D+February+2011

February 22, 2011  1) Check-ins on recent moments/events at the school that capture the Quaker character of the school   Middle School – Is there a way to tie in physical illness – Middle School has been very sick with flu and colds – sometimes as many as a third out. Coming out of a funk, so to speak. Middle School currently involved in report writing. I feel fortunate to be at this school because it’s so demanding. The process of writing an evaluation allows you to discover something new about that student. It’s a gift to us as educators.     The play brought home the connections between MS and other units – celebrating the work and the links between units and families. The play also unifies the ages within the MS.    Early School – Noticing when I do the February reports, looking back at the ones I did in October and realizing how far a child has come. I value that part of reporting.     Our parent community has taken up the cause of service. We participated in the Book Drive for MLK day. We collected 309 books and fed them to the book monster princess. At the end of school before winter break, we did a clothing drive for a family in a shelter. We ended up with 2 cars full. IT feels good to be doing this as a community. Lower School – Sense of family – the safety net of the support of colleagues during hard times. 2) Continuation of the discussion of next steps in our evolution as a school-led, rather than board-led committee   Charlie brought to Friday meeting a description of where we are in the process, but there wasn’t time at that meeting to allow folks to consider it carefully. The topic will be revisited.     The Board did not meet in February, so they have not had time to consider it either. We will be awaiting that feedback. Marsha is comfortable continuing as convener for this school year. We should plan to talk about this at our final meeting of this year.    We are comfortable returning to our previous name as the School Life Committee. The expectation is that the parts of the school currently represented will continue to be included. Should we frame some queries that might allow us to get input from the wider community as to how this group could support the work of the school? We have an opportunity now to re-examine our mission and to define our function. We will continue to have the Quaker identity of the school as central to what we do. What is our relationship to the ASSP? We have acted as facilitators and liaisons for various presentations that they have done. Next time – feedback from Friday meeting, feedback from the Board, framing of queries that might provide us with needed input ** __To do__ ** – we all ask in our units about the needs of the units from this group – relative to supporting the Quaker life of the school Are their resources you wish you had? Are there resources within the Meetings? (like Cal) Are there unit events that we could be sharing/communicating better? 3) Continuation of the discussion of possible Quaker-in-Residence possibilities   Amanda Kemp – Philadelphia theater group    $5K for a 2-day residency by the group, $7K for week by Amanda    most grants are $300-$500    A budget of $5K for an event like this is not unreasonable, but would necessitate someone willing to come for $3K – additional $2K for travel and hospitality.    George Lakey – not really traveling much these days – working with QEW     QEW – Quaker Earthcare Witness – environmental concerns – do projects in Costa Rica, are at     FCG Cesanne heads the QEW committee at Meeting    John Scardina – is QIR at Quaker Academy this year; a school psychologist; does music and theater,     works in the classroom; trying to bring Quakerism to a mostly non-Quaker community    He says he gets $40 an hour for “face time”. He has done events with parents.     his blog: [] Steven Dotson – Quaker Quest – has worked with MS age, writer, teacher, videographer Quaker Quest – a format for meeting/discussions about Quakerism AFSC – inspirational work – someone to speak on service. Their director will be here in April and will speak to the US. Not sure how long he will be around. Could it happen in the Center and be   open to parents and others who might attend? (parents, Meetings) All should take time to look at their website before March meeting their website: [] Marsha will explore other AFSC options. There is an AFSC office in Greensboro. – perhaps a    resource there? Does AFSC have a set of workshops, educational projects that they could share with us? Knowing some AFSC history would be great. There is a need to move carefully – this is our first venture of something we hope will continue, so it needs to be great. If we can get the Meetings excited about what we’re doing, perhaps they would contribute some money? Should we spend some time next month framing out what this event might look like? What will we be asking this person to do? Could PSA help? Community read be related? Could we identify some queries for this group to consider – such as how silence is used throughout the school?