FHS SCHOOL COUNCIL MINUTES
October 21, 2024
Attendance: Lilliana Allietta, Paula Carlson Cahill, Merrie Beth Dodge, Mike Feeney, Rebecca
Gonzales, Alan Harris, Mananjo Jonahson, Tom McManamon, Paula Smith
The meeting opened at 3:30 pm.
We introduced ourselves and let each know about our connection to and years involved with the
Council.
Today’s Agenda was reviewed and approved.
The purpose of the Council, agenda links, and Conflict of Interest requirement were reviewed.
We selected our Co-Chair for this year: Mananjo Jonahson
Mr. Tom McManamon, Assistant Principal, took us through the NEASC accreditation process, detailed
where FHS stands in the cycle and what we are working on. NEASC visits every 10 years with a team of
teachers and administrators, typically for 2 or 3 days. They read our report, see us in action and write
their own report about where we stand out, where we need to grow and any other recommendations they
have for us. We conduct a self-study and detail where we stand in relation to the goals set, report on
those with evidence, and where we need to grow. Currently, we are in year 3 of our cycle & we have 5
priority areas of growth to work on. Tom handed out the 5 goal spreadsheet, explaining each and our
work. Tom also gave us the district-wide #IAMACLIPPER I Can statements and talked about how it
came to be and where we need to go, also in light of district re-organization and how can we use this for
what we will look like in five years as we transition/re-organize? Alan asked what human traits do we
want our graduates to have, are the descriptors strong enough, and how can we connect these for our
students and families. Discussion brought out that our younger students have been learning this from
their earliest years, so they are more able to recite what each letter stands for. This came about in 2020,
so our oldest students haven’t had many years with it. Suggestions: “reverse engineer it”; have a letter
per week - i.e. this week is “C” week; send out a survey to discover how many know what each letter in
CLIPPER stands for; meet with focus groups - what does C mean to you? and what do you see every
day that shows creativity? - and then show our growth through the year; since this says what we do but
not who we are perhaps make a sentence about what is a CLIPPER instead. The Council was asked to
email our feedback and suggestions on how to integrate #IAMACLIPPER to Paula
(
[email protected]) before our January meeting.
Our January meeting is usually held at 5:00 pm on the same date as the Superintendent’s Budget
Presentation to the Council. We will notify our members when that date is set.
The meeting adjourned at 4:20 pm.
Upcoming Meetings:
TBD - tentatively in January 2025 @ 5:00 pm preceding 6:00 pm Joint Budget Presentation by
Superintendent
Monday, March 3, 2025 @ 3:30 pm at FHS Library
Monday, May 5, 2025 @ 3:30 pm at FHS Library