This month’s Community Club meeting was held on Tuesday, May 4, 2010. The following is a summary of the information provided at that meeting.
Principal’s Report:
- Dr. Trimmer received the long awaited call from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, advising that Evergreen had been designated as a California Distinguished School. This distinction places Evergreen in the top 2% of all elementary schools in the state. This award is a huge honor for our school, and Dr. Trimmer is very excited about it. Dr. Trimmer wanted to express his sincere gratitude to all the teachers, students, and parents — since as he pointed out, it takes all of those groups working hard together to reach a goal with this much significance, and each of those groups should be proud of the good work they have done at Evergreen.
- Last Sunday was the District’s 5K/1K Run/Walk. This was the kickoff event to mark the 40th Anniversary of the WVUSD. It was a great event, and it was wonderful to see so many people from the community come out to make it such a success. The number of participants was estimated at 2000, which far exceeded the expectations of the planning committee, but will translate into a lot of money raised for the district. Evergreen was awarded the Spirit Cup for being the school with the most participants. We also had the most staff members and parents working the event. Evergreen was very well represented and Dr. Trimmer was proud of our presence at the event. As “Team Gretz” met the goal of 100+ participants, the water gun fight will be scheduled for May 14th. A separate water gun fight will be held with the Kindergarten participants.
- CST Testing has been mostly completed, and went well.
- This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. It has been heartwarming to see so many students participating — carrying flowers and other small gifts to show their appreciation to their teachers. The Parent Appreciation tea was held a couple of weeks back, and that went very well also.
- As the school year comes to an end, there are still a lot of events on the horizon. Everyone is very much looking forward to the end of the year activities.
Teacher’s Report:
- There are 21 days of school left this year, and a lot of activities planned for that time. Kindergarten still has a couple of field trips planned, and other grades have events as well, such as the 3rd grade County Fair and the 5th Grade picnic.
- The teachers have completed their contract negotiations with the district and have come to an agreement on several new stipulations, including:
- The teachers agreed to take 5 furlough days for the 2010/2011 school year
- The teachers agreed to take 4 furlough days for the 2011/2012 school year
- Representatives from each school will be meeting together to decide when these furlough days will be scheduled. All schools in the district will take furlough at the same time. These furlough days will be removed if the district should receive more budget money from the State
- We will be keeping the PE program at the elementary level, although the music program will be cut
- Class size will not be increased as much as previously projected. Based on current enrollment, the Kindergarten classes are expected to be at 24.5 students. We have lost the funding for extended day kindergarten, but we will be retaining the extended day schedule.
- The library will stay open, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that it stays open as close to the current 30 hours/per week schedule as possible.
Spring Book Fair: The book fair will be held May 10th – 14th, including the evening of the 13th during Open House. We are in need of volunteers to work the book fair. Shifts are as little as 30 minutes each. We have a special need for help in the morning from 9:40am – 10am. Contact Amanda Wong if you can help.
Hospitality: The committee will be holding the Staff Appreciation luncheon on Friday of this week.
Website: A new category of “Pictures” has been added to the website. There are currently photos of the Walk A Thon posted. If parents have photos of other school functions that they wish to have posted, please provide them to Carrie Yee either by email or on a CD.
Treasurer Update: When the treasurer reports were submitted for review, our treasurer pointed out that as we head into the end of the school year, the Community Club has exceeded their fundraising goals (113% of projected goal), while only spending about half of our anticipated expenses (54% of projected expenses). This will put the Community Club in very good financial standing going into the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 school years, when we know we will be called upon more than ever to help the school close the financial gap created by the district budget crisis.
Room Parent Coordinator: Teacher Appreciation is this week. Newsletters went out to all Room Parents to give them ideas about how classes might show appreciation to their teachers.
Open House: We are bringing in a vendor to provide pizza to parents wanting to purchase dinner at Open House. We are in need of volunteers to act as cashiers and to help serve. If you can help, please contact Ling Yeung.
Box Tops: We are still collecting Box Tops. Please keep sending them in. We just received a check from Box Tops for $614, so this is an important fund raiser for us. Please be sure to send them in neatly trimmed, so that the job of trimming of thousands of box tops does not fall on the Box Top Coordinator alone.
New Board Positions: A list of the Board Positions for the 2010-2011 school year is now being circulated. There are plenty of opportunities for parents to help — some big, and some small. Also, most positions are open to the possibility of having multiple committee members, so feel free to add your name, even if someone else has already signed up. Anyone interested in serving in these positions need simply sign up on the list, or contact Joanna Flores or Yara Sands. We will also try and get the list of positions up on the website as soon as possible so interested parties can see what is available.
California Distinguished School Award: As previously stated, Evergreen has been designated as a California Distinguished School — which is a very prestigious award and a major accomplishment for our school. Dr. Trimmer advised that the Student Council has offered to pay for the official California Distinguished School logo to be painted on the exterior of the school. However, Dr. Trimmer asked the Community Club to consider paying for some additional items to honor this accomplishment. Specifically, he asked the Community Club to consider paying for two 6 foot banners, t-shirts for the staff members, and tickets for three staff members to attend the official awards banquet. Much discussion about the request was held, and arguments on both sides of the issue were presented. In the end, the majority of the Community Club members voted to approve Dr. Trimmer’s request, agreeing to pay for the specified items (not to exceed $1500).
This was the final Community Club meeting scheduled for the 2009/2010 school year. We hope to see you all when we reconvene our general session meetings in September 2010!
