Diversity Committee Minutes – November 20, 2002

Present

Mia Parker, David Bilides, Walter McGerry, Julia Berg, Irene Haddow, Lynda Joko, Jeff Clark, Dorothy Jacobsen, Jennifer Geist

If your name is in bold that means you have a task! (That is you, Lynda, Walter and Jennifer… J)

Parent Education Night

· Goals for the night:

· Have a facilitator (not chosen at this time.)

· Have a place for parents to be interactive with one another, and share their thoughts and feelings. People have a lot to say, and sharing helps with community building – small group discussion for all participants.

· We would like to use the night to encourage people to take some ongoing action at our school.

· A little risky is good – change can feel uncomfortable

· Topic: Privilege, with a focus on racial issues.

· Time: two hours on a Friday March 7, with childcare provided

· Food: Potluck dinner and desert

· Place: At Salmon Bay, where we can easily set up and offer childcare.

· Evaluation: Let’s have a way parents can give us feedback on what they liked and would like to see done differently.

· List of names: Let’s make sure we get these.

· Let’s call and remind people to come – maybe through the class phone tree structure.

· Things we talked about but are not doing at this time – a three night series, doing a less deep topic i.e. cultures, doing the parent education night in the south part of Seattle.

Parent Education possible facilitators – we have a budget for this

· Someone from the CRAB (Culturally Relevant Anti-Bias) group. Maybe Mona Mendoza, who facilitated last year, or someone else. Lynda will call and interview folks, with our goals in mind.

· Walter has some contacts he will call, with our goals in mind.

· Jennifer has some contacts she will call, also with our goals in mind.

Diversity Bookfair

· Ginny sent out an e-mail report. Total sales were $1134.27. 15% of that was received in books for the library- $170.14. Ginny chose 14 books, mainly picture books, some poetry.

· This is a thrilling success for our first try at a Diversity Book Fair, and we want to do it again next year.

· For next year, we need a sub-committee to help organized volunteers, coordinate with Ginny and Stir Fry Books, handling back-ordered books, and so on.

Co-chair positions, minutes and board representation

· Irene is the elementary co-chair, and Lynda Joko is the middle school co-chair. Both of them have a vote on the parent board.

· Julia Berg is the communication liaison.

Working with staff Courageous Conversations,

· The staff present reported on their experience with Courageous Conversations.

· The staff will have three more facilitated (by Dorothy Jacobsen and Mia Parker) 2-hour conversations during this school year.

Book club may morph into reading articles

· One idea for an ongoing activity to involve and education parents is a monthly article-discussing group. The hope is that an article is just the right length to read, and that people could drop in at ant time, instead of feeling that they had missed the beginning and then not come.

Next Diversity Committee meetings

· We plan to alternate committee meetings between the north and south ends of town.

· December 18, 7-8:30, Salmon Bay Library (we chose to have this meeting in the north end, because there is also a Solstice Celebration at school that night and we want people to be able to do both if they want to.

· January 22, 7-8:30, TBA

· February 26m 7-8:30 , Salmon Bay Library

· March 19, 7-8:30, TBA

· April 23 7-8:39 Salmon Bay Library

· May 21, 7-8:30, TBA

Dreams (we’ve seen these before, but they bear repeating)

· We would like to see undoing institutionalized racism training for our committee

· We would like to positively impact the curriculum our children are taught around issues of races, class, etc.

Next months proposed agenda (feel free to e-mail or call Julia if you want to add something.)

· Lynda will invite Gary Owens to speak at our next Diversity Committee meeting. He is the Chair of the Diversity committee at TOPS Alternative School. He helped to build a very successful group in that school.

· Reports from people who interviewed potential facilitators.

· Where in the south end will we meet in January?

· Curriculum alignment – what is it and how does it relate to the work of the curriculum committee, a curriculum review, when is it being implemented. (Jeff started on this in November, but we ran out of time.)

· What is the mechanism for parents to follow if they have concerns about curriculum? Can the committee become a forum for parents with concerns?

The minutes are submitted – Julia Berg.