Fort Dorchester High School

Minutes

October Meeting 10/30/07

Present:

Michael Knotts-faculty

Darryl Woods-faculty/parent

Chen Chen Costelloe-student

Zosia Koehler-faculty/parent

Debbie Russell-PTSA president

Amanda Crump-Chic-fil-A

Daniel Dickerson Chic-Fil-A

Susan Tant-parent

Sandy Parker-faculty

Jim Atkinson-Principal

Greg Harrison Assistant Principal/SIC rep

The meeting was called to order by Mr. Knotts who was acting chair as we have not voted for officers as yet. Introductions were made and the minutes of the last meeting were quickly reviewed. A motion was made and seconded to accept the minutes with one minor change. The motion carried and the minutes were accepted.

Officers were elected in the standard fashion and after elections the results were:

Chen Chen Costelloe –Chair

Sandy Parker- Assistant Chair

Zosia Koehler- Secretary

Old Business:

Last meeting we determined two areas of concern for our group were Communication and School Climate. Under the areas of Communication we discussed:

Morning Announcements at length, some issues here seem to be:

students are not getting the information they need

teachers are teaching through the announcements

WPTV content could be more news like and less entertainment like.

When should the announcements be 1^st period vs 8^th period

School Climate:

Tardiness- continues to be an issue.

Administration presence in the halls needs to continue.

2 weeks of morning detention instead of after school detention.

Patriot Pride 99 students will attend a special lunch, student of the month

 

New Business:

Mr. Knotts attended the district SIC meeting recently, he gave the following report:

There is a survey that we need to complete for the district office it will be copied and passed out please return it next meeting.

focus on the SIC being an Advisory body to the Administration

a push to encourage more parental involvement in SIC

focus on security and safety

homework was a topic of concern in some buildings

New attendance lines are in the works and therefore a point of contention.

Message from Mr. Pye: Empower the teachers, Empower the parents and this will lead to empowered students.

Mrs. Russell asked about the SHS/FDHS football tickets and why we were not allowed to sell tickets at school.

Mr. Knotts brought up the issue of fights after the pep rallies, and fights in school in general. Mr. Atkinson reported that three students were arrested and fined and suspended for three days. Some committee members feel fighting has increased and others feel there has been an improvement.  There was some discussion of how to improve pep rallies, just cancel them seems to be the consensus. Mrs. Koehler brought up the idea of only allowing students with fewer than say five discipline slips to buy a ticket, or use any other criteria that admin saw fit. It seems to be to difficult to manage how to control this too many children buy tickets for each other.

Staph infection; There has been one confirmed case of MRSA Staph infection in the school. It was a Football player and the athletic rooms, locker rooms have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

There is to be a new letter jacket available this year to allow differentiation between athletes and other students who earn letters for academics, band, and other activities. There was quite a bit of discussion surrounding this issue, some members feel that letter jackets should be the same as different jackets imply that the athletes are better than other students. Other people think that it makes the other jackets superior to the athlete’s jackets. While still others think it is a non issue.

Mr. Woods suggested that we think of ways to improve communication, an SIC webpage was suggested. Also an SIC phone tree.   

Next meeting Tuesday 27^th November 4:00 pm in the Big Conference Room.