Chelle Naef presided over the meeting and opened with introductions and approval of minutes from the October 19th meeting. Each committee then gave a report on the status of their respective components.

Generate Compost Team: Tony Tolbert, Ed Smith El. Principal, reported that Chris Venne has had local farmers come into three of the five classrooms participating in composting to discuss the topic with the students. He is scheduling presentations for the other two classrooms as well. Pat Baker’s class has already begun composting scraps from the classroom and the cafeteria in the blue globe that is set up outside her door in the hallway. These classes are making posters to tell what they learned and the farmers have committed to being a continuous contact person for the rest of the year to answer any questions. The farmers are also excited about helping the students in the Spring to use the Morning Side garden plot. The committee would like to thank NYSRG for providing a $1,000 grant for pails, filters and the earth ball.

Recycling Team: Mark Naef reports that this component is going very well and he would like to commend Brian McGann, the school head custodian, on the tremendous amount of work he has done regarding the recycling effort. Brian has made sure there are plenty of opportunities for recycling along with good signage and kept up on collecting and weighing all the recycled material with help from the student council and his staff. There are recycling bins for paper in each classroom and bins for containers in the hallways set near drinking fountains so students can pour out the contents of the bottles or cans before recycling them in the bins. He also submitted Ed Smith’s quarterly report to the National Go Green Initiative and has made a recycling education guide for the staff and teachers.

Mark gave ‘how to recycle properly’ demonstrations to Mrs. Brennan and Mr. Dinkin’s classes which went very well and Mark is available for any class that is interested in a similar demonstration. At the end of the demonstration the class did a garbage dumping to see how much recycled material makes it into the garbage instead of the recycling bin and they found that about half of the garbage was recyclable material.

Areas for improvement are weighing and estimating container tonnage and charting it along with the paper recycling which is currently being weighed and charted. The committee would like to see more opportunities for recycling food containers in the cafeteria, teachers’ rooms and around the school in general. The committee would like to keep track of and chart deposit revenue and also look into ‘trash for cash’ programs or other recycling opportunities for printer and toner cartridges.

Note: Linda Kraemer stated that the student council is currently keeping track of the deposit revenue and charting it.

Note: Jennifer Cornell notes that the PTO is currently collecting toner cartridges for a ‘trash for cash’ program. The contact person for that is Sue Freeman, PTO Treasurer.
Brian would like to ask if OCRRA could come in to give a recycling education demonstration for the staff sometime. A tentative date was set for a breakfast with OCRRA on December 29th, 2005.

OCRRA also notes that they have posters about what to recycle and how that they would be happy to donate to our school.

Education Team: Trisha Schwartz presented a complete outline of ways the group has continued the effort to educate everyone in the school about the initiative and its’ principals. Since the October large group meeting the group has accepted a donation of a video called “My First Green Video” from Kathy Goodman. This video deals with environmentally friendly initiatives and experiments and will be available in the Library. The composting team is also requesting additional environment-education materials be added to the library collection. In October the committee heard a presentation from Erin McConnell, and ESF Environmental Studies major, about perhaps bringing in the “Ecoteam” environmental education program into Ed Smith. Erin reports that the “Ecoteam” has already started a program at the Westcott Center and she thinks it would be a great fit here at Ed Smith. It could be tied in with the Parks and Recreation After School Program. She was directed to contact Chris Abbott of the Syracuse Parks and Rec. Dept.

On November 7th, at the PTO Open Forum meeting, the committee had a Go Green Initiative display along with resource information for the parents. During the Parent/Teacher conferences held on November 15th, the committee had an America Recycles Day/Go Green Initiative display set up to again increase awareness for the program.

Evaluation Team: Linda Kraemer reported on items discussed at the committee meeting on Nov. 11th, 2005: Brian volunteered to develop a “Recycling 101” hand-out for the staff about recycling and Mark Naef agreed to give “hands-on” demonstrations at the Staff Meeting if they were interested. Student Council(SC) is very involved in the evaluation process and the Go Green Initiative in general. Brian will supply data to make posters relative to recycling to be hung throughout the building. Student Council officers will continue to update the chart outside the Nurse’s office monthly. They will also brainstorm ideas to help people recycle better at home to be published in the December Howler. The SC will also develop a questionnaire to be completed by the students in class at the end of the school year to evaluate the effectiveness of the program Mark Naef has been invited to attend a Student Council General Assembly meeting to present a “hands-on” demonstration for the group which the members will then convey to the class rooms they represent. The date is set for December 14th.

Linda made a few suggestions at the meeting about possibly rewarding students and classrooms for their recycling efforts by perhaps adding a line on the “I Spy” certificates. Also perhaps after evaluating the amount of recycled material the custodians could highlight classes that have high amounts. Linda stresses the importance of accurately documenting the amount of all the things that are being recycled not just paper and she would like to know how to accomplish this. She notes that much of what the evaluation team is doing overlaps with the Education team and is looking to keep each other better informed.

Note: OCRRA already has posters for display and will be happy to supply them to the school.

Nationalize Team: Daryl Hall, Vice Principal, reports that the November Celebration of the America Recycles Day went very well with members of the student body and student council showing their support by wearing the green Go Green shirts. Some Students who participated in wearing the shirts had their pictures taken in the cafeteria. The team also had displays of posters about recycling and the Go Green Initiative set up for students to view. The group continued that evening to have displays and information for parents who were attending the evening Parent/Teacher conferences sessions. There are many pictures available to be published and Daryl will supply them to Kristen Lawton, from OCRRA, so she can post them on the OCRRA website and also have a link to the Ed Smith homepage. OCRRA is very interested in having Ed Smith Elementary School be a model program to bring into other schools and is looking to use some of the pictures and information to create a power point presentation to present. The pictures will also be in the OCRRA Newsletter along with an article updating the progress of the program in the school. Andrew Radin, from OCRRA, thanked the entire group for the effort being put into the program and is looking forward to working with Ed Smith to move the program along. Pete Wirth , from the press, would also like to be kept informed so he can put information in the news. He suggested having the minutes be available on the Ed Smith School or OCRRA website.

Note: Marthe Ngwashi from Senator Dave Valesky’s office attended the meeting and will keep him informed of developments.