Attendance
Members Present:  (Voting Parents):  Blewett, Knuth, Dzik, Vellenga, Hart, Roberts,  (Voting Teachers):  DeCourt, Oyen, Mayock, Tarver, Marriuci, Pedersen
Members Absent (Parents):  Blakey, Delgado, Johnson, Windels (NV), Langworthy (NV) 

The December meeting minutes were reviewed and approved.  The revised January agenda was approved.

Announcements
Roxanne Hart:  (1) Annual district information parent fair, January 22, 2005.  Roy Wilkins Auditorium.  Need parent volunteers, and (2) Site Council Workshop offered by the district January 18th and 19th 2005 for site council members.

Ann Oyen:  Save the date Thursday, March 3rd Capitol Hill Junior High History Fair. 
Ann is recruiting parent volunteers.

Administration's Report
Budget Process Update:  Tom Vellenga asked about updated enrollment figures.  Total CH enrollment is at 976 students as of December 2004 (grades 1-8).

Capitol Hill Staff meeting will take place at MLK tomorrow at 3:00.  Dorthea Burns, the administrator at MLK will provide an overview of the center and its activities.  This is during the regularly scheduled staff meeting.

Sherri Knuth asked about issues going on with 6th grade class.  The only issue Louis is aware of is individual student issues, not issues for the class as a whole. 

Melissa Roberts raised questions about 6th grade being a real transition year for students.  Are there things we could do to help students and teachers through the process.  Are there some things parents could do as volunteer in the classroom for support?  Not sure if this is a Site Council issue or PTO issue. 

Louis talked about 7th or 8th grade open house in the fall and open house for prospective parents in February 2005.  Maybe piggyback on these activities for 6th graders.  Might be good to have 6th graders visit junior high.  Possibly start with the 5th grade to help them get ready for 6th grade.  Sherri suggested maybe 6th graders write letters to the 5th graders that the new 6th graders would have on the first day of class. 

Melissa summarized that there does seem to be agreement that there might need to have some support for the 6th grade students and teachers during this transition year.  Outreach committee is talking about the letters for all grades but would it be helpful to have a list of parent volunteers for teachers to call on or help with visit of 5th graders to 6th grade. 
Do the teachers feel like they need the support?  First step will be to check in with the students.

** Louis suggested that he would talk with 6th grade teachers and report back on their concerns/ideas.

Tom Vellenga suggested that there be more publication of the availability of Lisa Larsen who is the social worker at Capitol Hill.  She is .8 position -- .5 of her position is paid for with special ed and .30 is paid (1.5 days) by Capitol Hill.  Louis expressed concern about her time and availability.  This is the second year that Capitol Hill does not have a junior high counselor.  This is a significant need for junior high.  Lisa does work with the junior high but she is stretched.   

Committee Reports

SCIP - Jackie Blakey is the chair.  Louis met with internal SCIP committee and went over the disciplinary data.  A UofM student was helping creating an Access data base for 7th and 8th grade detention.  UofM student is refining the data base as a resource for Capitol Hill.  Tom suggested that we are so lucky to have her - Andrea Backes, Director of Finance from the Humphrey Institute (abackes@hhh.umn.edu).  He suggested we each individually send her formal thank you's - maybe from the Site Council chairs.  Roxanne suggested that the chairs would contact Jackie to see when the parents were going to meet on this issue.

Outreach - Discussion of meeting with Tony Carter, Board Chair of the St. Paul School Board.  She was excited about what the Site Council of Capitol Hill was doing.  She gave lots of ideas about partnerships with MLK:  e.g. senior groups there that might be interested in participating in the History Day projects; take student project work and get it out into the community.  Also, there is an event happening on Feb 16th, a community forum in connection with African American history month.  Might be good to connect up with this meeting somehow.  Should get the student artwork, projects, etc...out on display for this day.  Have the Capitol Hill booth up, have junior high students around, and encourage people to come for the community event.  She also encouraged us to apply for corporate sponsorship. 

Membership - February 14th, Monday applications for parents to run for Site Council are due at 5:00.  Sherri wanted to encourage current Site Council members to recruit people to run for Site Council. 

Reform Committee - Refer to next month to expand on the process.

PTO - Sara is not here.  Louis commented that they are not meeting this month.

GTAC - No report.

Old Business
School Disciplinary Process:  Louis went over his hand out on: "Capitol Hill Disciplinary Procedures 2004-2005," and "Elementary Discipline Data 1/7/05."  Louis discussed the process for each grade.  Junior High has free passes 3 for tardy per week and bathroom passes. This process gives the students both flexibility and responsibility.  Each week it starts over.  The students can also use the two tardy slips to get out of a detention.  At conference time parents should get a discipline report.  Tom Vellenga thanked the administration for all its hard work and commented on the breadth of information the data provides.  The data seem to suggest that we have a great group of kids!  But need to continue to monitor and see where problems bubble up and continue to make improvements.   

Sherri asked about what the process is for Site Council and have we addressed the problems.  Roxanne says this item is tied to the SCIP committee and the quality report.  This is one of the issues on the SCIP.  Maybe this is more of a monitoring issue at this point.  Louis said that this issue would be part of the SCIP report for next meeting.   
Melissa Roberts suggested that there still seems to be disparities in discipline.  The numbers are better but need to push a little harder on reducing the disparities. 

John Mayock suggested that the data show the problems but also highlights the good aspect of Capitol Hill kids.  Need to sustain efforts to reward the positive behavior too - Cougar Awards, Honors breakfast, etc...  Melissa suggested we might want to consider doing an attendance award.

Offering Second Language for Elementary School:  Tom Vellenga drafted a document, "making the case for a second language"  and is working with a few others to get it into final form and get it into newsletter and website and then the Administration will administer a survey. 

New Business 
Defer these two items for the next meeting: 
(1) Draft Form -Major Policy or Curricular Change Process:

(2) State of Joint Meeting with PTO and/or Town Hall Meeting:

Topical Discussion
Suggestion was made to move the meeting from February 14th to the 7th at 5:30.

Public Forum
None

Next Meeting Agenda Items:
* Junior High Issues work group report on meetings/information to date
* Update on staff meeting with MLK
* Update on Louis contact with 6th grade teachers on need for support