St. John Lutheran School Board Minutes

March 4th, 2008

Visitor Comments

• None

Approval of Minutes

PTF

• Written report presented.
• Fun fair seemed to be well attended. PTF will share the results at next month’s board meeting
• Danville Gardens gift card sale is another fundraiser that will take place between April and May, and the goal is raise $1,500.

Marketing Committee

• A total of 25 parents have filled out the parent survey. We will need more responses to show any patterns.
• A new St. John brochure was shown to the board.
• Signage – New sign for Little Lamb proposed by American Dowell. They also proposed a sign for the North entrance to indicate St. John Lutheran Church and School along with a directional arrow
• February 28th was the “Open House” – 31 attended the school tours, and 19 attended the Little Lamb tours.
• Information Night – Work in progress
• School Tours & Starburst sign on kiosk at Market Place.
• Committee would like to get a “School Tours” banner with phone number, so perspective students’ parents can contact the school office.
• Little Lamb – How does it contribute? Carol Niemann gave Mark a write-up showing how Little Lamb has contributed to the school population through the years.

Principal’s Report

• Written report presented.
• National Lutheran Schools Week beginning with PTF Fun Fair on Saturday 3/1/08.
  • Monday (Grandparents Day)
  • Tuesday (Tacky Tuesday)
  • Wednesday (School Spirit)
  • Thursday (Competition Day)
  • Friday (Pajama Day)
• Enrollment – The enrollment is currently at 219. One family moved to Maryland.
• Community open house (See Marketing Committee)
• Enrollment begins March 3rd and continues through March 14th.
• Wee Worship – Pastor Elliott has started holding Wee Worship since January. This is a great opportunity to bridge the Little Lamb kids over to the school.
• Tuition Status – The family that was listed with a debt of $2,488 last month has paid their balance in full as of 3-3-08.
• Upcoming Events
  • 3/5 – Teachers meet w/ chapel families
  • 3/14 – End of 3rd quarter
  • 3/17-3/24 – Easter Break
  • 3/25 – School resumes
  • 3/28 – Report Cards

Old Business

• NLSA – Nothing to report at this meeting

New Business

• School calendar presented

• Faith Hours – The question is whether one family can re-assign faith hours to another family? The general feeling of the board is that giving faith hours to others basically defeats the original intent of the program.
• Reading Textbook Adoption – The text book cycle is a 6 year cycle for each subject. The estimated cost for textbooks is approximately $20,000. St. John is allocated approximately $4,500 by grants. This would result in a final cost of approximately $15,000 that would need to come from the budget. The line item that covers text books was reduced by $6,000. With all other expenses covered under the line item,  the budgetary amount would be exceeded. Could we possibly reduce the number of textbooks to bring the total cost more in line with the budget? Could the costs be negotiated down to a more manageable amount? Ralph will follow up on this.

Adjourn to Executive Session