Minutes – August 17,2006  

Meeting called to order at 5:20.

• Members present: Kim Parker Brown, Debbie Webb, Sheryl Bruens, Sharon Willmarth, Betty English, Genelle Meads, Terry Tonges and Brenda Cissell.

• The agenda was approved with one addition (Intermediate Report Cards).  (S.Willmarth made a motion to approve, B. English seconded.)

• Minutes for the June 8 meeting were reviewed and approved. Mrs. English made a motion to approve the minutes; Mrs. Webb seconded this.

• Mrs. Parker Brown presented the current enrollment numbers (471 total as of August 15) and the council discussed these issues relating to enrollment.

• A full time aide is to be hired for the 3^rd grade (with School Board approval) because of the large numbers of 3^rd graders this year.

• A new teacher has been hired for the 4^th grade and started work on August 14.

• Huntertown has 46 ESL students this school year and the teachers have already attended a Professional Development seminar to learn about cultural differences and teaching strategies for dealing with ESL students.

• Mrs. Parker-Brown is to discuss the possibility of hiring a full-time ESL teacher for Huntertown with the Superintendent.

• The council discussed NCLB requirements – all four elementary schools in the district successful met their Annual Progress goals, but the district still needs to improve in the area of Math.  On August 4, all of Huntertown’s teachers attended a Professional Development seminar with an expert in Math instruction and purchased some manipulatives for our Math Resource Room.

• The council needs to get together a list of SBDM committees for the PTO newsletter to encourage parents to join these committees.

• Sheryl Bruens has agreed to fill the vacancy on the committee left when Jean Barrows retired.

• Over the summer three new teachers were hired – Julie Dowdell (4^th grade), Becky Hewlett (Kindergarten), and Amy Waters (PE).

• Mrs. Parker-Brown will be presenting to the School Board at the August 21 meeting, some items that she will cover are:  

• Scores and sub-groups that Huntertown will be working to improve this school year (NCLB).

• A plan to bring Spanish students from the high school to tutor ESL students (this will require board funding for the school bus to transport the high school students to and from Huntertown).

• Huntertown’s attendance remains high this month.

• There has been a change in attendance rules at the district level – a student who misses 60 minutes or less of the school day is considered tardy, any absence for longer than 60 minutes is calculated as a percentage of the school day.

• A survey was conducted at the Ice cream Social this year to determine if a Family Resource Center is needed at Huntertown.  The report of this survey was sent to the school board.  Huntertown will share a FRC with Southside, each school will need to provide a room for this purpose.

• Mrs. Webb indicated that the 4^th and 5^th grade teachers would like to have a comment space added to the intermediate report card. A suggestion was made that the teachers have further training on how to use the report card form.  Mrs. Parker-Brown requested that Mrs. Webb along with the other intermediate teachers develop a list of specific needs and wants for the report card to be discussed at the next SBDM meeting.

• The next SBDM meeting will take place on September 21, 2006 at 5:15. At this meeting the council will need to discuss a plan for the SBDM election needed in November.

• The Open House is scheduled for September 7, 2006.

• All decisions were by consensus.

• A motion to close was made by D. Webb and seconded by G.. Meads.  The meeting adjourned at 6:30.