Lexington (MA) High School Senate

LEXINGTON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT-FACULTY SENATE

2005-2006

Moderator Peter Lubershane, Assistant Moderator Sam Kafrissen, Secretary Peter Kim

Date: 2-15-06 Agenda:

Announcements

Open Comments

Committee Reports

Median Grade Reporting Bill

New Business

Minutes from Meeting: 2-8-06

I. Call to Order: Meeting is called to order at 7:50 by Moderator Lubershane

II. Approval of Minutes: Minutes approved.

III. Approval of Agenda: Agenda approved.

IV. Announcements: 1) On Tuesday, there will be an improve troupe show at 7pm in the black box.

2) The author of the editorial in the musket that was based on misinformation will

write articles more carefully in the future.

3) Peer mediation is selling stress balls for $3.

V. Open Comments: 1) Should detention be assigned when the N-policy already doles out the

punishments?

VI. Committee Reports: 1) Executive met and informed Dr. Jones that the Median Grade Reporting Bill does not affect transcripts. He looked at the bill more favorably after that. He would like to see how the faculty feels about this issue. A problem is that not all departments are represented in Senate.

2) Climate met and worked on making posters for the upcoming Talent Show.

3) The Median Grade Reporting Bill has been added to the Senate website so anyone interested can look there.

VIII. Median Grade 1) Motion to amend to add as a 5th point the following: "The calculation and distribution of the median grade report and quarterly updates will be conducted by the communications committee. This will be facilitated by information provided by the computer center at the close of each quarter in the form of spreadsheet data including course names, enrolment, and quarter grade distributions. The annual report will be linked off of the school homepage, and quarterly updates will be emailed to all faculty, administrators and house secretaries."

a) Friendly amendment was accepted; "of the LHS Student and Faculty Senate" was added after "committee" and point 4 and 5 were switched.

b) Senate should not delegate so much to the communications committee. If the process is so simple and easy, why can't the deans do it themselves?

c) Any teacher can make these grades available using GradeQuick.

d) Not all teachers use GradeQuick.

e) Is it possible for a branch of Senate to do so much work? Students should just communicate with the teacher verbally.

f) Time would be better spent informing students that this information will be available once the bill passes.

g) Aren't there people at the computer center who would volunteer for this?

h) More people can be put on communications committee.

i) Motion passes 30-12.

2) Motion to strike #2 and change numbers accordingly. Students should aware of how they are doing. Posting on the website is unnecessary.

a) Kids won't be deterred from taking more difficult classes. Correct information is better than rumors. The information will be provided to the entire world and make people more aware.

b) Grades will still drive course selection. Teachers can help students out with their selection.

c) Motion fails.

3) Teachers will just use the bill to justify how hard their classes are.

4) The bill won't be helpful to students.

5) Motion to replace "communications committee" with "deans".

a) If this motion is unconstitutional, then the motion that just passed carries the same air of unconstitutionality. Senate shouldn't delegate so much.

b) Role of Senate is to delegate. The motion that passed was constitutional. But jobs shouldn't be delegated without strong consensus.

c) Aren't the computer people willing to do this job?

d) Friendly amendment to replace "deans" with "ad-hoc committee appointed by the Senate in the fall of 06" was accepted.

e) Secretary Kim was going to withdraw the motion because it was intended to be ridiculous, but does not do so because of the friendly amendment.

f) Last thing we need is another ad-hoc committee. It's a waste of time.

g) Ad-hoc is important. This will be a way to take care of a narrowly tailored job.

h) Motion passes 23-13.

List of Senators Absent from Senate meeting: *Denotes excused/notified absence.