Minutes of the August 14^th meeting of

The 19^th Ward Community Association Schools Committee

Attendees: Boutet, Laing, Ross, Ross, Sonekai, Yoworski

The minutes are arranged by topic, not chronologically.

Volunteers:

We have an objective of recruiting more volunteers to work with the students in our schools. Consensus was reached on working directly through the schools rather than through another 501c3 organization (i.e. FREE). John L is to meet with Bruce Pollock on Aug 27.

    Actions: Item Status and new action items

• Follow up with Willie Lightfoot and the barber shops – John L No response from Willie on the first e-mail, will contact again
• Investigate the process of becoming a community partner with the RCSD – John L Contact has been made with RCSD and information provided. Waiting for response from the district Open
• Generate a list of retired teachers/administrators in the ward and contact them – Dan Ross Open
• Use the 19^th ward newsletter to solicit volunteers John B This activity will change to using the Westside Market for the solicitation of volunteers with the principals attending. Note that there will be more opportunities (need) for volunteers with the extended school day John L to write up information for Jackie, send schedule to committee members.
• Need volunteers to sit with school principals to take information on volunteers - All
• Find a volunteer to run the spelling bee – all open
• Talk to the school 10 principal about opportunities there - Sarah traded e-mails with Cameron and this action item will be folded into the presence at Westside Market. Note that FREE is working with school 10 now
• Investigate the opportunity for Skype tutoring with RPH – John L Closed there are 1-2 seniors who are likely to participate, at least at the beginning. Matt Laniak (school 16 principal is willing to investigate) Closed
• Contact Jon Shull of RIT about using their Skype tutoring software for a pilot test – John B Closed
• Set up a meeting with the RPH director, Matt Laniak and Jon Shull to determine next steps – John B
• Read the Comprehensive Education Plans for schools 10,16,29 and 44 to look for opportunities – all For those of us who had scanned the plans there was a feeling that there was little meat in them Closed
• Schedule reviews with administrators – TBD Closed
• Plan an informational session for volunteers and/or a video of volunteers describing their experience
• Understand the requirements for MOU (or MOA) for volunteers – John L
• Check with McQuaid for potential volunteers – Mark Sweetland via John B

School 16 Schedule:

    Actions:

• Press Vargas on using CIP monies allocated to school 16 for preliminary engineering – John L – no response to my question, so resubmitted it .
• Plan events for families with pre-K children to steer them to school 16 now – Sarah- A pre-K event is planned for Wednesday August 21 at the school 10 playground. Other activities TBD

Other:

We also had discussions on Vision Quest and it’s hope for school 44. No action required due to time frame.

We discussed the commitment to community schools in the neighborhood. The commitment is there, and the actions we are taking are heading us in that direction, but we need to keep on goal in focus

Next Meeting Wednesday, September 11 at 7 pm in the 19^th ward association office