Hollywood United Neighborhood Council

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Minutes for the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council Education & Youth Committee. Attending were Board members Andrew Glazier, Chris Stehr, Maurece Chesse and Susan Polifronio. Also attending were Jennifer Christie and Walter Blackman.

At the meeting tonight we discussed the success of the Cheremoya Ave. Elementary School Fundraiser. The Fundraiser collected $3715.00 by November 15th. The publicity all reached the former "Friends of Cheremoya" and they generously turned over $4,499.00 from a previous account that had been inactive for the last few years. Staples has committed to a $200.00 per month credit for Cheremoya, a big screen T.V. was donated, and 4 new volunteers are working at Cheremoya. The total cost for the event is $791.00 for food and wine plus $43.85 tax. Counterpoint and Harmony covered the $402.00 for invitations, posters, flyers and stamps, The Celebrity Center donated $150.00 worth of plates, napkins, utensils and wine glasses and Jennifer Christie donated much of her time outside of the her normal HUNC hours. We also thank the Children of Cheremoya and Debbie Aldahls' class for providing the decorations and Justyn de Leon for the artwork used on the invitations and posters. The Children of Cheremoya will be adding a big thank you to the letter being sent to participants.

We also discussed lessons learned. Among them were better ways of budgeting so that more of the money goes to the actual project, starting earlier, getting more involvement from those on the Board with fundraising capabilities and in general designating one person to oversee all aspects at the beginning.

Our goals for 2004 will be aggressively seeking out someone to occupy a youth seat and working on involving other educational institutions within the HUNC boundaries. Walt Blackman felt that students already involved in government and community would be excited to be on the Board, even in a non-voting seat. Andrew will be looking into Hollywood High as a possible resource. Susan Polifronio had approached Immaculate Heart and informed them of our wish to involve their student body. Walter felt we should concentrate our efforts on helping Chris Stehr to make Cheremoya Ave. Elementary School into a jewel. He also brought up Charter Schools. Andrew described the two types of charter schools: one remains part of the school district and all the teachers keep their benefits. There is more flexibility in choosing curriculum and teaching aids as long as they conform to the State requirements. The other is a fully independent Charter School which would be completely independent. He felt Cheremoya would not have the numbers in the student body to support itself financially. Chris also stated that many teachers are opposed to becoming a fully independent charter school because if the school fails they would have lost all seniority, benefits and retirement funding.

Meeting adjourned at 8:20PM Minutes: Susan Polifronio