3/30

Agenda 3/30/13

   1. Approval of Minutes

   2. Reports

   3. Bourne Ultimatum

   4. Council Table Motion

   5. Notes & New Business

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

- Lawrence J. Peter

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Council Minutes 3/8/13

1. Approval of minutes

2. Reports

[Mod]Thank you for everyone who helped with the get-out-the-vote calls. Also the budget passed.

[Curric] We met with Mr. Gamble to talk to him about being a part of the restorative justice plan.

[OEC] In OEC we talked about elections for next year. I will post notifications on facebook and the bulletin board.

[Admin] We are sending out the skip bean award soon. Send us nominations.

[SA] The rivalry between the Senior and Junior classes are getting out of hand. Please tell your classes to calm down or else Winter Carnival might be cancelled. Also after vacation we will be going into the budget. We will also be going into penny wars soon.

[B] The Dresden Education Committee is making goals for next year and they want Council’s input. Look for an email from me about these goals. I would appreciate your feedback.

3. Jcomm Election Motion

In discussion on the amendment.

Amendment: I move to amend the Jcomm Election Motion to read that an elected Council member may not run for Jcomm.

• I want to reiterate what was said last week: We are all here because we are the most representative students of the student body. Making Jcomm exclusive to the student body makes no sense since we are representing the student body.
• I think that making a candidate choose between Council or Jcomm is hard and unfair. In doing so we may preclude some good voices from being heard on Council.

Debate closes.

Amendment Fails.

Motion: I move that the Judiciary Committee be composed of elected officials from the general student body.

1. You may run for Council as well as Jcomm.
2. Elections will take place during the Council elections in the spring.
3. Freshmen  will vote in the fall during orientation.
4. There will be two students from each grade as well as two staff members.
5. Jcomm members will elect a chair from among themselves.
6. Nomination forms are required but other forms of campaign are not required.
7. Individuals will vote for two members from their grade.

Discussion:

• This allows the students more opportunities to run for Jcomm whereas before they were not able to.
• I think we should have a pilot program for the next year to test how elections go. We can then evaluate if the previous amendment should be reconsidered.

Amendment: I move to amend the motion to read under point 4, “There will be two students from each grade as well as two staff members. Each pair will consist of one Council member and one non-Council member.”

• I like the idea of opening Jcomm up to the school, but I don’t like the idea of excluding Council from the Jcomm process. Therefore I think we should split it up evenly.
• If we pass this, does the board then have to approve it?
• Yes, as well as Mr. Campbell.
• I think we are complicating things. We are still excluding the best people to be on Jcomm. Whether you are on Council or not should not matter.
• I think our goal as Council is to provide as many leadership opportunities as possible. If the best fit people elected to serve on Jcomm also happen to be elected onto Council, then I think that’s alright if the grades voted that way.

Debate Closes.

Amendment Fails.

Discussion on original motion:

• I think that sometimes the discussions we have in Council would be very useful going into Jcomm debates about cases. I also think that putting a new system in place as a pilot program would not be helpful since there might not be a Jcomm case during the time period. I think Jcomm lives in a good place in the school right now and I think it doesn’t need to be broadened in any sense. We shouldn’t be encouraging students to bring more cases or to  just try out Jcomm.

Amendment: I move to amend the motion to say,”I move that the Judiciary Committee be composed of elected officials from the general student body for a one year trial period.”

• I think we may find that everyone on Council may be on Jcomm. I think we should have an automatic discussion after one year to see if this happens.
• We don’t know if there are people who would like to be on Jcomm but not Council.
• I think this is good; it will force us to re-evaluate the effectiveness of this motion.
• I think that if we had a problem, we would bring it back to Council. I think it is unnecessary.

Debate Closes.

Amendment Passes.

Debate Closes.

Motion Passes.

