West Campus Foundation for Excellence
Meeting Agenda
Monday, September 12, 2022 | 6:30 pm-7:30 pm
IN PERSON: WC Library. virtual option please click link: https://meet.google.com/ysm-ewza-mfc
Board members: Natasha Fine, President; Bella Bzoksie, VP; Julie Evens, Treasurer; Melanie Bean, Communications; Alice Liu, Membership; Rebecca Wiegand, Secretary
In attendance: All board members listed above, Rosette Nguyen, Janel Silva, Betsy Vaughan, Thomas B, John McMeekin (principal), Mie, Gina Kay, Mark Roddy, Neue Leung, Anton Chen, Po-Wen Leung, Nicole Oehmke, Sophia Munoz, Euniceann Roland (vice principal), Costa Dimitrades, Laini Start, Carla Gaub, Summerlynn Andersen, Angela Asch, Leo Hsu (ASB representative), Jill Tompkins, Isabel Pires, Alex Huerta-Duncan, Diana Williams Corless
- 6:31 pm: Meeting called to order Welcome to the new school year – we hope to support the school community Meeting expectations. All are welcome.
- 6:35 pm: Introductions – round robin introductions
- 6:40 pm: Principal’s update
- Staffing update: 66% full on staff. We have hired a number of new teachers and two are awaiting clearance/release from the other district so they should be starting soon. We have on vacancy still.
- Budget:
- Testing: PSAT will take place on October 12, 9-11 graders will take that. Seniors will take college workshops set up by the counselors.
- SSC: Mr. McMeekin is taking nominations of two parents to serve on the School Site Council committee for this school year. They will also need one student nominee.
- Back to School Night is September 22 from 5:30-7:15 pm
- Care room will be moved to a different spot since temperature screening is no longer required.
- Volleyball is winning
- Senior activities – Sutter Health Park for graduation. Date TBD
- Upcoming events – Back to School Night (9/22) and College Night on October 6 (all grade levels)
- There is also a college day from 9-12 at Hiram Johnson that we can update the date
- Sac City will have a college day fair is coming up on Saturday, September 17
- There is also an event for HBCUs for interested families is this Wednesday, September 14 for juniors and seniors primarily. Field trip forms are due tomorrow for this.
- 6:50 pm: Approval of prior meeting minutes. TBD – These weren’t shared for approval tonight. We will approve them in our board meeting before the next meeting.
- 6:55 pm: Review calendar
- We are working to add a Google calendar to our website where we can keep events updated.
- Leo from ASB is providing calendar updates:
- Staff appreciation week is where they need most support from the WCFE. ASB is unable to fund these as these are not student activities.
- Pancake breakfast also will need parent volunteers and both money and food donations in order to run that successfully. That is scheduled for January 27.
- Dances planned for the year: Homecoming is on October 21, winter formal, prom (only juniors and seniors unless invited by one), and the “Tolo” (Sadie Hawkins) dance will need additional support.
- Wellness days each month – Oct 31 – pumpkin decorating, January 19, March 9, April 13, etc and Mental Health Awareness week in May
- Random Acts of Kindness Week is in February
- Yearbook BBQ usually happens in May, ASB will confirm and if assistance is needed.
- Much of what is needed for these events will come in through donations – like asking for food donations from families to go toward the events. Leo will update us
- 7:00 pm: Membership updates
- 37 current paid members out of approximately 840 students
- Membership is one of our main income sources so we need to encourage people to sign up to help support these events.
- We are changing the membership benefits due to moving to an online ticketing system making it difficult to “discount” tickets $2, such as in the past due to the limits of the online ticketing systems.
- For Platinum level members, your immediate family gets free entry into all non-playoff home games for free.
- We are still working out the details on what membership levels will entail.
- We hope to update the bylaws of the WCFE to make the membership more inclusive and reflective of votes of all participants. More to come from that at future meetings.
- 7:05 pm: Communications updates
- Watch for updates on Facebook.
- Watch for updates on potential fundraisers for pie sales before Thanksgiving and olive oil sales before Christmas.
- 7:10 pm: Treasurer report. Budget review.
- The board reviewed 5 year’s of budgets to try to determine what the “norm” was to create our proposed budget categories for this year.
- We have tried to anticipate cost and be very conservative on potential income. We hope to make much more than what is listed in the budget for fundraisers.
- We held a survey to ask parents what the priorities are for parents this year. This will be closed out at the end of the month: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyky0ZwGyqKV3IW__f6yb8TarR-OkK8QwQ7SBQBElY6nxYsQ/viewform
- Admin expense estimate is greater than prior years in order to update the website, web hosting, and create some systems to allow for us to receive donations more easily. Includes insurance, tech, etc.
- College tours weren’t on the budget last year due to COVID but we anticipate that expense coming back this year.
- Maricel has been working with the counselors to determine what schools they focus on visiting – one UC, one state school, University of Reno, etc. We will need to have parent volunteers in order to make those events happen so please complete the volunteer packet.
- There is a line item of “passive” donations for things like company matching, Amazon Smile, United Way, etc. Please look into whether there are matching donations with your own company to help increase the passive donations we bring in.
- We are projecting $10K in membership this year with our efforts. Right now, we are about $4k in income with membership. We hope to run more membership campaigns.
-
- What can we do to improve communication options? Can we offer texts, emails, social, website, newsletter, etc options to be more inclusive?
- We discussed defining membership perks/levels quickly so we can recruit more members.
- Discussed the projected income from the annual West Campus Gala (the $5K in income is a low projection). Scheduled for February 25.
- Discussed the Unity Festival budget and why our projection is so low for costs compared to prior years.
- May 19 is the tentative date for the Unity Festival
- There isn’t a defined process in the by-laws for how much we need to roll-over for each year.
- Can we require either a donation of time or money from families?
- There is a “Green Team” that’s run by students and ASB is working with the Sacramento Tree Foundation to add more tree donations to the campus. We will need some volunteers to help with watering over summer. We can talk to Roy the plant manager about hoses and access to water over summer.
- The $500 line item for “beautification” is very low. No recent prior amount was set aside.
- There are some parents who are interested in helping plant or do some beautification work. We need to form a committee.
- Becky motioned to approve the budget. Alice seconded. All board members approved.
- 7:25 pm: Forms – parent volunteer/driver/athletics
- You will need to get fingerprinted if you haven’t been an active volunteer since 2020. It costs $47 through the Serna Center.
- TB tests every four years
- Background check form.
- Driver’s form with insurance/driver’s license info.
- Mandatory reporter training. https://mandatedreporterca.com/training/volunteers
- 7:27 pm: Back to School Night on 9/22/2022
- 7:45 pm: Meeting adjourned
Please see attached link for the proposed budget for 2022-2023 school year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vPORg5eao4CpE3eAJO60-ZkzjGwOcMZXCDYf4eAsFTM/edit?usp=sharing
Next meeting: Monday, 10/10/2022 at 6:30 pm in the Library with a virtual option
