Salmon Bay Diversity Committee Meeting Minutes—March 15, 2006

In attendance:

Irene Haddow--------------Chair

Ginny Allemann-----------Librarian

Jodee Reed----------------- Principal

Kimberly Kinzer-----------Vice Principal

Jane Enterline-------------- Parent

Julia Donk-------------------Parent

Kelly Delaney---------------Scribe

Amendments to November minutes:

• Under Responses: C.U.R.E. stands for Coalition for Undoing Racism Everywhere

• Under Calendar: Note that the Wednesday 2/15/06 Diversity Meeting was cancelled

November 21, 2005 meeting minutes were amended and approved

Additions to tonight’s Agenda:

• Irene wants to discuss adopting a proposal that was made to FOSBE titled: Accommodating Children with Disabilities at FOSBE Events, for DC Events.
• Jane wants to share a Water 1^st International project that Summit K-12 is doing on March 22.

Ginny’s Report:

• Ginny shared with us our new library collection of Native American Indian books: Folk tales, non-fiction information about a variety of tribes, books about the day-to-day lives of modern day Native American kids, information about traditional dwellings, and more.
• Ginny also delighted us by reading us a Tlingit Tribe folk tale “How Raven Stole the Sun” by Maria Williams.
• The money that is left in the DC budget will go to purchase another series of Native American Indian books that Ginny had wanted, but needed more money for.
• Ginny will also purchase Tough Guise, a film that addresses oppressive gender role stereotypes and societal expectations of boys. We will use this film for the 06’-07’ Movie Night to raise awareness of issues such as the wide spread crises in education in which the academic performance of boys in our country is rapidly declining.

Other suggestions for 06’-07’ Diversity Committee Parent Education Night:

• Internet Safety and Cyber Bullying

Post Summit Report:

• There will be two meetings this spring to organize/plan the next DC Summit.
• These organizing/planning meetings will be held in the evening at the John Stanford Center.
• The first org./plan meeting will be held the 1^st week in May, the second will be held the 1^st week in June.
• The actual DC Summit will be hosted by Jeff Clark and Denny MS, and held in the 06’-07’ school year.

Tasks:

• E-mail previous Summit attendees to recruit volunteers for these upcoming planning meetings (and/or for the Summit)
• Jane will call Jeff to ask his preference about times for planning meetings.
• Ginny and Jane will take care of reserving room at the John Stanford Center for our planning meetings.

Equity Committee Information:

• So far, the Equity Committee consists of many Salmon Bay teachers and staff. They have met with Caprice Hollins, who gave them ideas on how to move along as staff. Parents and guardians will be able to join in when the Equity Committee’s purpose and organization for a combined effort is clear. The potential for coming together is there.
• The Equity Committee will do outreach to SB families who do not get involved at the school.
• What is the role in what’s happening beyond kid’s classrooms?

Chess Program:

• Introduce the idea of sister-schools through a chess program at the next Summit.
• AF4C(a chess program) will be going online next year, and may be a way to connect with sister schools next year.

Next Diversity Event:

• Topic: Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender/ and Questioning Youth (GLBTQ)
• Lisa Love will host a panel discussion at SB regarding sexual identity and the social issues surrounding this topic.

Tasks:

• Irene is the lead on this event.

• SB middle school teacher Jay Sassnet and student group Gay/ Straight Alliance (GSA) to see who wants to participate in this event, either organizing, researching, or speaking.

Budget:

• We have $300 left in the budget for this year.

Discussion

• We discussed putting this money into an end of the year celebration hosted by the DC with a cultural/heritage/celebrating all families theme.
• Julia Donk suggested perhaps we might consider putting the money into a diversity training seminar and send someone, for example, to a white privilege workshop, with the last bit of money.
• The discussion expanded to opening up this idea and do outreach to the entire SB community (via Monday bulletins and website, PTSA, and FOSBE).
• The DC could research, post, and have a fund for attendees to go to, upcoming diversity training workshops.
• Anyone interested in attending (including SB parents, guardians, teachers, and staff, and students), could submit a request describing their interest and agree to report back to the DC, or the community, perhaps through the Fishwrapper and/or other communication avenues, what they learned at the workshop or seminar.
• Everyone agreed that the last of the budget should go to fund this project.

Tasks:

• Julia Donk will research workshops.

Brainstorm on Mission Statement:

Current Statement:

Mission: To support the community at Salmon Bay School to act in ways that reflect a commitment and accountability for issues of racial and social justice, acceptance, tolerance, physical and emotional safety for all.

Mission Statement written in the 1999-2000 school year.

Revision Suggestions:

To support the community at Salmon Bay School to act in ways that reflect a commitment to diversity, social justice, acceptance, physical and emotional safety for all, and to provide a forum for progressive dialogue.

Other:

Irene Haddow proposes that the Diversity Committee adopts a proposal that was made to FOSBE titled: Accommodating Children with Disabilities at FOSBE Events, for all Diversity Committee events. This would entail notifying any family by phone or e-mail, who wants to be notified about Diversity Committee events that have food as part of the event, about the contents of the food so they can make the right choice about whether or not it is a safe event for their child/ren to attend.

• Clarification was made that food allergies are not include under the American’s With Disabilities Act, and that the proposal made to FOSBE is a work in progress.
• The Diversity Committee agrees that we can notify families who wish to be on our distribution list about whether or not there will be food at any given event.
• The information about weather or not food will be made available at DC events is usually noted in DC minutes; the information is not food allergy specific.

Tasks:

• Be sure that a list of families who wants to be notified will take the responsibility of sending them an e-mail regarding the specific food that will be served at DC events.

Jane Enterline passed out an article about a Water 1^st International project that Summit K-12 is doing on March 22.

Tim Ratcliff has offered to donate some event tables to the school. This would be great so we wouldn’t have to rent them from a rental company, as we’ve done in the past. But, we would need a place to store them. Jodee will look into a storage place in the school and get back to us. Irene also suggested that Jeff Clark have a few tables for the Summit at Denny.

Diversity Meetings and Events Calendar

Thursday, April 27^th Diversity Meeting or Parent ED.