Charter Start-up Grant Submitted

On Oct 31 our grant application of $651,950 was submitted to the State Department of Education for three years of charter startup funds. The budget is subject to negotiation at the time of award.

Most interesting was developing a set of project goals for school opening, as opposed to the school itself:

The 5 goals below relate to the Charter and focus on the process of launching a successful school:

1. Recruit and retain both highly qualified school staff and qualified school governing and advisory boards and develop their understanding and practice of the Expeditionary Learning model.
2. Recruit a diverse student body including economically disadvantaged and ethnic minorities, expand enrollment, and move toward sound self-sustaining business operations.
3. Develop and refine curriculum, including Learning Expeditions aligned to state standards, acquire technology, furniture and necessary materials to effectively implement a high quality curriculum.
4. Develop and refine criteria for assessing meaningful communication and involvement with the local community and communicate that understanding through school activities.
5. As set out in Tab 4 of the Charter, the percentage of students (grades 3-8) who receive a score of Proficient or above across all required subjects measured by the ISAT will within five (5) years and thereafter meet or exceed the similar fraction computed in the Moscow School District.

UI Interior Design students to help design remodel

I just had a very productive meeting with Miranda Anderson on the UI faculty about her students doing a project with Palouse Prairie to design the remodel of the Now & Then facility for use as our school.

UI students will collaborate with Palouse Prairie on the design for the remodel of the school. While this won't be an "Expedition" in EL terms, it has many of the elements: integrated curriculum, teamwork, authentic problem, and service to community. And, while ELS doesn't talk as much about it, assessment of the students' learning/project outcomes open to the community. Watch for announcement of the final project presentation this fall.

Trying to think in Web 2.0 ways, I put the photos I have of Now & Then into a Palouse Prairie Flickr group for the UI students.

Time line to opening

The Board has begun to work on a time line of issues to be solved before the school opens. You may be able to contribute to our thinking on some of these issues. You may see issues we have not yet added to the list. In either event, comments are welcome here, or direct thoughts privately to Nils Peterson.

Agenda for Board Mtg Jan 24, 2008

Agenda of Board Meeting

January 24, 2008 Peterson Barn, 847 Travois Way, Moscow Idaho

6:30 PM

Agenda:
1. Welcome and updates
2. Approval of Minutes from Jan 10
3. Announcements/Updates
a. Charter Workshop – Boise Jan 29 – Nils to present
b. Summer Expedition – any updates/deadlines?
c. Vision Grant - information on situation
4. Other Grant seeking – Discuss strategy
5. Submission of Charter -Nils
a. Discussion of Tab 4 Measurable outcomes
b. Approval of Budget for PPSEL 2009-2012
6. Web Presence, blog, email, files, collaboration
7. Wrap-up/ review


Dates for Next meetings –
February 14th, Nils’ Barn – Summer Expedition, advisory committee

Agenda for PPSEL Board 12.17.07

Note meeting is Cafe Silos, not Peterson Barn

6:30-8:00 PM
Cafe Silos on Styner
1. Welcome and updates
2. Approval of Minutes from Nov 25 and Dec 3
3. Approval of Revised Board Job Descriptions – Janet
4. Dates for meeting Jan-May.
5. Advisory Board – general concept orientation
6. Vision Grant. FYI, solicit feedback by email; discuss budget ideas (approve budget and submit Grant at January meeting)
7. Budget for PPSEL year 2009-2012 FYI. (approve budget and submit Charter at January meeting)
8. Mission statement revisions – develop plan to complete this work
9. Wrap-up/ review

Ashley will be sending various documents for review

Vision is an image of the future

As part of the process of educating the new Palouse Prairie Board, we have been working on key documents and organizational structures. One of the pieces we found was missing was a Vision Statement. Our November 26 meeting was devoted to talking about our vision for the school and finding words to describe it (appended below). Between then and tonight we drafted various ideas, and Ashley found the following guiding ideas.

Vision Statement
(adopted Dec 3, 2007)

Palouse Prairie School of Expeditionary Learning offers an inclusive, respectful and supportive learning environment that nurtures the individual as a thoughtful participant in our local and global community.

The essential role of vision
Vision is an image of the future.

Having a vision for education is central to school leadership, because vision is a source of motivation and energy. It powerfully shapes practice within a school community. Thus vision needs to be understood, articulated and owned by the whole school community. It provides both a source of inspiration and a frame of reference for developing professional values.

http://www.becal.org.uk/lc/vision/vision.html Becal I think refers to “British Education Council on Assessment and Learning”

"Vision Statements exist to help to achieve clarification and ownership of the school's overall purpose".

Key Ideas
A vision statement is usually the first part of a three-part statement of purpose. The next part is the mission, which is a concrete and localized statement of intent, and the third part is the values that are implicit in the vision and the mission of the school.

Vision: the ideal destination. It is where the school wants to be. It should be challenging, innovative and forward-looking.

Mission: the route to the destination. A particular expression of the vision that is specific to *this* school given its history, context and circumstances. It is a more practical focus on what the school does and will do than the vision statement.

Values: underpin the vision and the mission. No school is value free and it is important to be explicit about those values that are essential to the school achieving its vision. If values are not made explicit, then the values of the most dominant individuals are likely to be those which actually operate in practice.

Total Quality Toolkit by J. Marsh taken from the BeCal website above.

Words we chose to describe our ideas about PPSEL
(Vision meeting Nov 26, 207)

• Active and reflective learning
• Community (for everyone)
• High yet achievable goals, challenging, rigorous, successful
• constructive assessment
• Collaborative, collaboration, interactive way
• Supportive
• explorative learning, curious, active participant,
• safe (physical, cognitive, psychological) learning environment, respectful, respectful participant in our local and global communities
• responsible, personal responsibility
• Inclusive
• ownership
• supported in their efforts to learn
• Innovative
• lifelong learner, passion for learning, self-sustaining adult, life skills
• Excited, joyful
• Environmental, relationship with the environment (outdoor), environmental responsibility
• fun, friendly, warm
• efficient, ordered, professional
• nurturing
• civic engagement

Unapproved mintues from 11/05/07 Palouse Prairie board meeting

First, this is not where I'm envisioning uploading notes from meetings - I just couldn't figure out another place to do it and Nils and I have conflicting schedules today (we work in the same office). So, for the time being this is where they are. Nils had in an earlier post suggested that since these notes are public information, we should be as tranparent as possible and I agree.

November 5, 2001 Peterson Barn, 847 Travois Way, Moscow, Idaho.
Present, Nils, Ashley, Janet, Kirsten, Lahde. Absent: Linda and Donal.
Meeting started at 6:30 and ended at8:08, 38 minutes over targe time.

1. Welcome: Hellos and 1 minute update where we are on our tasks.

• Ashley: moving forward on vision grant budget and the advisory board job descriptions.
• Lahde: progress on 501 c3 - she'll email us with info requests should she have any.
• Nils: filed IRS form on 10/31; next is due 1/08.
• Janet: collecting info on budget planning.
• Kirsten: working on the vision grant - cutting and pasting from the charter.

2. Approve minutes from Oct. 22 meeting - they were approved.
3. Address issues related to incorporation: Nils.
4. Address changes to by laws: Lahde
5. Review, Approve and Assign School Board Job Descriptions: Janet
6. Other business.

Notes: first draft of school board job descriptions were unanimously approved. Nils: chair; Linda: vice chair; Janet: treasurer; Ashley: secretary; Lahde and Kirsten: board members. Decided we would try to share our individual vision statement drafts prior to the Nov. 26 meeting so people can prep in advance.