School Council Minutes
2016-2017 School Year
August 24, 2016
Annex Library
6:30 PM
Members Present: President: Marisol Hodge, Secretary: Monica N. Ramirez, Principal: Elaina Satsky, Lorenzo Cano, Delia Meyer, Cynthia Morin and Jason Petty.
Ex Officio Members Present: Becky Finley, Business Mgr.; Fr. Martin Leopold, Pastor
Absent: PTC President: Elisa Z. Garcia
CALL TO ORDER: President: Marisol Hodge called the meeting to order at 6:35 pm and Fr. Martin Leopold led the opening prayer.
OPENING REMARKS: President: Marisol Hodge thanked everyone for attending the meeting. All members introduced themselves.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes were presented, Lorenzo Cano made a motion to approve the minutes and was seconded by Delia Meyer.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: The agenda was sent out by email to members. Cynthia Morin made a motion to approve the agenda and was seconded by Delia Meyer.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Finance/Tuition/Fee Collection:
Finished up fiscal year 2016 at end of June. Fiscal was divided by group for tuition, bulk comes from K3-8th tuition with Mothers’ day & ASC $33,000 in 2015-2016. Summer program report will be presented at end of September. Subsidiary is fees, capital project (Annex bathrooms) $163,000 subsidy to school. Bulk of expense is salary and payroll. Net revenue (loss); Note payments (parish notes for school $160,419.00 paid from parish subsidy. Debt picture $333,000 prior year – paid $160,000 with $320,000 and $492,000 new debt. Fr. Martin Leopold acknowledge current financial picture with a goal of turning it right side up. Debt stays on school’s balance sheet, but not separate from the parish.
Academics & Principal’s Report:
Enrollment:
K3 9
K4 17
K5 12
1st 17
2nd 14
3rd 11
4th 17
5th 9
6th 11
7th 18
8th 13
SPP Total: 148
WCP: 22
Total: 170 Students
School Goals:
Overall Goal: Increase enrollment through a variety of marketing and recruiting efforts and strive for 100% retention. (Method: Street banners, recruitment referral, brochures, etc.)
Faith: Increase students’ knowledge about their faith and the precepts of the Catholic Church (Method: Adopted a new Religion series called “Faith and Life” by Ignatius Press that is more content based and fully correlates to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
Academic Goal/STREAM Initiative: Utilize technology to further develop our math program (Method: Pilot Reasoning Minds in 2nd and 3rd grade; implement Edivate online instructional videos, and building back our Algebra I course for 8th grade on our campus.)
Catholic Life Raffle Tickets: We are kicking off our Catholic Life Fundraiser. Tickets are $5.00 per ticket. Each family is required to sell $100.00 worth of Catholic Life raffle tickets. The grand prize is 2017 Ford F-150 truck or Ford Fusion or $20,000 Visa credit card. The drawing will be held Saturday, January 14th, 2017. We need someone from Council to help with the kick off, provide incentives, and distribute tickets.
Mrs. Satsky requested that the Catholic Life representative would like to be on agenda for September council meeting. Mrs. Satsky would like to have a council member direct the Catholic Life Raffle and would like volunteers to notify her of interest. This is a pure profit fundraiser. Catholic Life will provide a pizza party as an incentive. At that time, Marisol Hodge and Cynthia Morin volunteered to organize the Catholic Life Raffle effort.
Facilities/Maintenance: Our playground needs kiddie mulch to be added to the primary playground area to provide cushion underneath the slide and swings. We need a volunteer from Council to help with this initiative or project. Becky Finley provided details on process for obtaining the mulch. Jason Petty volunteered to be responsible for this project.
Strategic Plan: Our existing Strategic Plan needs to be reformatted to correlate with the Domains for Accreditation. I would like a volunteer from Council to work with Amy Valdez on reformatting and editing this document. Delia Meyer volunteered to assist Mrs. Satsky.
