Holy Redeemer Parish Council Minutes
May 21, 2009
7:30 p.m.
Attendees: Father George, Rita Thompson, Rosemary Allender, Ellen Davis, Dave Fortuna, Mollie Huitema, Mark Russo, Mary Katherine Theis.
1. Father George opened the meeting with a prayer.
2. President’s Comments – Father George
a. The parish had a $10,000 contract to convert the second floor of the convent for the various youth groups and their activities. However, this was not enough to complete the renovation, and the offices will remain where they are for at least a year.
b. The Quilters and the Crafters will move to the dining room of the convent. Someone offered to pay for the necessary storage units.
c. Four lights will be installed in the parking lot. The school will pay part of the cost. Father will get estimates for the lights and repaving, and then go to the Archdiocese to request a special collection that will not be taxed.
d. The parish picnic will probably be on August 30.
3. Chair’s Comments – Rita reserved her comments for later.
4. Minutes of the March meeting were approved.
5. Committee Reports
Social Justice - Dave Fortuna
a. No report.
b. Mollie is planning to do Bread for the World letter writing early in June.
Liturgy – Mary Katherine Theis
a. At its April 28th meeting, the committee reviewed the Easter liturgies. Comments received from parishioners were favorable.
b. Father Smarsh is starting to interview applicants for the position of Music Director.
School Advisory Board - Rita Thompson
a. See Attachment.
b. The Board would like someone from the Council to attend its meetings.
Youth – absent
Christian Formation – absent
Finance - Ellen Davis
a. See 2 above.
b. Pastors are encouraged to have an appeal for yearly pledges. Parishioners’ contributions would be automatically deducted from their bank accounts.
6. New Business
a. Parish Offertory Program – See Finance Committee above.
b. Dave Fortuna reported that because there was only one candidate for each of the three vacancies on the council, no election was held. Terry O’Meara, Arlene Peterson, and John Enns will begin their terms at the July meeting. Ellen Davis thinks that we should have an election anyway to raise awareness.
c. Facilities Planning Committee Report – See 2 above.
d. Mark Russo reported that only one person has volunteered to patrol the parking lot. He will do the Graduation/Peace mass. He has a list of possible volunteers and will contact them before the next meeting.
e. Rita Thompson will schedule the first meeting of the 100 Year Anniversary Committee in January, 2010. She will arrange for Archbishop Wuerl to celebrate the 10:00 mass on June 17, 2012. It would be helpful to the committee if e-mail addresses were included in the 2010 Parish Directory. Rita will submit a quarterly written report of the committee’s activities.
f. The review of the Parish Constitution was postponed to the next meeting due to the length of the meeting.
g. A parishioner asked if the minutes of the council meetings could be approved by e-mail, thus making them available shortly after the meeting. It was agreed that the minutes must be approved by members present at the meetings.
7. Old Business
Security, use of the convent, and the Facilities Planning report were all discussed above.
8. The next meeting is scheduled for July 15, 2009. Rita said that she has enjoyed her years on the council and thanked the members for their support.
9. Father George led the closing prayer.
Respectfully submitted,
Mollie Huitema
Attachment – School Advisory Board Minutes
May 21, 2009
There are 236 enrolled as of today.
There are 7 children registered for K.
· Mrs. Bovich and Father George Wilkinson attended a meeting organized by the Washington Archdiocese for all Prince George’s County schools. The following information was presented:
o Each school in Prince George’s county was ranked by the archdiocese in various areas using three ranking levels, for highest to lowest, below:
§ Viable
§ Watch
§ Intervention needed
o Holy Redeemer received the following rankings for the different areas:
§ School program: Viable
§ Financial: Watch
§ Facility: Intervention
§ Mean Terra Nova Scores (mean was at “normal”) Watch
§ # Terra Nova Scores in high range Viable
§ Accessibility Watch
§ Quality of Academics Viable
§ Classroom Instruction Viable
§ Leadership Viable
§ Quality of Teachers Intervention
o This marked the first time that many pastors faced the reality of seeing such statistics.
o The schools were ranked to provide the archdiocese insight into decisions that could be made to regionalize some schools.
o One concern for attendees at the meeting was the rankings for “Accessibility.” The archdiocese defined this as the extent to which the school location was geographically close to the location of students’ homes. If students lived far from the school, the ranking was lower than Viable. In Holy Redeemer’s case, many students come from widely dispersed geographic areas, but this is due in part to the school’s proximity to the University of Maryland and other places where parents work. Many felt the definition used by the archdiocese for Accessibility was outdated, as families now choose a school for other reasons than its proximity to their homes.
o Mrs. Bovich discussed the “Quality of Teachers” ranking of “Intervention needed.” She said this ranking resulted from the fact that not all of our teachers are certified, as has been discussed numerous times with the board. Mrs. Bovich is working with all these teachers on individual plans so that they will be able to achieve certification.
Current model cannot fund Catholic education. Looking to get parishes to partner and some schools will have to close.
Archdiocese’s talking about regionalization of schools, and some possibilities are:
K-5
6-8
All Boys
All Girls
The archdiocese’s position is that the current method of funding Catholic schools does not work in today’s environment. The desire is to look into spreading the responsibility for supporting schools more equitably across all churches. Representatives of the archdiocese also stated that it is not enough for individual schools to hit enrollment targets; schools must pull together for the good of the entire student body.
Ideas for restructuring the funding include raising the offertory percentage assessed on each church. One proposal was to require churches with attached schools to pay three percent, and parishes without schools to pay nine percent.
Berwyn Baptist enrollment is down for K-4 and Friends School and PG County is closing schools. A turnaround is expected in 2012.
Julie Weeks, president of HSA, spoke briefly about the auction that took place May 1. The auction was very successful. The record keeping and accounting for the auction takes several weeks; Julie will have a report ready for the Advisory Board for its June meeting.
Auction was a good community builder.
School is looking at doing a new brochure.
Motion to change by-laws to change number of school advisory members. Also, the board thought it would be a good idea for a Parish representative to come to the school board meetings.
HSA – looking for a co-chair, secretary, auction chair and gift wrap chair persons.
School is busy with field trips, spirit week, play and exams.
Expansion of the school:
Mrs. Bovich met with Mr. Pizanno on May 4 to review the upcoming work to expand the school space.
Funding for the project will come out of the Facility Fund that was started a few years ago.
Grades K, 2 and 4 will move up the hallway one classroom. 6th, 7th and 8th grade (Junior High students) will be moving into the Adult Education Room, Religious Education Room and Room 3.
Locker space will be created.
Pre-K will be in the current Kindergarten room.
The pre-K proposal is due to the Archdiocese by 9/30/09.
K move-in week of September 7th, so K may start a week late.