Past Principal Outreach Articles

July, 2007

Dear WLS Families,

There’s a lot going on. Here’s what’s most important, from my point of view...

A Montessori Point—Adaptability: Maria Montessori wrote this:

Good point, Maria.

Budget: The artists of budgeting wield a double-ended paintbrush, ideally: with one end we anticipate and provide for needs; with the other end, we move the institution strongly toward its vision. We did a lot of things right in 0607, thanks primarily to our great teachers. We also came up short in a couple of areas, with responsibility for that lying primarily here in administration. Back in May we “discovered”—whereas we should have seen it coming before—a pretty certain deficit coming in the 0607 budget of about $50,000 (our fiscal year runs from July to June, and the 0607 budget was about $1.2 million, so the looming deficit would be about 4% of the budget). Now I should say that the budget in its inception projected a deficit of about $4,000. But this was bigger, unexpected, and alarming. We were over in several areas.

The teachers and board had already drafted a budget for 0708 that moved the school toward more fully equipping our classrooms, enhancing our technology, and funding our staff development more fully, among other things. With the projected deficit in 0607, though, we found ourselves pressured to limit these and other areas. We have a stated school goal of keeping a reserve fund balance of 5% of our budget, and with the projected deficit we discovered we needed to use fundraising money to cover operations of the school.

So this past Monday night we had a long meeting to go through both budgets. For 0607 we needed to authorize the paying of expenses beyond the budgeted amount, with the funds coming primarily from the 0607 fundraising and the fund balance. The result is that the budget now shows a deficit on the year of around $12,000. Not so good, but a lot better than it was.

For 0708, we had to resort to using some fundraising for basic operations, and cut out some things that we wanted—and still want—to do. That budget, which the board passed last Monday night, shows a positive $60,577.87 on the bottom line, meeting our fund balance requirement while, we hope, anticipating our basic needs fully.

This is a lot about budgeting; not the most engaging of topics. I’m going into this much detail about it because we—administrators, teachers, and board members—think, that you parents should be informed about the basic financial condition of the school, and our—board and administration—performance of our duty to keep the school financially healthy. Some of us also felt uncomfortable with using fundraising money for operations. A number of us have this feeling, although it’s not a policy, or even a common understanding, that fundraising money should be used for enhancements, things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. Which is different from using them for operations. We talked about whether parents would be okay with using that money to help the school out of a bind. We decided that if we had to do that, we had to do that, but that we should tell you about it, and pledge to be clear and forthcoming about the use of fundraising money in operations in the coming fiscal year.

Windfall: All that being said: Randi wrote a grant awhile back to the Walton Foundation. She just got word on Monday that we have received it. It’s $155,000!!!! It’s earmarked for a salary to pay the teacher of the new upper elementary class (whom we will employ this coming year, even though the class doesn’t officially start up until 0809); equipment for the new classroom; science materials for all classrooms; furniture for the expanding middle school; sponsorship for Montessori training; and a van! Yay, Randi!!!

Secondary Extension Investigation Project: We have a contact in ISD 112 administration confirming the process we need to follow for adding 9th grade. As soon as we have that process confirmed, we’ll meet again.

Extended Campus: We met with some representatives of St. Andrews Church, just down the bike path. (Interestingly, we found out that St. Andrews owns all of the land between WLS and their building; a beautiful, natural, spacious lot. If there were ever the chance that they would want to sell the property, we would have to be interested in that possibility; they haven’t formally expressed interest in selling, though.) Anyway, we’re interested in leasing a room in that facility, and they’re interested in housing us, but we had Deb Rathman, our architect, go through the building with some technical people, and their estimate was that it would cost $130,000 to bring it up to code for use as a public school. That’s prohibitive. But we need to keep working on this. We have 24 students in middle school this year, which is big for the room we’re in, and 31 in the works for next year, which is too big for the room we’re in. And the upper elementary needs to open its third class, as they are outgrowing their digs as well...

Progress Reports: They have just been mailed out. Get in touch if you have questions.

