Lexington (MA) High School Senate

LEXINGTON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT-FACULTY SENATE

2005-2006

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

DATE: 4-12-06

Today's Agenda: Announcements

Open Comments

Committee Reports

Community Service Resolution

New Business

Minutes from Meeting: 4-5-06

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

II. Approval of Minutes: 1) Senator Kalsow-Ramos had MCAS last week.

III. Approval of Agenda: 1) Motion to put Constitutional Amendment before Detention Bill passes.

IV. Announcements: No Announcements

V. Open Comments: 1) It is Senator Lees' birthday today.

VI. Committee Reports: 1) Election day is scheduled to be Thursday, May 18th after the vacation.

2) Oversight is looking into the issue of teachers not abiding by the odd/even day rule.

VII. Constitutional 1) METCO and Library groups were added to this new amendment. You may have seen faculty numbers emailed by Senator Buttaro. This amendment allots two senators to the group.

2) What if we fail to elect two senators?

3) Even if we don't get them, they will be encouraged to join Senate.

4) We do not need a special provision for when we fail to get Senators. The current Constitution does not have this. This will further encourage Senators to join.

5) Constitutional Amendment passes 39-1-2*.

VIII. Detention Bill. 1) Following up on Senator Sewell's fervor couple weeks ago, excerpts from the email sent by administration regarding the Detention Bill were read. However, this is still the "wrong bill, wrong time, wrong issue". If we want to show Senate's power, let's do it on something that Senate can agree on as a whole.

2) Administration is ignoring us more. Senate exists for these controversial issues.

3) This is not the right bill and it is not constitutional although we don't have any mechanism for expressing that.

4) There was a promise from Dean Lasa that she will try to discuss with other deans the issue of equitable enforcement. Executive should follow up on that.

5) Detention Bill fails 34-6-1**.

IX. New Business 1) Motion to add Community Service Resolution passes.

X. Community Service 1) Thank you to Senators and other people such as Laymen, Mr. Mechem, Dr. Murphy, Ms. Tzimopoulous who were in the Community Service committee. The committee met every Thursday and has done tremendous amount of work. The First Class folder attests to this. There was a discussion regarding the lack of power of Senate. This resolution should bring power and recognition to the Senate in the long run. When you vote on the resolution, you are agreeing to the report. We reached our conclusions by doing several surveys on social responsibility and student/adult interaction. Community service is something that should be valued as much as traditional education. The resolution ultimately proposes that faculty should be committed to promoting a sense of involvement with the community in homeroom, that Class Council and NHS should organize activities to bring people together, and that we should get a stipend position for community service coordinator.

2) Amendment to change "September" to "October". It is harder for people to focus on community service early in the year.

a) Amendment passes.

3) The important parts of the packet are the three white pages. The blue pages are supplements containing the history of community service at LHS.

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

Shen Lee B Sewell Metzger-Traber Chaulet Jhe Finch Buttaro*

*Constitutional Amendment:

Abstentions: Collins, Kim

Nay: D Sewell

Yay: Majority

**Detention Bill:

Abstentions: Lees

Yay: Collins, Ghazarian, Kim, Slane, Kalsow-Ramos, Miake-Lye

Nay: Majority