FreeSkool Meeting

• Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2005
• Location: Nabalom Bakery
• Attendance: Kiran, Anthony, Casey, Erin, John, Rusty

FreeSkool Reports/Updates

• Kid (<18) Tutoring/After-School Legal Update

  • There should be no legal issues as long as the environment is safe and we're not advertising ourselves as "day-care."
• Community College

  • Erin knows a drama professor who is willing to give his/her students credit for teaching FreeSkool classes. She will see if other professors are willing to match such an offer.

    • We should flyer community college campuses for teachers and students.
• Locking, Pirate Radio, Computer/Network Security and Electronic Music Instrument classes. John from Flowershop is interested in teaching these classes. Looks likely.
• The "Herbal Girl" wants to teach a six-week course.
• A Beer Brewing crew is forming. This beer class looks very likely.
• Spaz Port really wants to do skill shares. We should use their space.

FreeSkool Class Death Discussion

Past experience has shown us that classes often start out strong, then for one reason or another they wither away. What can we do about it?

• 4 month calendar will help
  • Classes will be staggered, that is, classes will start at different times. Not all the classes will start at the beginning of May.
  • Long classes will be broken into multiple sections. For example, a six week herbal class can be broken into three, two-week sessions. A person missing the first session won't feel discouraged from attending the other two.
  • Reflyering. We should plan to reflyer at least once a month.
• Handle each teacher/facilitator on a case-by-case basis
  • If the class is lagging, collaborate with the teacher. For example, we can make a new flyer and have the teacher do some of the work flyering.

  • Some discussion centered around assigning roles to specific FreeSkool volunteers. Many people felt that this wouldn't work too well because not everybody is willing to put in the same effort as others. Agreement centered around focusing on each problem on a case-by-case basis.

Wiki Updates

• The wiki has been suffering from major spam issues. John will be updating the software to deal with this problem.

• John will add a protected PhoneNumbers page that will make it easy for active members to reach each other. Email <jingoro AT casa-z DOT org> if you don't have the username/password.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will take place Tuesday, March 29, 2005, 8pm at the Nabalom Bakery.