On Tuesday, Sept. 16, Manual’s Student Based Decision Making (SBDM) held their second monthly meeting of the school year.
The meeting began with Principal Michael Newman discussing recent news in Manual’s community. He awarded the SBDM Student Spotlight to Stuthi Dev (9, MST) for her feats in swimming, as she broke two adaptive swim national records in the under-17 age group for the 100 yard backstroke and 25 yard butterfly.
“[Dev] is very proud to be a Manual Crimson, and she speaks very highly of that when she is out swimming,” Newman said. “We look forward to working with her locally with [Manual’s swim] team as well.”
In addition, Katie Blackerby-Weible (Theater) received the SBDM Teacher Spotlight. Blackerby was recognized for her lead role in the musical “Come From Away” at Derby Dinner Playhouse where she took YPAS students on a field trip to see her performance.
Following Spotlight awards, Becky Slagle (English) shared with the SBDM council her proposal for better allocation of homeroom time during testing days. She addressed the policy B10: Protection of Instruction Time, expressing her perspective as a classroom and homeroom teacher. She stated that time where students are in homeroom classes while other students are testing should be allocated more effectively for more value of those periods.
Slagle proposed three main points, including regular academic instruction, in which students not testing follow class schedules as normal and larger events involving supplemental support or community speakers. Additionally, she proposed receiving teacher and student input for content or more broad requests for allocation of time.
“As the year moves on, especially in the spring when testing becomes a real thing, we make sure that what we provide for [students] in homeroom is timely; in other words that it meets them where they are … that it’s meaningful,” Slagle said.
In response to Slagle’s input, Newman proposed the formation of a teacher committee to facilitate the allotment of homeroom time. The committee was approved by the SBDM council and is set to form this semester, making changes after the Oct. 15 PSAT when students who are not testing will be completing their Independent Learning Plans (ILP’s).
Next, the SBDM council discussed the applications for new clubs for the 2025-26 school year. They approved five new clubs: Hindu Student Association, Journal of Medical Innovations, Physics Club, American Sign Language (ASL) Club and International Thespian Society. Over 20 other clubs were submitted, many of which were denied due to students filling out the request form rather than sponsors. For these instances, case sponsors may come to the October SBDM meeting to re-request sanctioning of their club. Other clubs were denied due to overlap in goals and policies with existing clubs; for example, Girls in Med was denied due to overlap with Women In Science Engineering (WISE) and Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA).
Newman then announced that two positions on Manual’s staff are currently available for applications, due to the upcoming retirements of Ana Castro (Spanish) and Christopher Williams (Social Studies).
Next, the council discussed the budget for the upcoming school year. The available budget for Manual is currently $241,558, and the available budget for YPAS is currently $38,860. Because of updated classroom-teacher allocations and new numbers of students, Manual is required to pay back $13,430 for students who left the school and numbers of students per teacher.
For additional instructional supply needs as a result of the JCPS phone ban, Newman allocated around $40,000 for equipment for classrooms in need. Some of the equipment purchased included light meters for cameras and audio recorders, requested by J&C, VA and some YPAS teachers. The council then discussed possible allocation of funds for projects like fixing auditorium curtains and lights, but no final decisions were made.
The council then talked about senior regalia due to student, teacher and club sponsor questions specifically about graduation cords. They discussed the nuances of allowing certain clubs and societies to be recognized with cords and if there should be a limit for students.
The meeting concluded with the approval of new School Profile Report Card policies, which are changing throughout all of JCPS.
The next SBDM meeting will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 3 p.m., and will be open to any students, teachers or parents.
