Applewood Christian School

ACS Board Mtg. Minutes

January 24, 2011

Board Present: Jennifer Boatright, Josh Greer, Adam Cormican, Carlos Leon, Jon Church, Sandy Wedemeyer

Interested Parties: Scott Young, Paula Crosier, Bill Lansing, Jim Nevils, Lisa Cloud, Sal Aquino, Carie Aquino, Jacinda Wassam, Darla Lansing, Michael Herrington, Debbie Church, Gina Kjar

• Opening: 35 min
• Open in prayer: Adam Cormican
• Athletic Report:
• Balance: $6,845.50
• Income: $1,122.10
• Expenses: $925.62
• Outstanding
• $680
• $159.50
• Secretary’s Report: Josh Greer
• Motion: to accept with grammatical changes
• Jon Church
• Second: Carlos Leon
• Approved
• Treasurer's Report: Jon Church
• Will go over budget on teacher’s salaries
• By $4000
• Covered by Fundraiser, fine arts budget, & rent (currently under budget)
• One Call went down.
• Motion to approve:
• Adam Cormican
• Second: Sandy Wedemeyer
• Approved
• Principals' Report:
• Sherriff’s report
• Pursuing a picture of the subject
• No new calls have been received by the school
• Inventory
• Need to add refrigerators
• Copy of serial number and description
• Academic Competition
• April 15
• Same day as spring production
• Working with Dharma on the overlap in schedules
• There is a small charge
• 9 students interested
• Talent Show
• March 19
• Meeting Wednesday morning to iron out details.
• “Slush Fund”
• $200 in the Fall
• $300 in the Spring
• Working with upper classmen to prepare for the next year.
• End of the year teacher lunch
• Discussion on where this money would come from this year
• Josh Greer: where would this come from in the budget
• Jon Church: The fundraiser and the rent
• Budgeted for more students
• Josh Greer: But if we have less students we have less income, so we can’t count that.
• Josh Greer: Do we have the money somewhere?
• Motion: Use the current unbudgeted excess funds to apply to the $300 in the spring and the extra $58 for teachers training.
• Josh Greer
• Second: Jim Kjar
• Approved
• Aspergers Training
• Conference Feb 24
• Gina Kjar & Melissa Bussey
• $358 total cost
• $300 budgeted
• 2 students currently diagnosed with this disease.
• Bob Shane
• Now has high speed internet
• Communication issues will be reduced.
• Snow Days
• No known issues.
• Received a nice thank you note that we took safety as our first priority.
• Jennifer Boatright: Do all teachers have access?
• Debbie: 1 teacher does not have internet.
• New intent letters
• 25 families yes (46 kids)
• Need 19-20 families
• 1 family will be a no
• McCray (teacher and possible family)
• Robbins (teacher)
• Having a baby
• 11 teachers yes
• 11 teachers unsure
• Needed by February 2 for budgetary purposes
• Rotary club donated $450
• Michal Herrington and Mindy Rehmer worked on a proposal for literary packets
• Author studies
• Things that can go home and come back
• Not consumables
• Jan 10^th
• Mariah Wassam, Jacob Wassam and Debbie Church
• Went to Rotary club meeting
• Suggestions from people in the group that we need to be more involved in other local programs
• Many compliments.
• Winter Bash – Possible Lock-in
• Pfannenstiel family heading it up
• February 19 (pending Maplewood approval)
• Grades 7-8
• Some parents expressed concern about a lock-in for this age group.
• Student council quarterly: Lisa Cloud
• Lock-In
• Appreciates the parents' help
• “ACS Dance Crew” – Senior Event
• Other various items on the calendar
• Would like to go on an event on May 12-16
• Would need to change the Soccer awards. (possibly May 9)
• Would miss the last day of school
• Hoping to keep the budget low.
• Hoping to be funded from existing fundraisers.
• Mentoring Program
• Each high school and junior high class is pairing up with one another
• Doing this for and which each other.
• Gave $400 to Nathan Church for mission trip to Africa
• Balance: $2827.35
• Jacinda Wassam:
• Do we have to do the lock-in?
• Can it just be a late evening?
• Lisa Cloud: Will suggest it.
• Need to hype the pie in the face.
• Little interest at this point
• Boston Trip: Jennifer Boatright
• Balance: $1,638.94
• Various donations have been given
• Beginning: $38.94
• 21 people going
• Travel and lodging unsure
• Various fundraisers still pending

