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Post date: Dec 14, 2016 12:16:37 AM
Agenda 12.14.16
Approval of Minutes
Reports
Shadowing Discussion
Service on Transcript Discussion
Notes and New Business
Council Minutes 12.7.16
“The best revenge is massive success.” -Frank Sinatra
Approval of Minutes
Reports
Mod: Thanks to the Broadside for their coverage of Council, they have a great article on the Religious Holidays Motion this week
Treasurer: Council Fund: $5,816.04, Co-Curricular Fund: $5,013
Secretary: No alternates can vote
Curric: Clarifying points for Religious Holidays Motion
SAC: Finalized the activities and scoring for Winter Carnival
Admin: Discussed MLK and the speaker
Inclusivity: worked on something for the first day of classes to comply with wording about name tags for pronoun preferences and an educational component to that
JCOM Effective Date Bylaw Revision
“I move to insert the following into Article VII.F.2, ‘Effective date of consequences. We advise that once J-Comm meets and decides to hear a particular case, all consequences should be suspended. Before that point, however, it is at the discretion of a Dean to decide which consequences, if any, go immediately into effect.””
An appeal happens within 24 hours and then likely within 24 hours of an appeal JCOM holds a preliminary hearing on whether they are going to hear the case and if JCOM decides to hear the case then it is likely 24 hours before a hearing is held and this motion is clarifying what happens during those times
If JCOM is saying they are going to hear the case there is doubt about those consequences and so they should not go into effect until the hearing is completed
It makes sense to the Administration
We had a situation where a student was already halfway done with a schedule up that was later overturned
The ambiguity of the wording prevents someone from appealing the case so they could perform in the final night of a play or avoid a consequence that could only occur at a specific time
Motion Passes (Handcount, 39 aye, 0 nay, 0 abstentions)
Religious Holidays Motion
We are a secular institution and this would be teachers going out of their way to accommodate religion, which could be a slippery slope with preferential treatment towards students’ religions
We are not catering to specific religions but addressing the areas that have been brought up as problems
If we are a secular institution our holiday breaks should not be tied to certain Christian holidays and since we are not truly a secular institution we should make other accommodations
Students are forced to work harder to practice their religion
We should look at creating a more robust goldenrod program rather than changing the system for this case because the problem needs to be addressed and students and staff are comfortable with the goldenrods
Other holidays have been brought up and not added to the list
Educators are compassionate and we want to allow you to celebrate important things in your lives
Where do we draw the line as to what qualifies as a religious holiday, even if it works on a basis of the classes that an individual student is in
The wording about Ramadan seems out of place
There are many reasons that students might have to spend an entire day doing something other than homework
The point of this motion is to remove the catch up that religious students are forced to do and the goldenrod just pushes that back and it isn’t the solution to this problem
“I move to strike the sentence, “In the case of an extended holiday such as Ramadan, students are encouraged to talk to their teachers far in advance to make amenable arrangements.”’
It was discussed in Curric and decided that this doesn’t make sense and the goal of this sentence is already included in the intention of this motion
Amendment Passes
Targeting only a few religions does not help the problem of a calendar limited to specific religions
This is a foot in the door and even though it doesn’t include all the holidays we might want it is a good first step
Passing this motion without it being inclusive makes it seems as if other holidays are less important
Teachers don’t always understand what is involved for students to celebrate their holidays and some of that information could be put on the back of goldenrods
Motion Fails
Shadowing Discussion
A staff member suggested a motion requiring that all Council members do a day long shadow of another student at an Upper Valley high school to give them perspective and maybe some new ideas from other schools
It would be cool if we could extend it to schools outside the Upper Valley
A requirement that all Council members must do it might create problems so it might make sense to put this as a duty of PR to set it up every year for as many Council members as possible so it is enshrined in the bylaws
There is no single behavior that a Council member must do to be effective but we should encourage students to do this
This could be a valuable for everyone in the school so it shouldn’t be limited to Council
A lot of people have been in the Dresden system since elementary school so it could provide great perspective
It makes sense to have the organization in Council but it should be open to other students
This wouldn’t exclude other students from doing it and anyone could go shadow now so we shouldn’t focus on the rest of the school but on Council experiences
Shadowing is just a day experience and doesn’t tell you much about the institutions of the school or the culture or background of the school, it is just a day in the life and a debriefing might be more effective
Meeting Adjourned
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