4. Class Committee Bylaw Revision

Motion:  I move to amend the bylaws under Article 8, Class Committees, so that point A. will be struck and instead will read, “a. Membership. Class Committee elections will be held in the same week as Council elections and students may sign up but he/she must maintain steady involvement in meetings and fundraisers in order to be considered.” Under point C. Structure add, “2. One person must be in contact with a Council member.” Under letter E, point 1, striking the last couple of sentences and adding, “At the end of the year the advisor will send a list of active members to guidance.”

• We passed this motion last year and I just wanted to clean up the bylaws on this rule, especially since we are adding a few things. We changed some wording and reordered the bylaw rule.
• As a class committee advisor I end up at the end of the year with students who are very active in Class Committee but who were not elected. So if they ask if their membership will show up on their transcript, I am happy to say yes now.

Debate Closes.

Motion Passes.

5. Bourne Ultimatum Motion

Motion: I move that in the Handbook, pg. 47, at the bottom of the academic integrity policy, the motion strikes base consequence of the notification of student’s guidance counselor for first offense and moves it to additional, multiple, or more serious offenses.

• The rationale behind this is that I believe the policies should be reviewed. They were implemented in a fairly heated climate, so I think we should review them anyways. Secondly, I don’t think that first offenses should be reported because I am philosophically opposed to mandatory sentencing. The most important part to this is that all episodes of academic dishonesty should be reported to the dean’s office. I also suspect that people would be more likely to report first offenses if they knew that the consequences wouldn’t have serious long term effects for minor offenses.
• Do you have any data? We are always wondering whether we need to fix it or not, so I want to know if this is a problem.
• I see academic integrity as a learning opportunity. We have schools discouraging us from changing our first offense policy because they stated that a first offense will not prevent a student from getting into the school of their choice.
• I am in support of this motion. I think that if the objective of coming out of this process is for a student to have a learning experience, then we should recognize that students make mistakes and that those mistakes don’t need to have any weight more than the emotional weight involved when going through this process the first time.
• I am in support of this motion. I think that if we have another way for students to have discussions with their students alongside restorative justice, then we can start to change the culture.

Debate Closes.

Motion Passes.

Motion: I move to reconsider the Bourne Ultimatum Motion for the next meeting.

• The discussion was short and we didn’t hear many opposing sides to the argument. There was dissonance among guidance so I would like to extend this discussion until next week.

Debate Closes.

Motion Passes.

Meeting Adjourns.

3/8/13

Agenda 3/8/13

 1. Approval of Minutes

 2. Reports

 3. Jcomm Election Motion

 4. Class Committee Bylaw Revision

 5. Bourne Ultimatum

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.” -Mark Twain

Council Minutes 3/1/13

1. Approval of Minutes

2. Reports

[Mod] The Dresden and Hanover/Norwich budget votes are this Tuesday. Please sign up for the “get out the vote” call that Council will do on Monday.

[Treas] I signed the money allocation to the Ultimate Frisbee club.

[DSB] Thank to Tobias and Max for coming to the DSB meeting. The next meeting is March 27th.

[PR] If anyone has any ideas please bring them to me.

[Curric] We talked about the Restorative Justice Program and are planning to implement it soon.

[OEC] We discussed the Jcomm Election Motion. We will bring it today.

[SL] Mr. Brush told us that they are looking to get digital clocks for the locker room.

[SA] We talked about having each class make a banner for Winter Carnival.

[Tech] We talked about getting ipad minis. We are also looking into transferring a lot of core curricular aspects onto ipads, such as civitas books/ student handbooks.

[Melanie] Regarding enhanced school security, there is not money in the budget to pay for surveillance cameras, but there will be protective films on the windows.

[Admin] Mrs. Mills won the Staff of the Season award.

3. Jcomm Motion

Motion: I move to alter the final sentence of Article 7, letter F, number 5, letter A under the Bylaws to read “ The decision must be decided by a 2/3 majority vote”. I then move to strike the word “unanimous”  from Article 7, letter F.

