May 8, 2024 – Minutes

Hillcrest High School Community Council minutes, 8 May 2024

Attending: Greg Leavitt, Brenda McCann, Stacey Timmerman, Stacey Kratz, Elena Foley, Debbie Johnson, Jenny Olson, R.J. Graham

Minutes: Debbie Johnson made a motion to approve the minutes, seconded by RJ Graham. The motion passed.

Recognition for Principal Greg Leavitt

On behalf of the SCC, Stacey Timmerman presented Principal Leavitt with a card and pocket watch to mark his imminent retirement. She praised Mr, Leavitt’s emphasis on high standards and rigorous instruction for all students, which helps every Hillcrest student work to their potential. She expressed the council’s appreciation for serving with Mr. Leavitt and for his commitment to “creating an environment for success that has really been of benefit to Hillcrest. Seeing what Hillcrest can become and what our community can be has been very inspiring.” 

Other SCC members also expressed their appreciation for Mr. Leavitt, as well as their best wishes for an enjoyable and relaxing retirement.

Brenda McCann Introduction

Brenda McCann, the current principal of Union Middle School who will take over as principal of Hillcrest upon Mr. Leavitt’s retirement, attended the meeting to meet the SCC and learn about issues, challenges, and successes at the school. Ms. McCann has deep roots in the Hillcrest community: she graduated from Hillcrest herself, and after becoming a teacher and spending about 10 years at a middle school, returned to HHS to teach and coach volleyball for a decade. After that, she began her path to administration with an internship at Brighton High School, but returned to Hillcrest as an assistant principal before become Union’s principal. “When I left to go to Union, I told Greg I bleed pretty green,” McCann told the SCC, explaining that she even has a table in her basement made from wood taken from the gymnasium floor of the original school. She also noted that she worked with Mr. Leavitt for many years and has the highest respect for him, and Mr. Leavitt replied that he also had a great deal of respect for Ms. McCann and knew Hillcrest will be in good hands under her leadership. 

Hillcrest SCC Items of Interest

Chair Stacey Timmerman, with input and comments from other SCC members, shared with Ms. McCann the major items of ongoing interest to the SCC, which the board will continue to discuss and work on next year and beyond. Those issues are:

• Equitable opportunities at Hillcrest
  • Replacing the previous equity committee with other options, including Utah Rooting Out Racism involvement and other community efforts
  • Raising awareness of equity and opportunity issues within the school
  • Promoting broad opportunities to participate and excel among students
  • Valuing and promoting the school, both as a facility and as a community
  • Increasing the voice of the student body in school plans and affairs
  • Constantly assessing and adapting plans for serving our more than 500 students who are English language learners 
  • Working with other schools across the valley that have similar demographics, like Granger, Hunter, Highland, West, and others, to exchange ideas, seek opportunities to make the most of these vibrant school communities, and work together on challenges. 
• SCC recruitment
  • Ms. Timmerman shared that the SCC has extensively discussed the council’s goal of diversifying parent representation on the SCC to more fully reflect Hillcrest’s student demographics. This complex issue is partially related to the previous “equitable opportunities” issue, and has both many roots and many possible solutions, as well as many obstacles.
  • Offering translation services or having Spanish speakers at meetings to welcome parents for whom language might be a barrier.
  • Hosting informal events featuring SCC members and school leadership, in which interested parents can come, sit down with some food, and have conversations about what SCC service is like. 
  • Possibly put together a video to appear on the school website with SCC members talking about what it’s like to serve on the council and how important the council’s work is to Hillcrest students. 
• Hillcrest Free Market
  • Elena Foley explained that the market has been extremely successful, with increasing amounts of students and community members utilizing its services. The market has continued to serve “more and more students,” with evolving offerings that include more fresh produce. 
• Attendance
  • Ms. McCann acknowledged that every school is working on attendance right now. SCC members suggested meeting with the community and being realistic about what will work for our students, especially our Tier 3 students who are sometimes just wandering the halls during the school day.
• Dress Code
  • Mr. Leavitt said he thought it was possible Ms. McCann would “do a better job with dress code” than he felt he has done. He said an effective dress code policy takes consistency, but the strictness of dress codes has changed over time, from the days when non-natural colors in hair, hats, and shorts were “a big deal” to today, when no educator would “call out” a student over their hair color. Some schools, like West High, take the philosophy that “we’re just glad you’re here,” Mr. Leavitt said, and that philosophy will most likely “win the day” in some form. It’s an evolving issue that will continue to be discussed at every level in our district, but Mr. Leavitt emphasized that any future policies must be both “consistent and equitable.”
• School-Wide Disclosure
  • This disclosure has proven to be a useful tool for parents and for teachers, Mr. Leavitt said; the only challenge is to get more people to read it. When parents read it, they find they are empowered for future discussions with teachers.
  • It says right in the disclosure that a retake must have a qualifying event: going to APP, extra study, talking with teachers, etc., and that retakes must be timely.
  • 90% of our faculty is following the disclosure statement pretty closely, Mr. Leavitt said. It’s very specific, which is what gives parents and students the certainty to know these things will be done this way.
    • As an example, he mentioned that the school had a situation in which a teacher was grading students on a “massive service project that went on and on and on,” and administrators were able to use the policies outlined in the disclosure to go in and make some changes into the way things were done.
• School Spirit/School Pride
  • Mr. Leavitt said the school has seen some success with grade-against-grade competitions; the juniors won this year, and the juniors won last year, and the kids are noticing it. The school plans to put information about the competitions in a case or hang them along the wall, with classes earning points throughout the year. It’s an effective behavior and attendance motivator for about 40% of our students, which is a good amount. Winners get prizes like tickets given out at an assembly for the kids attending that assembly, so they are able to be the first ones in line to get free food.
  • Our assembly attendance is not as good, Mr. Leavitt said, but we are working on it. It has to be the right venue for the speaker, he added, but Hillcrest won’t hire a motivational speaker without a lot of vetting and making sure it’s the right one. It’s important to consider that the things students are going to respond to have changed a great deal in the last decade or so.
  • Husky Service—the practice of having students pick up trash in the parking lots—is still happening; every week, a teacher does Husky Service around the building, administrators confirmed. School leadership lets teachers know when it’s their week to do Husky Service at some point during the week, whenever they are able, and asks the teachers to take pictures and send them to administrators. Those pictures are posted around the school here and there. Like any program, they said, it’s as good as the teachers will make it.
    • SCC members pointed out that one parking lot has no garbage cans and could probably use some.
• South Parking Lot
  • There is an ongoing issue with this lot, and district fan; Leon Wilcox, the district’s business administrator, is aware of it and said a fix might be able to happen this summer when other work is occurring on and around the football field. Mr. Leavitt said future Hillcrest leadership will need to follow up on these needs. 
• Other
  • RJ Graham suggested that the school implement something like what’s done at Olympus High School for a fundraiser: fundraiser organizers offer three tiers of cards that parents can buy for students: for example, tier 1 gets them in to four football games, five basketball games, and a stomp; tier 2 covers more events; and tier 3 provides admission to almost everything that happens all year at school. Parents can also fill out a form to say how much of their donation goes to what organization.

PTSA Update/Coordination

• Grad night: 
  • We still need prizes (need some)
  • Can we put something in a Husky Strong?
• Challenges: reach out to older/retired people in the community for help and volunteers? We have lots of them.

Jenny Olson made a motion to adjourn; RJ Graham seconded the motion; it was approved and the SCC adjourned until the first meeting of fall 2024.