School Advisory Council
Meeting
October 20, 2004
In attendance: Anthony Vignocchi, Dan Kennedy, CSM Matt
Collis, Jim Young, Bob Lechner, Cindy Wallace,
Ken Cowles, Madalyn Andrews,
Katie Vasiloff, Jann Vasiloff, Whitney Vosick, Katherine Valdesuso, Bill Race,
Bridget Jones, Kyle Seeger
Chair, Cindy Wallace called
the meeting to order at 1l:40 a.m. The
minutes from the 9/29/04 meeting were approved as written.
Headmaster’s Report: Enrollment remains around
427. 1st quarter grades for 9th
graders showed that the number of students below a 2.0 were very few and that 37
had a 4.0 or higher. The Sarasota County
School Board met 10/19/04 and decided that the Ringling School of Art would
occupy the old SHS building with a museum on the first floor and art classes on
the 2nd and 3rd floors.
RSA was able to bring 1.25 million to the table towards renovations. Mr. Kennedy stated that SMA would not be able
to borrow money for renovations because we would never own the building; the
School Board will retain ownership.
Headmaster Kennedy made a presentation to the board that was very well
received with all board members very supportive of what we do at SMA. He did say that should something happen with
RSA we would be next in line for the building.
SMA is looking at other sites for the middle school and another facility
may be more financially advantageous. A
site in Venice was looked at for the South County high school; it is a former
shopping center approx. 6500 sq.ft. south of Center Road; owner will work with
us to reconfigure; may be possible to have grades 6-12 up to 800 students. Both sites have some zoning concerns that
warrant further investigation. It isn’t
possible to open 2 sites simultaneously and Mr. Kennedy favors the middle
school first to be used as a feeder to SMA.
When the middle school opens it will accommodate 600-700 students; 30-40
max. who will be randomly selected to attend SMA; the remainder will go to
their districted schools and into the JROTC programs there. Mr. Kennedy pulled our charter expansion
request from the school board’s agenda because of the uncertainty of which
school we are doing first. We are
expanding our existing charter rather than writing a new one. New charters do not receive capital outlay
funds, but existing charters do and that is a more advantageous position to be
in. Our charter has been renewed by
the school board and is now good for 15 years. Katie Vasiloff asked why there
would be 600-700 students in the middle school when our present location cannot
accommodate that. Mr. Kennedy responded
that we will never be able to take all the graduates from the middle school,
but that the purpose of the program is to train them to go back into the county
schools to be leaders; the dollars from the state per student for both schools
would allow us enough funds to operate efficiently with additional discretionary
funds to benefit both schools. Ms.
Vasiloff then asked why we would take only 30-40 students. Mr. Kennedy said that we cannot exclude
students from the other county middle schools who want to attend SMA. Madalyn Andrews asked how many students we
receive dollars for from the county/state.
Mr. Kennedy said that the amount varies and is adjusted according to the
most recent FTE, but our budget is based on 400 students so we are in good
shape. She then asked how many students
SMA would have next year. Mr. Kennedy
said that the number would remain at 430 and maintain the attributes of a small
school. Jann Vasiloff asked about the
students that currently attend SMA and live in Venice. Mr. Kennedy said that they would be allowed
to remain at SMA if they choose when the south county branch opens.
The purchase of the property
is moving towards closing expected in December.
We negotiated 5.01% for 10 years.
Col. Cork is responsible for the purchase; it took an enormous amount of
time and effort to pull it all together. We are borrowing 1.8 million. With ownership comes the appreciation of all
capital improvements and a savings of $7000/month in rent.
The annual audit by Cavanaugh
went extremely well with no anomalies.
High praise to Col. Cork and Peg Cork.
Eventually our portables will
be replaced with concreteables. This
will not be to increase class sizes or enrollment, but rather give “floating”
teachers permanent rooms. Mrs. Vasiloff
mentioned that a faculty member said that at Pine View school they had a number
of problems and cost over runs with their concreteables. Mr. Kennedy will have Col. Cork look into
it.
Old Business: Mr. Lechner submitted the SPE to the district
with the Five Star goal added. Cindy
Wallace mentioned that she would like SAC members to think about ideas for
developing our “internal” SPE and discuss this at the next meeting.
FCAT: Mr. Lechner stated that last year SMA hired
an outside firm to tutor for FCAT, but they were not as effective as
hoped. Since then an in house program has
been developed with Capt. Petrucci, Maj. Smith and the ROTC departments, and
the English department. Every Wednesday
during their ROTC period 10th graders will be given classes in Math,
October & November; Writing for Sergeants, December & January; Reading
February and March.
We are continuing,
Mondays-Thursdays to devote 20 minutes rotating periods for reading. Reading lists were sent home to all parents
with the suggestion that they encourage their children to read and that they
read the books as well.
Cadet Seeger mentioned that
cadets who are currently enrolled in math classes were “burning out” on
additional FCAT math work. They had 80
minutes in their class and another 70 minutes during ROTC. This was causing them to shut down. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Lechner both acknowledged
that there is no perfect answer, but our FCAT scores must improve. Mrs. Jones mentioned that it is hard to
motivate kids by giving them more of the same work to do. Mr. Kennedy said that there was another
pre-test coming up and that the top students may be exempted from further study
if they score well. The results of the
first pre-test were not good. Jann
Vasiloff mentioned that the students who took this pre-test were the same group
of 9th graders last year who scored so well on the FCAT math, so
something doesn’t add up. Katie Vasiloff
mentioned that FCAT doesn’t reflect grades and that kids don’t “care.” She suggested that there be some way to tie
FCAT performance to grades or overall performance. Mr. Lechner stated that the FCAT scores don’t
come back in time to factor into grades.
Mr. Kennedy reiterated that he believes that the FCAT test is too long
and too cumbersome.
New Business: Mrs. Wallace did a brief Veterans Day
recap. The tickets have gone to the cadets
to sell. So far there are sponsors
totaling $2000.
Meeting adjourned at 12:25
p.m.; next meeting is November 17th at 11:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jann Vasiloff, Recording
Secretary