Minutes of the September 11th, 2018 meeting of

The 19^th Ward Community Association Schools Committee

Attendees: John Boutet, John Laing, Jay Ross, Dan Ross, Sarah Yaworski, Ernestine Brown, Moiet James, Brianna Dean, Redell Freeman, Lee Loomis

August minutes

Approved

School 16

• Ribbon cutting ceremony was held September 10 and was a terrific event. The 19^th Ward was presented with a plaque that is in the Association Office. It was noted that the students sat quietly for the 1 hour set of talks, and the teachers and/or aides discretely encouraged children to behave when necessary. The building looks terrific.

• Community/staff reception following dismissal Friday Sept 14 (rain date TBD) across the street from the school. Notices have been sent to teachers and staff and the community

• Tours and refreshments in Aberdeen Square will be Saturday September 15 from 11 to 2. Its an opportunity to recruit volunteers

• Community involvement in Superintendents conference day Oct 5 TBD

• There will be an open house September 27^th from 5:30 to 7:00

• 19^th wca to provide memberships to staff

• Plan to hold 19^th Ward Convention in school 16 in November

• Diane Watkins and Carla to work the details

School 10

School 10 has moved to the Marshall campus that they are sharing with school 2. The expectation is that school 10 will return to Congress in September 2020. Many of the volunteers from the engineering society are still working so cannot volunteer every week. They give an assignment (Tues from 10 to noon in Ms Smith’s class) to 5 volunteers so they can volunteer once a month but the students see a volunteer weekly.

School 29

Joe was unable to attend today

School 44

• They are off to a good start this year. Debra Ramsperger is the acting principal until Donna is able to return. The parent liaison is Ilka Fernandez. Good news: School 44 will remain open and a some point be in the queue for renovation.

Spelling Bee

• Moiet James and Brianna Dean will be co-chairing the 10^th Annual Spelling Bee. They are working on the word lists and had a set of questions. They will bring youthful energy and enthusiasm to the committee and we look forward to having them on board.

• Shawn Neal who won the Spelling Bee twice and is a senior at Early College International High School is planning to come to Convention to be recognized. He might also be available to participate in the Spelling Bee and Moiet was to contact him.

Old/New Business

• School 16 is renovated, and it is listed as a community school. However there was no provision for short distance busing, which we view as a requirement for enabling a community school. I will write up an argument for short-range busing and distribute before the next meeting. In the meantime take advantage of the parade of politicians at your door to make the point to them.

• A discussion followed the sharing of a picture of a map of the 19^th ward with circles of radius 0.5 “ (maybe 0.75”) centered on all the elementary schools. There was considerable overlap. It was consistent with having each school serve it’s neighborhood in the days before busing. More discussion to come

• We agreed to have meetings on the first Tuesday of the month, which would be October 2^nd.

The next committee meeting will be Tuesday October 2^nd at 7 pm in the 19^th Ward Community Association office.

Submitted by John Laing