By Margaret Hopper

The Aldo Leopold Charter School Governing Council met Thursday evening, September 22, 2016 at the school with Mary Gruszka, Shauna McCosh, Jose Herrera, Dale Lane and chairman Dave Peck attending. The meeting came to order shortly after 5:30.

The staff report from Maia Chaney, new 7-8 Grade math and science instructor, mentioned a number of community contacts and activities the students had been exposed to recently. Some places mentioned were The Volunteer Center, the Office of Sustainability and the Gila National Forest. They learned about birding, the diversion, and their monitoring stations.

In the Business Manager Report, Harry Browne told of passing their budget inspection, and some items purchased. Looking at one entry approaching $3900, he told about the new InRange radios, saying they had purchased five of them, one for each group that might be out on site. The radios had already been used, with spectacular results, according to Wayne Sherwood, director, who had recently returned from one of the backpack trips.

Some of the features were the GSP positioning, the ability to photograph their surroundings and transmit the information, the contacts possible for both school and rescue conditions. Tracking, even in the school bus while traveling, was also discussed. Another topic discussed was the price of school buses and a Suburban.

Under committee reports, SAC (school advisory council) has been rescheduled to Monday, September 26. SHAC (school health advisory council) is still working on medical papers, permission forms, emergency contacts and the like. They discussed needing a better system for getting these in efficiently, much earlier in the school year.

The audit papers had been gathered with few major concerns, according to Peck. It appeared to be well under way. Browne said the next Finance Committee is scheduled for October 25. Lane said he was gone but said the Curriculum Committee had met. Firming up email contacts and some records was discussed. Those meetings should be the second Tuesdays of the month, he said. Another would be coming up shortly, but Fall Break might interfere with it, too.

Whether or not Facilities Committee had met, no one was sure. Policy needed better communications, it was thought. They discussed who was on that, and how email could take care of the contacts. Peck said they had considered circulating a listing of all committees, and he thought that would be very helpful. Part of the problem seemed to be that not all individuals could access the website and its topics; Wayne Sherwood insisted that it was critical to get all the code entered; www.aldocs.org had to be entered properly; perhaps they could stress that.

Development Committee had met in August and would meet again in October. Updating the webpage was a need; Lane said it was important to make it easier to use so more people would use it more often. Discussion continued.

Several agreed that the Strategic Planning Committee was important and that they needed to be serious about it. At least have a formal meeting and get it moving. It had real potential for the future. The calendar was important, that site needed work, and it should be kept up properly once it was caught up, according to Lane. Risk Management Committee needed attention, too.

He told about efforts to set up a non-profit foundation that would be separate from the school and staff; something that would benefit Aldo for time to come. They had had a meeting or two, he said, and would meet again next week. He mentioned community people who were helping with the effort. At present they were still working on bylaws and collecting some start-up money.

Two freshman girls came in to tell about their backpack camping trip with some seniors who mentored the experience. Lane asked about the legacy aspect and setting attitudes for Aldo. The girls agreed that the freshman/senior trip was all of that. They developed an increased respect for sharing, accounting for each other and learning Gǣhow they do things here." It seemed to be more observed than stated, they said.

Under Old Business, the directorG