Lexington (MA) High School Senate

LEXINGTON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT-FACULTY SENATE

2000-2001

Moderator Marcus Catsouphes, Assistant Moderator Michael Fiveash, Secretary Tingting Peng

Agenda

For the March 29, 2001 meeting:

1. Announcements

2. Committee Reports

3. Honor Code Agreement

4. Course Recommendation Bill

5. New Business

Minutes

From the March 22, 2001 meeting:

Minutes approved.

Agenda approved.

Committee Reports

Kieft: Policy met and discussed Senator Collins' proposal for a new bill.

Catsouphes: What's the new bill about?

Kafrissen: Possibly translating 990 hours to course credits.

Peng: Communications met and has tentatively scheduled Senate Day for April 27th.

Bogart: Climate is struggling with CRUD. One of our concerns is that the whole school cleans up, gets ice cream, and then at the end of the day, there are Dixie cups all over the campus.

Kessler: Oversight met and discussed how to implement the Honor Code.

Honor Code Amendment

Catsouphes: Move to strike Section 6 from the Policy, removing the Honor Code Acknowledgement.

K. Girondel: We need to also strike the last sentence in Section 5.

Kessler: Point of Order &endash; We should strike the last three sentences.

Yasaitis: I think the last sentence should be kept.

Catsouphes: The amendment will delete the third and second to last sentences of section 5 as well as Section 6.

Bogart: Can we require students to sign this?

Catsouphes: Students were never going to be required to sign the Agreement. They were going to be required to sign the Acknowledgement.

Kieft: Will students receive with the Agreement something that explains what it is?

Catsouphes: They'll receive both the policy and the Agreement.

Kieft: Maybe we should trim down the parts we give to the students.

Catsouphes: You could submit another amendment to address that.

Catsouphes: Section 6 will become "Students may retain personal possession…"

Bernstein: It might make sense to tag that on to the previous section.

Collins: Call to question.

Kafrissen: Are we opening the Honor Code Bill for discussion?

Catsouphes: Are we opening the Honor Code Bill for discussion?

Catsouphes: No, we're just restricting to this amendment.

[Senator Collins' motion passes]

[Moderator Catsouphes' amendment passes]

Honor Code Agreement

Catsouphes: People had problems with the wording of the Agreement.

Shavit: The Shakespeare quote is an ironic use in the play. The Virgil quote is similar.

Burson: I think the Shakespeare one is good, but the Virgil one is incredibly sappy.

Dhanani: I think we should take both out, to make the tone more serious.

Fiveash: In terms of context, both quotes are iffy. I'm a little concerned by how long we're going to spend amending this.

Kafrissen: Originally we had the Acknowledgement and Agreement, both to be distributed in homeroom. I have a sense that this is a real serious commitment for students and to distribute them in homeroom is almost a contradiction. I'd fee more comfortable discussing it in my academic classes.

Bogart: Move to remove both quotes from Agreement.

Kessler: The Agreement isn't intended to be dry and serious. It's intended to promote thought and discussion.

Enders: I would vote against this. Maybe we could keep just the first line of the Shakespeare quote.

Shavit: If we want to make it thought-provoking and not have anyone laugh at it, we should at least get rid of the Shakespeare quote.

Fiveash: I support Senator Bogart's motion, but I'm in agreement with Senator Kessler's comments. In some ways, the Agreement is not the only way through which we can communicate to the students about the Honor Code.

Collins: I disagree with the amendment. I think it sets a bad precedent when we go back and change things that we already passed.

Inouye: We can choose different quotes.

Ris: Point of Order &endash; If we strike the quotes, can we replace them with something else?

S. Girondel: I don't think many people will get the bottom quote. It's important which quotes are on the Agreement. It may turn some people off.

Farrar: We don't have to be serious to be thought provoking. I think we should leave the quotes as they are.

Yasaitis: Maybe we should find more appropriate quotes.

Burson: Call to question. [Motion passes]

[Senator Bogart's amendment passes]

Kessler: Propose to strike the last sentence in the first paragraph. [Amendment passes]

Moon: Point of Order &endash; In order to close discussion on the Agreement entirely, does someone need to move to approve it?

Catsouphes: Yes.

Gilbert: Move to approve Agreement.

Ris: Does that mean we won't be able to submit quotes?

Kafrissen: If you want to go back to the Agreement, I suggest you vote to defeat this motion, and then move to table.

Kessler: I'd like to call people's attention to the second paragraph. There are some really hideous grammatical issues we need to deal with.

Kafrissen: Call to question. [Motion passes]

[Senator Gilbert's motion fails]

Farrar: Move to table discussion.

Kafrissen: Maybe we can send this to a committee. What committee did it originally come from?

Catsouphes: An ad-hoc committee.

Fried: Social Action is looking at quotes right now.

Kessler: Can it be worked on outside of Senate?

Catsouphes: Yes.

[Senator Farrar's motion passes]