Venice High School
School Advisory Council
February 10, 2003 – Minutes
The regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Venice High SAC was called to order by Principal, Candy Millington at 6:30 p.m. in the Rotary Futures Building.
The meeting was begun with a celebration of Bob Vedder’s birthday and his cake was shared by all.
This meeting was primarily a review and informational session to educate the Council regarding “new” community sponsored outreach programs. The first such program was the Cornerstone MODEL mentoring program (Mentors Offering to Develop Educational Leadership.) This program was introduced by Gina Taylor and is designed to match “at risk” ninth grade Cornerstone students with adult mentors who would assist these young people with personal, organizational and academic concerns.
The next program was also a mentoring program which was described by Dr. George Mims and Mr. Lacey Ray. Their program is a mentoring program for minority young men. Currently, seventeen young men are being served by this program. Topics to be covered include a discussion of future plans, a forum on anger management, and an initiative about leadership development. This program serves more than 150 young men at six schools throughout Sarasota County. The year’s activities will be culminating in a large retreat at Day Spring during April.
Dr. John Kelly, chairman of public information for All-Anon and Alateen explained the status of their youth oriented program. This group offers counseling and group meetings for teens who are being adversely affected by family situations that are proving to be malfunctional due to alcohol and drug abuse.
Jean Trammel and Sharon Tritschler highlighted a joint community/school project which is being started to beautify the Venice Trail at the junction of Venice High baseball complex and the inland waterway. The project will be initiated with a large section of the “outfield” wall to be a backdrop for a student designed and constructed mural which recognizes the arts in the community. Student, Jennifer Kindell, is the young artist who was selected to begin the project. The first section of the mural should be unveiled during this school year.
The final presentation was the Rotary Futures project as introduced by Danielle Tanaka and Bob Vedder. The program is a cooperative effort by community volunteers and Venice High staff. The primary goal of this program is to expand informational opportunities for our students as they research potential careers, available scholarships and valuable college information.
Much of this information is now computerized thus facilitating the match of student and scholarship through this data base which includes more than 300 individual scholarship sources.
Ms.Tanaka and “Futures” will be hosting the 1st annual South County College Night in March at Venice High. She has also begun college tours for our students with more such experiences upcoming. Ms. Tanaka has also agreed to organize the Awards Night in May.
Following this presentation, Mrs. Millington expressed thanks to all the presenters for their programs and for all the services that they provide for VHS students.
Respectfully submitted,
Gary Mitchell