School Site Council

The School Site Council (Council) is essentially the governing body of the school site. It is a state-required committee comprised of parents, teachers, and other school staff who work with the principal to develop, review, and evaluate site-level academic and school climate programs and budgets with the goal of advancing achievement for all students.

The Village School Site Council consists of 10 members: the principal, three teachers, a non-classroom staff member, and five parents. Members serve two-year terms and are elected by their peers, meaning that parents elect parent representatives and teachers elect teacher representatives.

Our responsibilities

The Council is responsible for overseeing two important school documents: the Single Plan for Student Achievement (Achievement Plan) and the Comprehensive School Safety Plan (Safety Plan). The Council delegates the creation of the Safety Plan to the Village School Positive Leadership Team, which is a different committee of teachers, parents, and staff tasked with ensuring that students are safe on a day-to-day basis and in emergency situations. By delegating the Safety Plan, the Council may focus its energies on its primary function, the creation of the Achievement Plan.

The Achievement Plan outlines specific goals for improving the school’s climate and increasing mathematics and reading/language arts achievement for all students in the community. These goals are set by the district and the principal. The Council determines the particular means to achieve these goals by allocating funds to specific programs and initiatives. Throughout the year, the Council will continuously monitor these programs for their effectiveness in achieving the goals set in the Achievement Plan.

Programs being funded

The programs funded under the Achievement Plan change from year to year, depending on their effectiveness in improving the school’s climate, increasing student achievement, and changing priorities and initiatives. The current year’s Achievement Plan allocates funds for a variety of programs and learning tools, including: Project Cornerstone, parent training on Positive Discipline and “No Bully,” teacher collaboration time, the tutor program, an iPad mini cart, services for students who are English language learners, and the purchase of Common Core aligned books for the school library. In past years, funds have been allocated toward a part-time school counselor and online subscription math programs such as EPGY and FASTT Math.

Sources of funding

The primary funding sources in the Achievement Plan include the Charter School Block Grant and the Schools and Library Improvement Block Grant.  Other funding included in the Achievement Plan comes from the PTA.

How the Council differs from the PTA

The Council differs from the PTA in its membership, function, and purpose. The PTA Executive Board, sometimes referred to as the “Village Board,” includes the elected and appointed PTA officers, the principal, and all of the Village School classroom teachers. The PTA Executive Board is tasked with determining the vision and culture of the school with the community’s input, setting policy regarding parent participation, supporting the teachers and the Village School program, ensuring parent involvement is organized and carried out, building community, communicating school news, enriching the academic program, fundraising, and coordinating the use of funds from the annual giving donations and fundraising efforts.

The Council works closely with the PTA Executive Board to make sure desired programs get funded and the PTA’s actions are in line with the school’s goals. To facilitate this, one member of the PTA Executive Board also serves on the Council to keep a clear and open dialog between the two groups. One example of this coordination is the PTA providing funding for the purchase of Common Core aligned books for the school library.