Subject: IMPORTANT: December Minutes & Help Needed Requests
From: "Reis, Beth"
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:21:29 -0800
To: "SAFE SCHOOLS: post to main list" , "SAFE SCHOOLS: post to \"IMPORTANT NEWS\" list"

[:ssc338:] IMPORTANT: December Minutes & Help Needed Requests Safe Schools Coalition (SSC) Meeting Minutes 12/18/07, 3-4 p.m. PST
Items of National/International interest are in BLUE.
Help Needed requests are in RED.

Chairing: Marsha Botzer; Recording: Heather Carter
Present: Heather Murphy - returning SSC intervention specialist/psychologist in Shoreline Public Schools; Cory Secrist - U.W. School of Psychology; Arnold Martin - Seattle Counseling Service, Program Neon; Gabi Clayton - SSC Webspinner/PFLAG-Olympia/Families United Against Hate+; Frieda Takamura – SSC co-chair/Washington Education Association (WEA); Todd Denny - Music Violence Prevention Project; Helen Stillman - SSC speakers bureau manager/American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)/Lambert House; Beth Reis - SSC co-chair/Public Health—Seattle & King County; Kyle Rapinan – SSC/AFSC Intern; Ryan Schwartz – Groundspark’s Respect for All Project; Joyful Freeman – AFSC; Heather Carter – Youth Suicide Prevention Program; Kathy Kaminski – SSC co-secretary; Marsha Botzer – SSC co-chair/Ingersoll Gender Center/National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Jerry Painter - WEA

INTROS … welcome new faces/voices 

(1)    MUSIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION (MVP) TRAINING

Trainer Todd Denny offers educators a 3 hour workshop entitled “Using Music to Engage Men and K-12 Students in Sustained Violence Prevention Peer Education.” This interactive workshop describes how to give students the tools to create original violence prevention music and then present their music and poetry to their peers and teachers. MVP music extends into community-wide activities including mass-media campaigns while also involving parents as allies and stakeholders. By actively engaging men and K-12 boys and girls in creating violence prevention strategies, long-term programming is better understood and internalized. This project has been successfully implemented in five cities (San Diego, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Tacoma, WA, Spokane, WA and Toppenish, WA) and was funded by the U.S. Department of Education for 3 consecutive years. Todd’s in the middle of talks with Seattle Public Schools about a teacher training this spring. He’s also done 3 residencies with Gear Up. Safe Schools Coalition agreed to put word out of these trainings on list serve.

(2)     DO WE WANT A WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA TEAM?

(3)     MEMBERSHIP REPORT


a)      No new org member applications or renewals
b)      Post-holiday, back-to-school, phone bank and mailing party to try to accomplish an 85% renewal rate by the end of January … We’ll piggy back a phone bank and mailing party onto the regular SSC meeting January 15. So the meeting will be 3-4:30 and a little membership party will follow 4:30-5:30. Please bring your cell phone and your enthusiasm – we’ll need a dozen volunteers. Please come!  Then, we’ll follow that up with a 2nd round in February.  Heather suggested we divide the phone list up and do the mailing at the meeting.  Todd suggested we do the mailing first and follow that up with a phone call.

(4)    INTERVENTION TEAM REPORT

Helen and Dream are in the process of planning a retreat (probably February or March) for the Intervention Team with some dynamite trainers. So far: we have Heather Carter (YSPP) & Seth Kirby (Human Rights Commission) lined up. If you have suggestions of wonderful trainers, especially trainers of color, on such issues as crisis management, problem-solving, motivational interviewing, etc. please let Helen know: mailto:helen@safeschoolscoalition.org

(5)     SPEAKERS BUREAU/TRAINING TEAM/OUTREACH REPORT

a)      Recent speaking, training and outreach events:
i)      We’ve recently done training for Alderwood Middle School and Bush Middle School faculties.
ii)     Dream and Ethan have recently done outreach at Shoreline Community College and Voices Rising/Langston Hughes.
iii)    Dream represented the Pride Foundation at a workplace giving breakfast for staff at Public Health – Seattle & King County.

