Quincy Citywide Parents’ Council
Minutes for September 12, 2005.
Broad Meadows Middle School.
Meeting called to order at 7:15pm, with Sue Sheridan presiding.
The minutes from May 9th were accepted.
We received ‘thank you’s’ from both High Schools for the Senior Stay Out donation.
There was no treasurer’s report due to a bank error. However, Linda reminded everyone that each school pays $25 per year dues. There is approx. $750 in the account. Citywide money is used for stationary, printing, forums, postage, fliers, a bond, and occasional special expenditures like $100 each to the high schools “Senior Stay Out Night” and a $200 donation to replenish Central M.S. library.
Sue Sheridan updated the information on school representatives and reintroduced the executive board. She also clarified how many representatives there should be per school.
Roseann Russell handed out copies of the bylaws, and Sue passed out the dates for Citywide meetings for this school year- 10/17; 11/14; 12/12; 1/9; 2/13; 3/13; 4/10 and 5/8. Sue will e-mail representatives the dates of School Committee meetings. Sue will check with Eileen Mullen to see if she will still represent Citywide at the School Committee meetings. Barbara Isola and Roseann explained the role of Citywide at School Committee meetings. We can be put on the agenda and we are allowed to speak to the School Committee
Roseann reported that she is still researching system-wide fundraising and will be continuing the project started last year with the elementary schools.
It was agreed to have a School Committee Candidates Night on October 27th.Sue will send letters to the candidates and we will send fliers out via the schools. Barbara suggested that we get questions before the night. It was agreed to have representatives get questions from their schools’ parents and the names of any volunteer moderators and return same at the October 17th meeting. It was agreed to keep the format the same as in the past- a round robin type of forum.
It was agreed to invite Dr. DeCristofaro to be our guest speaker at our October meeting. Subjects for discussion will be teacher contracts, teacher turnover, class size, literacy program, full day kindergarten and future school projects and maintenance.
Roseann said she would like to have Dr. Mariano be a guest speaker and to update the group on the Gifted and Talented Program task force. Roseann gave a brief overview of the gifted and talented program. Sue said that Dr Mariano also wanted to speak about Primary Source- programs in Asian history and culture. Sue will invite Dr Mariano to be a guest speaker at our November meeting.
Deirdre Durkin suggested having a speaker about Special Needs programs. Judy Todd will be put on the suggested guest list. Other suggested speakers for the year were Paul Phillips of the teacher’s union, Ken McPhee and Lisa Linsky.
Responding to concerns about busing, Sue said she would call Ken McPhee and ask about busing and the possibility of services being reintroduced.
Linda Kelly questioned who pays for athletic programs that are far away. Roseann said the funds come from the Athletic Program. The location is set by the League.
Roseann said that there is a shortage of substitute nurses in the school system and she feels that the substitute pay needs to be raised to attract substitute nurses. It was agreed that our representative at the next School Committee meeting would voice our concerns about the shortage of nurses.
Henry Brawley asked about receiving the minutes from the Citywide meetings in advance Sue explained that they are e-mailed to representatives several days before each meeting. Henry also suggested that the room for the meeting could be better set up. Barbara put him in charge of organizing that.
Henry spoke with a representative of Impact Quincy about having voluntary drug testing at the schools. Funding is an issue but Impact Quincy might be able to fund it. It was agreed that Henry would ask the representative to attend one of our meeting and explain what they could do.
Meeting adjourned at 8:40pm.