Salmon Bay Diversity Committee Retreat Minutes

August 31, 2006 – Greenwater, WA

 

The purpose of the Diversity Committee Retreat was to set the theme and priorities for the upcoming school year for our committee and to begin to schedule and plan events.

 

In attendance:

Irene Haddow-             Chair

Kelly Delaney-             Parent

Jane Enterline-             Scribe

 

It is difficult to schedule a retreat before the start of school, but we hope to find a date next year that will allow more members, including staff, to attend.

 

Mission Statement

The first business item at the first Committee Meeting will be a motion to approve the Revised Mission Statement.

 

Current Statement

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.

            This statement was written in the 1999-2000 school year.

 

Revised Statement

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.

            This statement was revised at the March 15, 2006 meeting.

 

Communications to the Salmon Bay Community

It is important that the Salmon Bay community be aware of what the Diversity Committee does and what we offer the community. 

·          We will continue to announce upcoming events in the elementary and middle school bulletins.

·          We will ask Jodie and Kimberly to encourage attendance through their announcements.

·          We will write an article for the FishWrapper highlighting last year’s events and plans for this year.  The article will encourage members of the Salmon Bay community to use the Diversity Committee as an avenue to voice their ideas and concerns around issues of diversity in our community, the Seattle School District and beyond.

      Irene is the lead on this project

·          We would like to publish a Diversity Newsletter.

      Jane is the lead on this project

·          Jane has assumed the role of scribe for one year.

 

Scheduled Committee Meetings

We would like to meet on the following Wednesdays at 7:00 in the Library:

            October 11

            November 8

            January 10

            February 7

            March 14

            April 18

            May 9

These dates have been confirmed and scheduled with Kimberly.

 

Event Planning

We discussed the following ideas for events.  We look forward to other ideas and suggestions from community members throughout the year.  We are planning to hold a Movie Night in October and would like to host two other evening events between January and March.

 

Movie Night

We will show “Tough Guise”, as was decided last year.  “Tough Guise” is a film that addresses oppressive gender role stereotypes and societal expectations of boys.

The Salmon Bay Library owns the movie.

·          Movie Night will be held on Mon Oct 16 at 6:30 in the auditorium.

·          Irene will ask Cathy Marks to MC the evening.

·          Jane will invite Patty Maier, the Parent Education Chair, to our next meeting where we will finalize the plans for this evening.

 

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth Night

Irene and Kelly have opened a dialogue and met with the Middle School Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA). 

·          Irene and Kelly will continue to coordinate with Jay Sassnet and the GSA to determine their interest and role in the event.

·          Irene will contact Lisa Love who has agreed to host a panel discussion at Salmon Bay regarding sexual identity and the social issues surrounding this topic.

 

An Evening with Anthony

Last year Anthony expressed interest in presenting/facilitating a talk on family, on the range of family make-up in our community, on how to support all families at Salmon Bay, etc.

·          Irene will speak with Anthony and invite him to discuss this idea at one of our meetings.

 

An Evening with Will Bill

Will Bill is a Native American educator who expressed interest at the Diversity Summit in speaking to our community on Native American issues and social activism.  We discussed opening up this event to the district, using the contacts and channels we established though the Summits.  See the next section on the Summit Update.

·          Irene will speak with Will Bill.

 

District-wide Diversity Summit Update

Jeff Clark continues to express interest in hosting the next Diversity Summit at Denny Middle School. We are waiting to hear more from him. In the meantime we would like to build on the community and resources that were developed during our two Summit Meetings:

 

Irene will speak with Will Bill regarding an evening at the John Stanford Center, open to the whole district, focusing on Will Bill’s social activism.  Perhaps Will Bill can suggest reading materials that the audience can reference before the event.

 

Jane will speak with Ginny Allemann about district-wide resource sharing of diversity materials.  One of the goals of the Summit was to share resources throughout the district.  Salmon Bay has accumulated a nice array of diversity literature and media.  We would like to share it with other schools and have access to their resources.

 

One topic that continued to emerge throughout the Summit Meetings was the idea of “sister schools,” pairing up schools within the district in order to share resources and experiences.  Kelly is interested in creating a joint after-school drama program with Salmon Bay and Denny Middle School.

 

Theme for 2006-2007

As we spoke, Alliances emerged as a theme for this year.  Our work is aimed at building alliances between individuals, families, and student, staff and parent groups within the Salmon Bay community and throughout the district.  The revised mission statement includes the phrase “to provide a forum for progressive dialogue.”  We hope our committee will provide a space and model for respecting differing viewpoints and that the Salmon Bay community will benefit and alliances will be formed through these discussions.

 

Other topics

Allie Fee emailed in the following ideas. We discussed starting points for each idea and will discuss them further at committee meetings.

Jane will follow through with Allie.

 

·          Heritage Days to highlight different cultural and ethnic heritages.
Contact Megan Ratcliff about the Multicultural dinner that may replace the Spaghetti Feed this year.

 

·          Increasing the diversity of the Salmon Bay student body.
Contact Jodie about the Equity Committee.

 

·          Mentorship programs for kids of color, pairing up older and younger students.
Kelly is interested in researching this idea with Allie.