iv)     We provided a youth panel (via AFSC) at Fairview; Lisa facilitated.
b)      Upcoming events:
i)      Beth will be doing training January 8th Bush Upper School faculty
ii)     AFSC panels are coming up at Ingraham High School, Odyssey, Just Serve AmeriCorps
c)      Upcoming events still in need of speakers, trainers and outreach volunteers:
i)      We need a speaker for Jan 19 in Bellingham for the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force.
ii)     We need a trainer for a class on LGBTQ Issues in Education at Fairhaven College in Bellingham on January 29th or 31st (preferred), 1-2:50 pm.

iii)    South Seattle Community College-Safe Zones
iv)     April: Power of One Conference in Portland
d)      Helen is planning a refresher/training event for the current speakers’ bureau volunteers and trainers (perhaps for April) with Carla Odiaga, on trans youth and working with parents of trans youth.

e)      Helen and Joyful’s speaking/training brochure is coming along. The same artist who did our new posters has volunteered to design it.

(6)     IDAHO CHAPTER REPORT

a)      Several members will be participating Challenge Day activities at area high schools
b)      Planning is underway for a February 8th Youth Night
c)      Plans for a brochure are also underway
d)      Reach them here: PO Box 4213, Boise ID, 83711; Co-chairs: Shane Milward, 208-378-1793 and Nadine Chaffee, 208-362-8755; Email:  nadine.chaffee@gmail.com

(7)     LISTSERVE REPORT

a)      Welcome to recent subscribers from Quebec and around US [CA, CO, IN, MA, OK, OR, SC & WA (Bellingham, Republic, Seatac, Seattle)].

b)      At last count, we had 821 subscribers in at least (not everyone tells us where they are from) 11 countries: Australia, Belize, Canada, China, Finland, Pakistan, Serbia and Montenegro, South Africa, United Kingdom, the U.S. and New Zealand.  In Canada, the 5 Provinces we serve include at least Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. In the U.S., we serve people in at least 43 states (AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY) plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Within Washington State, we serve at least 26 counties: Benton, Chelan, Clallam, Clark, Cowlitz, Ferry, Franklin, Grant, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, San Juan, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston, Walla Walla, Whatcom, Whitman and Yakima.

c)      We turned down requests this month to send messages to the list from a songwriter making a music video with slightly sexy lyrics and a few organizations seeking to publicize fundraisers (we only do that for member orgs).

(8)     WEB SITE REPORT

a)      163,169 hits, 30,903 page views, 20,920 visitors from 109 countries used the site in November (up from 103 in October) including 17,219 from the United States; 100-600 each from Canada, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, China, Australia; and <100 each from Brazil, Spain, Republic of Korea, Poland, Japan, Norway, Russian Federation, Netherlands, India, Turkey, Mexico, Switzerland, Italy, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, Indonesia, Philippines, Denmark, Belgium, Romania, Singapore, Israel, Austria, Thailand, Pakistan, Colombia, Ghana, Hong Kong, Portugal, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Argentina, Serbia and Montenegro, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Hungary, Iran, Greece, Chile, Lithuania, Peru, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Jamaica, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Lebanon, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Iceland, Jordan, Kuwait, Barbados, Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Bangladesh, Grenada, Panama, Slovakia, Slovenia, Belize, Swaziland, Vietnam, Moldova, Yemen, Bolivia, Luxembourg, Bahamas, Albania, Nicaragua, Botswana, Zimbabwe, El Salvador, Tunisia, Brunei Darussalam, Syria, Belarus, Mongolia, Macedonia, Mauritius, Northern Mariana Islands, Saint Lucia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Latvia, Georgia, Rwanda, Bahrain, Benin, Armenia, Algeria, Estonia, Cyprus, and the Dominican Republic

b)      Most people (about two-thirds in November) found the site on their own, perhaps referred by a friend or colleague but not through a search engine or another web site. About a quarter found us via search engines.  Some of the other most frequently referring web sites were: http://bonusroundblog.blogspot.com, http://en.wikipedia.org, http://safezonefoundation.tripod.com, http://www.nameorg.org, http://www.religionlink.org, http://www.wastatepta.org, http://www.lgbtcampus.org, http://www.genderadvocates.org, http://adoption.about.com, http://www.metrokc.gov, http://gaylife.about.com, http://www.scn.org http://www.aclu.org, http://www.transgenderlaw.org. Thank you to all these partners in helping educators and students and parents and communities find the resources they need.

