC 2012- MAY 2013, a draft 2014-2019 Strategic Plan was developed from extensive community
feedback and input. This draft plan was sent to families over the summer 2014. At this point, we need to
“finalize” approval of the plan to “publish” it by the end of the year.
What are the recommended next steps with timeline
-
Conduct final review (NLT 15 NOV)
o Validate terminology/themes with Ms. Satsky; now that she has had time to observe
and get settled, are there tweaks we could/should make to the plans? Is there anything
else we could/should take into consideration? There was considerable parent and
teacher input integrated into the goals and action areas, so the intent here should be
tweak (not rewrite/rebrand) the goals.
o Update names/action owner responsibility (by position not name)
- Concurrently, validate with the Archdiocese any formal “approvals” required to publish the plan
(NLT 15 NOV)
- Finalize and distribute/publish the Strategic Plan (NLT end of year)
- At the School Counsel level, assign a minimum of one board member as the champion of each
area. This person should develop/meet with their committee to conduct a deep dive into the
area to determine what has been done, what needs to be accomplished and what resources are
required. Each goal area had several parent/teacher volunteers signed up to support these
committees - Amy Valdez can provide these names. (NLT end of year)
- For early 2015, a summary of progress against the Strategic plan should be published with input
provided by the committee members. This should be at a high level (only goals and supporting
accomplishments) in a one-page document. While at this point, the plan will be newly
“published”, there has been progress made during the transition period over the last 6-9
months that should be recognized. (NLT EOM JAN)
- During monthly School Counsel meetings, the committee members should brief out the
supporting initiatives they are working on. The meeting minutes then become the continuing
community communications on the status (Immediately and ongoing)
- At the end of school year, the next 6 months of accomplishments (JAN-JUN) against goals should
be published. (NLT EOM JUL)
- The semi-annual formal updates should continue to be published in the JAN and JUL
timeframes.
Other items to consider
-
It is imperative to follow through on the Strategic Planning efforts. Considerable parent, faculty
and community support and input last year went into the development of the goals and plans. It
-
-
should not be put up on the shelf for five years. Instead, this needs to be a living, working
document that all forward progress is tied to.
Ownership of goal areas is important. Each area needs a champion whose job it is to drive this
area forward, solicit and organize committees to assist in goal accomplishment, as well as
communicate progress.
The periodic (6 month interval) publishing of status updates is very important. It provides
reinforcement to the community of the long term vision and forward progress of the school.