Ridgecrest Elementary School Community Council
Monthly Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
4:00pm- Library
- Call to Order 4:02
- In attendance: Carrie Christensen, Jeanne Herbert, Brooke Schneider, Anna Whiteley, Monica Alm, Sara Allen, Cort Bouldin, Elias Perez, Chris Hettich, Sammy Fan
- Excused: Fengmin Li, Rhea Eggert
- Previous Meeting Minutes approved; Thanks for approving minutes from last meeting
- Finalize plans for next school year: (Due April 9th); Sara Allen
- TSSP:
- Land Trust: we have talked about them last 2 meetings
-Finalized; measurement for reading for 4th and 5th Grade, teachers decided to stay with RISE for 4th and 5th, it is the assessment, it has the tools to help us see the progress along the way
-Money for Land Trust;
$77,214 from the State, Ridgecrest looking at $7500 carried over, plans for $84,649 planned for as of 3/26
-Refer to the flyer handed out for a detailed plan.
-FTE Funding; at the beginning of March, the district looks at numbers of students to know how many teachers to hire for the following year. The district supposed that we would be below our student ratio, Sara advocated for the number of students that attend Ridgecrest. It is always off in kinder and 1st grade, it is a statewide decrease seen in kinder and 1st grade. Numbers can be tricky to calculate. Also the idea that the number of students fluid in non DLI classes are higher this year 11 in 7 out, that is very high. If numbers are 27 or lower the district said they will take a teacher. Soft promises that worst case scenario that the district will take half a teacher. That is why a couple things are removed, to earmark for a pivot to pay a half teacher. Sara will find out with registration early August. They should know pretty quickly at that point. Possibly Ms. Sicard will be filling Ms. White’s position in 2nd grade.
- Signature Page; We are ready to finalize and sign the form which is passed around for us.
- Review to ensure we are on course with Current Year’s:
- LAND Trust Plan; This year’s Land Trust, we are on track, we are watching it closely, we have some wiggle room with the social worker, waiting until the end of march to see the payroll to create a plan that is under 10% of what is allocated. There may be some adjustment , possibly in ipads or robotic Spheros, there are some options.
- Data
- Expenditures
- Discussion about elementary-level Chromebook filtering and access options
-Power Point from the District is presented.
-Our tech filters are not keeping up with outside groups, the porn industry is really great at getting in front of filters, they have found ways to get around filters. Parents have tested the devices and have come to elementary schools and have found disturbing stuff. The District leadership has been focusing on elementary school. They want our input by the end of the day.
-As per the slide show, Already options:
-Parents can opt into and decide the most restricted filtering system for their own child.
There is an option of guidelines at registration. Parents can receive reports of the amount of time students are logged into the Chromebook and terms searched for the device.
-Additional steps:
-An average of 39 minutes per day is how long CSD elementary students are logged into Chromebooks.
-More than 500 sites have been reviewed as per the request of the CSD community, they need to go through everything that is put up for review
-They are reviewing BARK
-Sara added a piece that private devices are not filtered. If a student brings a personal cell in they can get on the WIFI, but there are no filters. At one point they were filtering personal devices, but now they are not.
-Steps Canyon will take now:
-Eliminate free use time on Chromebooks for students that finish work early.
-At Elementary level, block media files, share filtering categories and add back appropriate apps.
-CSD will provide regular Digital Citizenship updates and information to families.
-Blocked all file media sharing, that is new bc students were using that. That has been a big culprit lately.
-Content Keeper is still in place, starting in 2019, watching for keywords, Sara says most of what she sees there is just hilarious.
Identified Options.
No.1 No change.
No.2 all elementary level chromebooks will be put on the highly restrictive level of filtering. This will be CSD’s standards.
No.3 all elementary level chromebooks will be put on the highly restrictive level of filtering but parents can opt into less restrictive settings for their own children. It’s the reverse of the current practice.
-Additional Question Should CSD eliminate the ability for the elementary students to access their student accounts during a defined set of hours after the school day is over and on the weekends?
-Discussion is had about Land School and identified options. Suggestion is provided to give access to the teachers to give less restrictive options when it is needed. Sara took notes to give feedback to the district.
-We need a list of what is restricted before we answer, also we need to listen to teacher needs. We have until April 30th, we can table and come back with some answers to our questions.
-CSD is collecting input. Anyone can give feedback on your school your voice, You can give feedback anytime to the communications department.
-We will leave as an agenda item for next month with a more informed decision.
- Additional school climate updates or principal Report
-Excitingly, the district has been trying to update libraries and they have a grant to help fund the replacement of a lot of books that are old and we are one of the schools that will receive them at the beginning of June ready for next year.
-MCW is coming up next week embedded in what we have been doing.
-We had a leaking pipe week in the art room. It was a slow drip, the work started Friday and a plumber left a faucet on in the art room when the water was turned off, and the plug was in the sink. The water ran all week long and destroyed the room. There was a water alert that was too short to alarm people. Everything has been moved, the room should be done by the end of spring break, Art Teacher will collaborate with Coach Angie, they are flexible and amazing. It will be beautiful when it’s done. The district responded very efficiently. Sara is very appreciative. -Rhea was nominated for a State Award for the Science of Reading. Congratulations to her!
- Next Meeting Wed, April. 30th
- Meeting adjourned at ____5:05_____ Motioned by ___Anna_____ ; Seconded by ______Chris__