c)      We occasionally receive hate mail for the work we do on the web site; it seems to be increasing recently. There was discussion of what to do with it. While it helps illustrate that the problem is real and still exists, the consensus was generally not to respond or report it to law enforcement unless it’s actually threatening, but to keep records of it in case it escalates.

d)      There are now 10 songs on the site. Please let Gabi know if you know of other songs we should post for use in classrooms and by GSAs (all genres, just so the lyrics aren’t too offensive for school settings and the message is somehow relevant to the mission of the Coalition).

e)      Gabi’s recently posted 14 photos by Sarah Ervin - it was her high school senior project - they are beautiful B&W portraits of couples and other families. See http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/RG-family.html and also http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/RG-glbt_parents_guardians.html.

f)      SSC is helping National Safe Schools Roundtable start up their website. We volunteered to host them on our site, at least for a while. 

(9)     SPECIAL EVENTS

a)      Seattle gala screening of “It’s STILL Elementary” in Jan or Feb. It’s STILL Elementary documents the impact of the original, groundbreaking documentary It’s Elementary on the individual students and staff who were filmed for it and on schools and teacher preparation programs nationwide. We discussed possibly a double feature, showing the original documentary at the same time as we premiere the new one, followed with a panel about what’s going on here in Washington. Should there be a fundraiser for this?  Can we get Deborah Chasnoff and some of the students to come?  Ryan will look into both of these issues.  We got an initial offer of a grant to help support the event.  Beth will schedule a follow up meeting for people who are interested in helping with this: Ryan, Arnold, Heather Carter, Kyle, Beth, Frieda, Helen, Gabi (publicity), Todd (flyers in Olympia area).  Kari Kesler will contact Three Dollar Bill Cinema as possible partner.

b)      Save the date: April 1! We have been offered April 1 for another Laugh OUT Loud fundraising event at the Comedy Underground.  Kathy Kaminski has stepped up. We agreed to ask Yoram to reserve that date for the Coalition and to discuss in January if we can pull it off in addition to the It’s STILL Elementary event.

(10)      DONATIONS

a)      Thank you, Duncan Gibbs, for a recent donation, as well as to an anonymous donor.
b)      Are you grateful for what the Coalition has done for you … and for LGBTQ youth, parents and educators all over the world this year? It’s not too late to make a 2007 tax-deductible donation to the Safe Schools Coalition. Your dollars help the Coalition afford to staff lots of tables at educators’ conferences and youth events, provide training for teachers and other school staff, buy ads in high school papers, and provide a dynamite clearinghouse of a listserve and web site. Please, even if you can only afford $10 right now, go to: https://anauel.youth-guard.org/safeschools/donate.asp.

(11)      HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN

(12) ADOPTING A FAMILY

UPCOMING MEETINGS … contact the chair if you have agenda items to suggest or if you need instructions about attending (in person) or calling in (by conference call). All are welcome- you do NOT need to be a Coalition member to attend.

Jan 15th, 3-4:30 pm, Pacific Time, followed by a 4:30-5:30 phone bank and mailing party.
Frieda chairs and Dream records
Frieda: 253-765-7062;
ftakamura@washingtonea.org

Feb 19th, 3-5 pm, Pacific Time. Beth chairs and Ethan records
Beth: 206-296-4970;
elizabeth.reis@metrokc.gov 

Mar 18th, 3-5 pm, Pacific Time. Marsha chairs and Dream records
Marsha: 206-601-8942; mbotzer@botzerconsulting.com



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Elizabeth “
Beth” Reis, Public Health - Seattle & King County, 206-296-4970
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