Staffing: We sadly said good-bye to Juliet Holder a few days ago. But we got lucky: we found an excellent teacher to take her place. Sarah Hassebroek will be the teacher in that lower elementary class. Also, Kathy Thomas, who was the Assistant in that class with Juliet, had a baby back in April, and decided that she wanted to work only part time. We really need to have a full-time assistant in that class, so we cast the net, and got lucky again: Amy Kent-Schneider will be working as the Assistant in Sarah’s lower elementary class. Lucky us.

Except for this one position: we’re still looking for a middle school math teacher. Please, everybody, think of everyone you know who might know someone who knows the perfect person for this job. (That’s how we found Justine, the previous math teacher, who decided to move on, sadly.....)

Sponsorship for Training: We are sponsoring Carol Harris for Montessori training. Sponsorship means that she will take three summers of training to complete her elementary certification, and will be obligated to teach in our school for a certain time afterward. We have now confirmed, as part of the grant we received, that she will be working full time at WLS in 0708, most likely in the role of intern, in which she will start out observing and giving lessons primarily in lower elementary, but spending time in the other levels as well. The plan is for her to start the third upper elementary class in 0809 with just fourth-year students in it.

Board: The 0607 Board just had its last meeting on Monday, June 25. The new board, 0708, has its first meeting on July 23. Their first order of business will be to elect officers. Board members are:

Randi Shapiro is not a voting member of the board, but attends the meetings and reports on finances and other matters. Patti Quinn and Jon Hokanson are the representatives to the JMS/WLS Building Company, which owns the property that houses WLS and JMS (JMS also has representation there).

Parents are encouraged to come to board meetings. There is a Parent Forum scheduled before each meeting, 6:15 PM, in which parents can ask questions, offer suggestions, and voice concerns. The official meeting starts at 6:30 PM. Meetings are held at WLS, usually in the middle school classroom, on the fourth Monday of the month. The July meeting is on the 23rd .

 
Vision: We are working deliberately and patiently toward this full configuration, with the High School part just a dream, at this point, and the third upper elementary an embryo....

As we live by our mission statement:

The World Learner School’s mission is to create a school that supports an experiential collaborative learning (Montessori) program that empowers children to unfold their full potential as whole and unique persons in classroom, local and world communities.

By the way (and I hope Colleen is okay with me saying this): The Albright family was involved in our school from the very beginning, then were not part of the school, and now they are again, having enrolled Caylee, their daughter, as a new 8th year student in 0708. An interesting point of significance: Colleen coined the name of our school, back in 1995 when the charter was in the process of being granted. Thank you, Colleen, for “World Learner School”; and welcome back!

Thanks for Support: Thanks for making last year great. Thanks for keeping our retention so high that we can’t house our own population in a couple of years! And thanks for making this such pleasant and satisfying work for us teachers and administrators. Thank you! Thank you!

That’s all for this time. There’s a calendar below, and below that a list of some of the things our board and administration need to work on over the coming months. See you here next time...

Calendar:   

    July 23-27: Bob, Liesl, Mark Schultz, and Alicia Williams off camping with 26 kids (call them crazy!)
    August 3-6: Bob at a workshop on Vision for Charter Schools
    Saturday, August 11, 2-5: Tent check and social for 0708 middle school students
    Friday, August 17: Last day of Summer School 07
    Monday, August 20: First day of staff pre-program work, 0708
    Tuesday, August 21, 9 AM: First All Staff Meeting of 0708, due to some staff not being able to attend 8/20
    Wednesday, August 29, 9-1: Orientation Day for students new to the school or new to their level
    Thursday, August 30, 7 PM: All Parent Meeting. Attendance is very important!
    Monday, September 3: No School; Labor Day
    Tuesday-Friday, September 4-7: Middle School Retreat 0708
    Monday-Friday, September 9-13: Upper Elementary at Deep Portage

 
Time Frame  
    Task/Event   
July   
    Beginning of Fiscal Year
    Summer School               
    Election of Officers: Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary
    Board Orientation / Retreat ?           
    River City Days?
    Committee Assignments           
    Board Member Manuals distributed
    Review and Confirm Fundraising Plan
    Review of Reporting Package: Progress Reports, Test Data, etc.   

August   
    Summer School                 
    Cleaning Bee
    All Parent Meeting               
    Staff start two weeks prior to Labor Day: Pre-Program   

September   
    Montessori for Parents           
    Fire Drill