07/18/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 7/18/2000 nursing homes and care facilities, hospitals, the Science Center and a variety of other agencies that are related to service. The students do a wonderful job in actually being sort of an outreach program for social interaction and for service to other people. In addition to the programs that the students do on a regular basis, they also participate in Coats for Kids and Senior Fest, which is a very popular activity at Springvale Ballroom. The students also participate in the Appalachia project. Barb Strnad, a member of the Human Resources Advisory Board, was an integral part of the Appalachia project for the year 2000. Mr. Zullo introduced Mrs. Christine Kilbane and Mr. Bob Pierce, S.I.T.E.S. coordinators and founders of the program. Mr. Pierce announced that last year North Olmsted High School was selected as a National Service Learning Leader School and will serve in that role for two years. As a consequence of that, he and Mrs. Kilbane were invited this summer to a national leader institute in Washington where they received a document entitled, "Improving our Schools and the Challenge of Citizenship: A Declaration of Principles." The document offers six principles and is signed by Dick Riley, Secretary United States Department of Education, and by Harris Wolford, Chief Executive Officer Corporation for National Service. The booklet contains an explanation of each of the six main principles of good citizenship and how it can be enhanced through school improvement. Each principle in the booklet is followed by two examples. Of the twelve examples that have been chosen nationally, the North Olmsted High School S.I.T.E.S. program is one of those twelve. They are very proud of that. The S.I.T.E.S. program is nationally emulated and nationally envied because of the relationship with the local government. A number of S.I.T.E.S. students are working in various city departments--they have benefited, they have learned and they have prospered. Mr. Pierce said he wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to the city government for what has been offered to the students. He introduced Betty Lord, vice-chairman of the Landmarks Commission. Mrs. Lord said it had been a real pleasure this year to have the benefit of a student who was so eager and so willing to work seven or eight hours a week when he was only supposed to work three. Landmarks has always been about partnerships. Years ago, they started partnering often with Mr. Copeland's office and were able to bring many funds into the community to do things through that partnership. This is just another partnership that has been really important to the Commission and to Curt also. As a parent of a former S.I.T.E.S. student, she knows the value of S.I.T.E.S. Her daughter has told her it was where she learned how to be a college student. We should be extremely pleased that we have this kind of program in North Olmsted. As an educator, she can only second what Mr. Pierce said, other school districts very close to here would love to have something that works for their students like S.I.T.E.S. works for ours. She thanked Curt and said he was a real benefit and would be a hard act to follow. Mayor Musial presented a proclamation to the program coordinators recognizing the S.I.T.E.S. program as meaningful and beneficial to the community and a program which has permitted our youth an opportunity to make a lasting and positive impact on our community. Proclamations were presented to the S.I.T.E.S. students in recognition of their hard work and successful completion of their individual assigned tasks. 3 }.,,.. .~ ~~y,~,v. __~ _ __ _