Grandparents Day: We will honor our Grandparents with a special Mass and breakfast on Friday, September 2nd. The book fair will be going on in the Parish Hall and students will invite their grandparents to their classroom to visit after breakfast. School dismisses at noon on this day, so families can enjoy the afternoon together.
Parish Picnic: Our students in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and middle school elective choir will sing at the 11:00 Mass that precedes the Parish Picnic on Sunday, September 18th. We invite council members and school families to join us for this event.
Father/Daughter Dance: The dance was held on Saturday, August 20th and the girls and their dads had so much fun! Please check out the pictures on Facebook and Instagram. Parents have requested other activities such as a Mother/Son Dance.
Multicultural Presentation: Our first Multicultural Presentation will be held on Friday, September 30th following the Friday morning Mass and will celebrate Thailand. The multicultural elective class will host this presentation. Please join us!
8th Grade Retreat and Commissioning Mass: Please pray for our 8th grade students as they will be commissioned as leaders of our school during Mass on Friday, August 26th at 8:15am. They will go on retreat following the Mass. The students created their 8th grade shirt to coincide with this year’s theme: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2
Marisol Hodge asked for status of enrollment. Mrs. Satsky explained current status, as noted in her report, and also asked for the community to continue efforts to inform others about discount and referral programs. Marisol Hodge suggested discount programs for institutions like Children’s Hospital of San Antonio as well as continuing to increase St. Peter’s visibility by increased participation in quiz bowls, robotic competitions etc. Jason Petty suggested increased outreach during mass by the pastor, especially to Alamo Heights. Cynthia Morin suggested showcasing the students’ activities (artwork, robotics etc.) at our masses. She also suggested having our students more involved by their participation during the masses. Lorenzo Cano suggested continued efforts to build programs between high schools and SPS such as the Freshman Connection. He also suggested addressing military families at the masses. Fr. Martin Leopold suggested looking at developing areas up Broadway as potential to increase student enrollment.
Academics:
No official report
Technology:
No official report
Catholic Culture:
No official report
Facilities and Infrastructure:
No official report
Development:
Open house – banners continue to be present in key locations
Student Life:
No official report
NEW BUSINESS
Principal's Report (see above – included with Academics report)
Pastor's Report
No official report.
PTC Report
Teachers Inservice – PTC covered cost of lunch for Faculty/Staff during their first week back.
Back to School Night – We had a great back to school night. There were lots of parents picking up and purchasing spirit shirts, PE uniforms and planners. PTC also provided pizza and drinks.
Homeroom Parents – Looking for homeroom parents for various classes. Anyone interested please contact Lorenzo Cano.
Halloween Carnival – Carnival is scheduled for October 29th. Planning is already starting. Carnival committee meeting scheduled for August 31st at 6:00 p.m. Anyone wanting to help, or with suggestions, questions, desire to help; please contact Elisa Garcia.
PTC Board – We are still looking for new board members for the current school year. We have had some parents show interest and are working through that. Anyone interested please contact Elisa Garcia and/or Mrs. Satsky.
Next PTC Board Meeting is September 7, 2016.
Member Items
Marisol Hodge suggested reintroducing student council to support students’ awareness of civil leadership and participation. Mrs. Satsky stated that our National Junior Honor Society currently supports this type of learning and is a possible consideration once the enrollment increased as to not compete with NJHNS activities. She will discuss with Mrs. Navarro.
Lorenzo Cano suggested reinstituted traditions such as Rey Feo visit during Fiesta Week.
Marisol Hodge suggested addressing vacant positions on council. Mrs. Satsky was going to look into bylaws and constitution as well.
CLOSING REMARKS:
Marisol Hodge thanked council members for their time and also for attending the council meeting this evening. Council members were encouraged to speak out to SPS community about interest in serving on school council.
Lorenzo Cano moved to have meeting adjourned; seconded by Delia Meyer
The meeting was adjourned at 7:56 pm.
Our next council meeting is to be scheduled.
Respectfully submitted by:
Marisol Hodge, President
Monica N. Ramirez, Secretary