St. Ann School Council Minutes: September 3rd

In attendance: Paul Bertrand, Chris Schumm, Heather Sullivan, Natalie Hartman, Kim Warner, Syd Warner, Mike Riley, Christy Schoenfeld, Aaron Deacon, Father Keith Lunsford

Absent:Carrie McLiney, Stephanie Freeman

Opening Prayer:Natalie Hartman

Pastor’s Report (Father Keith Lunsford):

Father Keith visited most of the teachers during the planning meetings in the summer. Asked them for a prayer that he could pray for them throughout the year.

He reported that he sat in on a “Children of God Draw Near” (we are a pilot school, typically starts in 6th grade) presentation with 7th grade. They listened to a presentation on 3 Polish Saints, said the Divine Mercy and it was a wonderful program. He is visiting classrooms slowly but surely.

Construction is wrapping up, but still many small details on-going.

An email blast getting ready to go out regarding the status of playgroup shade structure and fields.

Financial report out via backpack mail to all families within the last 2 weeks.

Principal’s Report (Mike Riley):

Thanks to Natalie on creating the website. It is great!

It is the Year of Mercy. In-service started with message of mercy, we work, learn, move forward together with mercy.

He commented on a successful in-service meetings to begin the school year and a nice faculty Mass.

Mike is making a big effort to be visible in hallways and visit all classrooms. He is spending time in the cafeteria and recently played dodgeball on the playground with the 7th and 8th graders. Mrs. Torres is out and about in the school too. She was a teacher leader in KCKS, she has a Masters in curriculum and is working on her doctorate degree. She is constantly working, improving, growing, resilient and eager to work hard.

We will be incorporatingProfessional Learning Committees (PLC) among the staff which will be a new method of training and collaboration that was used at Sumner Academy. Through these PLCs, teachers will experience training as a large group, but also by grade level during professional development.

The role of Paraprofessionals is transitioning to Instructional Assistant and will evolve over the next few years to use this resource in an optimum manner.

We have doubled capacity of excel center and there is a lot of talent in that group.

The Children of God Draw Near program has been expanded this year to include grades 3 & 6. This PTO funded program features speakers that talk about religious experiences that often include travel experiences.

Moral seems really good in the building with the teachers and staff. Mike went recently on the 8th grade leadership retreat and it was a great experience.

Coffee with Mike and Father Keith and the parent community is scheduled next week. This is going to happen from time to time throughout the year as a community building event.

A question was posed about one or two things that Sumner Academy did really well that we could benefit from at St. Ann and the response is below:

  • Access to technology, especially for middle school
  • PLCs – used a lot at Sumner

Old Business:

Academics:

Aaron Deacon reported extensively on last year’s Parent Survey which will be available on our website for all families to review.

Parent survey has been done for about 5 years

The survey was changed pretty extensively this year

We’ll use the same type of new survey in the future so we can develop benchmarks and year to year comparisons in the future

183 parents responded - 140 moms, 150 families, 29 parents each grade level

In the past, only 70 people completed survey, approximately

We have about 210 families in the school

A 7 point scale was used this year to rate satisfaction

Overall satisfaction - 65%

Compared to last year, 40% were less satisfied than last year

Grades 6-8 satisfaction scores are lower than grades K-2

Faith based and community aspect of school are our biggest strengths, score the highest, strength of school

Communication and safety rated well

More work needs to be done to analyze individual comments

With regard to technology, the following question was discussed: Do we have enough, do we use what we have, have we effectively communicated what we do to the families?

As a summary, the following points were suggested as a result of the parent survey:

  • We should strive to continue overall communication with the families
  • Make an effort to reassure parents about school, strength of school throughout the year
  • Concentrate on maintaining and advancing academics
  • Work on ability to develop personalized experiences for upper grade students
  • Focus on coaching aspect of disciplinary action in upper grades
  • Continue to strengthen and maintain faith based, community
  • Enhance communication by classroom/grade

New Business:

President’s Report (Natalie Hartman):

The group discussed the possibility of using outside resources/teachers for some students during school hours which is a very complicated situation.

Archdiosese recommendation is not to allow such outside services to be used on school property during school hours

Mike Riley and Father Keith are working with a group of parents that wish to use such outside services to craft a workable solution for all parties.

Committee Reports: NA

As this was the first meeting of the new school year, we did not have specific committee reports and focused primarily on the results of last year’s school survey.

Closing Prayer:Father Keith Lunsford