• Right now the decision of the Judiciary Committee has to be unanimous. This can cause unneccesary pressure on the members.
• This is getting away from the structure of our country’s legal system. Sometimes it can be difficult to come to an unanimous vote, but it is a good process to have a group come together and collaborate to determine an unanimous agreement.
• This is a process designed to benefit the people bringing the issue to Jcomm and not the Jcomm members. I don’t think we should be stuck in modeling the system after our country because we are a high school and we are simply trying to have good discussions to solve a problem.
• I believe there’s never been a case where the Jcomm has ever been split or have overturned the administration, so where is this coming from?

• A majority vote goes with what the majority wants but respects the minority. On the other hand an unanimous vote gives the power to the minority.
• A majority vote can rule over the minority, while an unanimous decision requires the  consideration of the opinions of the whole party. Having a majority vote would only disregard the views of the minority. A unanimous is less biased than a majority.

Motion Fails.

4. Jcomm Election Motion

Motion: I move that the Judiciary Committee be composed of elected officials from the general student body.

1. You may run for Council as well as Jcomm.
2. Elections will take place during the Council elections in the spring.
3. Freshmen  will vote in the fall during orientation.
4. There will be two students from each grade as well as 2 staff members.
5. Jcomm members will elect a chair from among themselves.
6. Nomination forms are required but other forms of campaign are not required.
7. Individuals will vote for two members from their grade.

• This was  referred to OEC and we made some changes to it. We changed it to say that nomination papers are required and the Jcomm chair will be chosen from among themselves.
• This would sensationalize Jcomm in a way  that would be unhealthy for our school’s legal system.  Jcomm is confidential and it needs to be very private for it to work. By making it big with elections, Jcomm will be viewed differently.
• What is the connection going to be between Council and Jcomm?
• The Council Exec will be the liaison between Council and Jcomm. They will be responsible for running the hearing.
• A lot of people on Council will be interested in Council. I think that a lot of Council members will naturally end up on Jcomm, so it's not that big of a deal.
• Jcomm was created by Council with the idea that if you are a member of Jcomm you would have a sense of the political atmosphere of the school. The connection with Council is a very important one.  
• I see no problem with this; we are just broadening the base. I trust my classmates to vote for satisfactory Jcomm members our of the whole student body.
• I think Council members have more practice being involved in discussions regarding the school's political climate. I think that a non-Council member unaccustomed to this realm would not being able to help the group reach a deep level of debate.
• I think Jcomm elections should be more regulated than the Council elections to prevent the elections from becoming a popularity contest or something of the sort.
• I don't think as a body we should be promoting exclusivity. I think we should promote confidentiality with Jcomm. I don't think the value or the confidentiality of the system would be lost on the general student body. I think non-Council members can learn quickly. We can hold high standards to members who run for Jcomm.
• Amendment: I move to amend the Jcomm Election Motion to say that an elected Council member may not run for Jcomm.
• I think the spirit of this motion is to be more inclusive and I think that there are great people outside of Council who could bring a lot to Jcomm.
• If Council members run for Jcomm, they have a high chance of getting the spot. If they beat some kids for Council elections, then they will probably beat them again with Jcomm. If we want the judicial branch to be separate from the legislative branch then we should pass this motion.
• There's nothing in the original motion preventing Council members from running. If Council members run for Jcomm, they might win. But then t maybe there's a reason why they won. Their connectedness to the student body and the opinions they bring to Jcomm would make them more qualified for this spot.
• I think there's a better method to achieving this goal of inclusivity. Maybe we can designate a number of spots to Council members and to the general body.
• Would this amendment allow you to run for both and choose which position to take?
• I keep hearing that we should have people on Jcomm who are from the student body, but we ARE the student body. We are all here because we are the most representative students of the student body. I think that hearing that the students who most represent the student body should be excluded from the judiciary system sound completely backwards.

Meeting Adjourns.