• Open Discussion: 30 min
• Debbie Church
• STAND is changing how they function
• Different funding
• Small group just within Smith Cotton
• Chamber of commerce developing a program
• March will do training
• September to April of next school year, doing a program each month.
• Will be here Friday morning to discuss more
• Snow days and sports activities
• Questions about days when school was cancelled how to handle evening sports event
• Consensus from previous meeting that decision had to be made by noon.
• Deacons of Maplewood discussed us practicing on days we called school off
• They did not tell us not to practice, but advised us to be cautious.
• Asked about legal issues to Jim Kjar.
• No, because families drive independently
• However, we could still be named in a suit of an accident occurred.
• Sandy Wedemeyer: Not comfortable about having practice when we cancel school.
• Jim Kjar: Roads are different in the evening than the morning.
• Scott Young: Still up to parents to make the decision
• Paula Crosier: School is mandatory and practice is not.
• Bill Lansing: researched other schools and their policy
• 6 schools polled
• Most cancel games when school is cancelled.
• Gave an example from one school of a fatality occurred in the past when an exception was made.
• Bill Lansing: Feels it should be a school policy and not up to the athletic committee.
• Paula Crosier: Do we make a decision about home and away games both
• Scott Young: Why can’t we make the decision at noon.
• Bill Lansing: The policy needs to be written intelligently to cover for things outside of weather.
• Gina Kjar: Another problem with not having a policy across the board is we may have families that live far away from the school and would not be able to fill a team.
• Jim Nevils: Suggest we form a committee
• Adam Cormican: In this case doesn’t feel that school should have been cancelled on that Friday.  When this occurs it punishes the sports program that has different conditions that evening
• Jennifer Boatright: It is difficult to make one policy with all of the extreme conditions.
• Darla Lansing: Feels that the kids will feel the pressure if the choice is up to their parents to decide if they go.
• Bill Lansing: Is a nightmare to reschedule games, but would rather be safe.  Feels we should look at what the other schools are doing.
• Scott Young: Lost in why you do not want to make a second decision at noon.
• Various disagreements about what it takes to reschedule games between Scott Young and Bill Lansing
• Michal: Who would make the final decision at noon?
• Bill Lansing: Not comfortable making that decision.
• Darla Lansing: It is not an easy decision to reschedule games, but also not easy to please the families
• Debbie Church: Whatever policy is developed needs to include Tuesday and Thursday.
• Jacinda Wassam: Feels one person needs to make the decisions whether it is school, sports, etc.
• Bill Lansing: Asking the school board to back his decision until a policy is deployed.
• Jennifer Boatright: You are the athletic director, you have the authority to make that decision
• Darla Lansing: But you guys need to back him up.
• Darla Lansing: Are you OK with making a decision at noon (to Bill Lansing)
• Bill Lansing: No, would rather cancel if school is cancelled
• Darla Lansing: If you made it by noon, is that enough time for everyone to plan around
• Jennifer Boatright: This should be enough time.
• Jim Kjar: Doesn’t feel that he has enough time to manage talking to all of the families because most of the coaches have full time jobs.
• Bill Lansing: wants to make the decision based on school cancellation.  For Tuesday and Thursday will make a decision by noon.
• Adam Cormican: Is there a current policy?
• Jennifer Boatright: No, the athletic director makes the final decision.
• Jennifer Boatright: Is OK with Bill making the final decision for now.
• Jennifer Boatright: Asking for volunteers to form a committee
• Scott Young: needing guidance for soccer practice
• Jennifer Boatright: Sees it different because the conditions are different in the winter than in the spring; with regards to driving conditions.
• Paula Crosier: Concerned about the investment coaches have made when their players haven’t touched a ball in a week.
• Paula Crosier: Asking why the coaches can’t make the call themselves
• Jennifer Boatright: No, we would have too many differing opinions on when to cancel
• Darla Lansing: this is why we have a non-coach on the athletic committee
• Carie Aquino: Feels we need to make a safer decision, because the kids feel the pressure.
• Darla Lansing: One of the comments on the surveys mentions that we sometimes make sports more important the school.
• Pam Young: With school, we have the option to home school on a day when we cancel.  We don’t have this option for sports.
• Gina Kjar: Heard “we were punishing some players” when others couldn’t make it.  It shouldn’t be considered a punishment when we are leaning to the greater safety (gave examples of car seats and motorcycle helmets).  We are growing and are growing more diverse.
• Paula Crosier: But the option should always be that you don’t go if you don’t feel comfortable.
• Darla Lansing: But the players feel the pressure
• Paula Crosier: but they need to work through the pressure
• Debbie Church: It needs to lean towards safety.
• Jennifer Boatright: Bill still makes the final call.  Either in the morning, but no later than noon.  Will make the call either way.
• Practices are different
• Debbie Church: But we still need some consistency
• Who would make the decision
• Paula Crosier: Should the coaches make the decision
• Darla Lansing:  Feels that might be a conflict.
• Jim Kjar: Is comfortable making the decision as a coach.
• Michal Herrington: But we need to check with Maplewood first
• Bill Lansing: Does Maplewood have a policy against practices when we cancel school.
• Jennifer Boatright: No, but they suggest it.
• Jennifer Boatright: 4 inches or less is ok.  More than 4 inches and the plow will come.  The plow can’t clear if cars are on the parking lot.
• Bill Lansing to tell the coaches they are making the decisions about practices but to reiterate the 4” mark and not having practice until the parking lot is clear.
• Surveys
• Darla is still proofing Bill’s results of the survey.
• Will be out by Wednesday (1/26/2011)

• Old Business: 25 min
• Costa Rica financial
• Financial breakdown of last year’s group.
• Explanation on “Hannah’s loan”
• Not a loan, but rather her cash was missed when they made plans.
• A detailed notebook will be given to Lisa Cloud.
• Maplewood is taking a group the end of February.
• Maplewood will be locking the garage
• Too many “donations” being left in the garage
• New Business: 25 min           
• Next meeting:
• Feb 21 @ 6:30
• Adjourn:
• Motion to adjourn:
• Jon Church
• Second: Carlos Leon
• Approved