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Post date: May 2, 2018 1:24:10 PM
Agenda 04.25.18
Approval of the Minutes
Reports
Adventure Capital Presentation
Notes and New Business
Council Minutes 04.11.18
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” -Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
1. Approval of Minutes
2. Reports
Mod: Will be sending out link to google form in Council email chain. Description of Tom Hanlon Council award included. Can put in name of nominee and description of individual. Naturalization ceremony tomorrow. Thank you to those who have signed up to be greeters. Encourage students to come on April 20th for the training of facilitation with Ms. Addante. Will be bringing X-period Standardization Motion to Mr. Campbell tomorrow.
A-Mod: Send in nominations for Skip Bean Democratic Award. Can be found in Common Ground announcements of previous week. In discussion today, if we feel that we are done discussing, can make motion to move onto next item on agenda.
Treasurer: Co-curricular fund = $3789. Will go down $360.75 after paperwork filled out for Acapella allocation.Council fund = $6240.90. Council fund will go down $300 after Senior ice cream party on April 27th.
Secretary: No alternates can vote.
Admin: Sending out nomination form for Skip Bean Democratic Award.
Curric: Worked on handbook edits.
OEC: Sign-up sheet for OEC and Admin members to sign off on posters the Wednesday after Spring Break. Nomination forms for Council due at the end of the day today.
Like example 3 on google document and how it is broken down into three categories. Would add inclusivity (people outside of social group). Even in classrooms, it is difficult to get students from different social groups to work together.
Should consider sending this to committees instead of discussing during Council. Would be more productive for each of committees to bring notes.
While example 3 is good, we also have hearts, minds and voices. Have established that HHS focuses on minds. If we just state something similar to example 3 as vision of graduate, it will not actually change anything that we do. Need to think about more concrete actions that will change the school.
We are not a school that is mission driven. Need to find a way to keep conversation going around vision and commit to becoming a school that driven by a mission that molds our practices.
Issue with HHS is that we often focus on teaching what we are learning and not how we are learning. Example, approaching history from one perspective instead of multiple perspectives. Students do not learn how to form their own opinions. Instead taught A, B, C. Would like to see increase of learning experiences such as simulations.
Want vision of graduate to be integrated into curriculum. Have never seen mission statement used in classroom.
Believe that the Community Service Motion will help students with interpersonal skills: finding how they fit into the world, how to advocate for cause, how to use passions to help others. Who you are out of high school is much more important than what you learn out of high school. Feel most of interpersonal skills come from conversations out of classrooms. Wish that as school we emphasize more debates and ways that create more conversation and allow for students to work on communication skills.
Vision of graduate needs to be flexible enough so that it can be also implemented in elementary school and middle school as well, not just high school. Would like to see reach-out to students and teachers in elementary and middle school.
CPP is making committee on who will be drafting wording. Will have representatives, such as HHS student who will be in charge of going to others, like elementary school students.
Creating vision is step 1. Conversation and hard work is step 2. Need to have discussions within departments and staff on how to implement the vision.
DSB talking about schedule and 2-year plan to reexamine schedule. Can use discussion around vision of graduate to help drive discussion on creating a new schedule that is more accommodating to goals. For example, the school rarely has all-school meetings. While freedom is important, it is also important to be forced to spend time with people you do not really know. Common Ground forces some interactions, but can also be developed to work towards vision.
Need to get teachers involved. Teachers must be willing to understand that how you learn is just as important as what you learn. Conversation needs to extend beyond Council.
Great deal of ambiguity of mission statement. Could reword mission statement instead of having to go to list that will be created as vision of graduate.
Interesting that cannot find mission statement in classroom where Council is held. Goes to show how little integration there is with the mission statement and school currently.
If academics is only one-third of mission, we should not have students that are using the current HHS schedule to constantly be doing only academic work.
Need to look at getting the larger community on board, specifically parents.
School can do more to help students outside of academics. For example, school can mandate more activities that force different students to spend time together that would not typically be in the same friend group, such as ropes courses or hikes. As long as a child can take seven academic classes and the schedule allows for that, there will be parents who will push students to the maximum. Maybe build in more free time, such as lunch that would force students to have a break.
Like hearts, minds, and voices. We can make it more visible, but it is simple enough to memorize that we do not need to look it up.
Mindset at Hanover that getting perfect grades is what will prepare us for the future. Read article that being a C+ student does not mean you will have a C+ life. Should be more to school than getting good grades. Can be argued that social interactions are just as important or more important than getting food grades.
Want to see hearts, minds, and voices used more than they are more right now.
A lot of discussion comes back to schedule which is focused on academics all the time.
Have to think about how we will integrate hearts, minds, and voices. We may think about it more because we use those things in the democratic process of Council, but we have to make it a schoolwide discussion.
Vision does not need to be that important than what we are doing. Good to reflect on the good things that we are already doing. Have heard in other high schools that everyone is plugged into earbuds with AP books stacked in front of them in libraries and happy that it isn’t the culture around here. Although people say that HHS is academically obsessed, see 75% if students not doing homework during free periods. Even when students are in the library, students are having meaningful conversations. So many amazing things about HHS, hope that conversation around vision of graduate does not get profoundly negative.
Have mindset that numbers define us. When we fail, we learn to appreciate downfall once in a while. Even with X-periods, students are required to check-in and be reminded of class. Block schedule would help so that a student doesn’t have to attend all classes every day.
Currently like schedule. Came in with mindset that would only do math. While still love math, have explored a lot of other things such as advanced chorus, computer programming class, etc. Really enjoy having opportunity to take a variety of classes that are not for future career but are fun. Maybe should refocus on what we think is important as a school, but not in favor of schedule change.
Need more structured free time in general with school schedule.
Common misconception in school with block schedule that a student only takes four classes and a student has the same schedule every day. With some kind of block schedules, can take more than four classes in a year. Could take 8 or 9 classes in a year. Not looking at a schedule because we are happy with what we have is so Hanover, such as not looking at other options besides college for post high school plans. Having a conversation and looking at alternatives is important.
Do not think schedule is flexible. Cannot take art and music. Would like to try different things, but feel restricted by schedule. Could try half-blocks, or other different kinds of schedules. Would be interesting to have white board brought back down to atrium area. Could propose one of schedule ideas to school during period and have different groups in different parts of the school and get different opinions.
4. Meeting Adjourns
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