NYC Districts 25, 28 MSAP Documentation: 2010 – 2011
School: M. S. 217 The Green Magnet School for Career Exploration
Magnet Documentation: The Magnet Resource Teacher(s) (MSAP school based staff) should complete the pages of this form for each funded activity. (Please duplicate this and other sheets as needed and add additional blank sheets for longer explanations.)
Program Component: The reduction of minority group isolation.
Grant Objectives: 1.1 By October 1 of each project year, minority group isolation will be reduced at the five proposed magnet schools.
1.2 For each project year, the student application pools for the proposed magnet schools will reflect racial and ethnic compositions that, in relation to the total enrollments of the school, eliminate, reduce, or prevent minority group isolation.
(MSAP GPRA Performance Measure 1)
1.3 For each project year, the proportion of minority students in the applicant pool for each magnet school will be less than the proportion of minority students enrolled in the school by at least 10 percentage points. For each project year, the numbers of students in the applicant pools will be at least 10% greater than the total number of seats available in each school.
Activity 1: Describe your school's recruitment plan including goals, objectives, and activities. (If the plan is already written, you can attach it.)
Activity 2: Using the table on the next page, list each recruitment activity that actually took place (or are planned). Include the dates, the staffing of the activity, and how many parents participated. (Use the table on the next page.)
How are school level and district level plans and activities coordinated?
Activity 3: Describe the most important and/or successful recruitment activities in more detail (narrative form).
Please Complete Activities 1 and 2 (planned activities) by October 26, 2010.
Please Complete Activities 1, 2 and 3 by: January 20, 2011 and March 10, 2011.
1.1. Our minority group isolation was reduced last year. Our White population increased from 3.4% for the 2008-2009 school year to 5.1% for the 2009-2010 school year. See: http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2009-10/cepdata_Q217.pdf
How are school level and district level plans and activities coordinated?
District Level. Lainie Leber, Director of the D25/28 Magnet Program and Monique Nieves, Magnet Recruiter, coordinate District 25/28 magnet planning meetings and recruitment events for the five D25/28 magnet schools. The Magnet Teacher Specialists (MTSs), school principals, assistant principals, guidance counselors, parent coordinators, and teachers attended the meetings/recruitment events. During the meetings we acted as critical friends, reflecting on our practices and activities, brainstorming recruitment strategies, and reviewing each school’s recruitment brochures, powerpoints, visual displays, and hand-outs. This year our Magnet Director’s office was helped us with the following:
§ Recruitment Video. To create a recruitment video showing 3 years of magnet-related work in our school, we used documentation footage and stills: Green Magnet students, teachers, and families building, working, and studying the Monarch butterfly migration in the Pollinators’ and Organic Vegetable Gardens; students viewing live triple bypass heart surgery and asking pertinent questions; family departmental curriculum nights; art department- music, chorus, dance, architecture recitals/presentations; Mayor Bloomberg speaking at our school and calling M. S. 217, “one of the city's highest performing public schools.” We also used this video for at Faculty conferences, Open School night, PTA meetings, and in some classrooms to promote parent, student, and teacher involvement in our recruitment efforts. Students used the movie as a model for curriculum development as a model to develop student iMovies.
§ Recruitment Support. Lainie Leber’s office provided guidance and development of our recruitment powerpoints, flyers, prospective contacts, Green Tours (Open House/Welcome Tours), and other recruitment activities. The Magnet Director developed district-wide and school events: Educators’ Fair for guidance counselors and parent coordinators; presentations at elementary school PTA/PA meetings, presentations for community groups. The director supplied us with a D25/28 Magnet Program banner, projection screens, electrical, hospitality for the Magnet Teacher Specialists, prospective parents, and school representatives. For events specific to our school, we consulted with the director and recruiter prior and post events.
§ Extended Recruitment Efforts. This year, as well as District 25 being a Middle School Choice district, District 28 became a Middle School Choice District. In addition to the District 28 Middle School Fair M. S. 217 hosted on October 21, 2010 for the D25/28 Magnet Schools and the District 28 middle schools, we also presented at the District 28’s Superintendent’s Middle School Choice event on November 13, 2010.
§ Official Name Change. With guidance from Lainie Leber’s office we succeeded in legally changing our school name to: The Green magnet School for Career Education and Multimedia Technology. We had to go through numerous steps: the PTA voted and approved changing our official name. Jeannette Reed, then District 28 superintendent presented the proposed name change to the Community Education Council (CEC), and the CEC approved the change. Ms. Reed submitted these documents to the NYC Dept. of Education’s Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy (OFEA), which approved the change. At the NYC Department of Education’s portal (http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/28/Q217/default.htm), we are already The Green Magnet School for Career Education.
§ School Brochure. We continued to revise our brochure, as our magnet themed curriculum developed. We highlighted the green themes we’ve developed: Sustainability, Inquiry, Activism, Sense of Place, Careers, and Technology that have made our curriculum and school special and stand out from other schools. We updated our partnerships, programs,descriptions of our curriculum, and our developing expeditionary learning model that we’ve developed through our magnet. For instance, we’ve added the 2-5 day urban and rural camping excursions we offer, our Connected Learning initiative that gave a desktop computer and printer to every 6th grade student, in their homes and to keep.
§ Website District 25/28 Magnet. Our District 25/28 website pages were extensively updated and expanded to include our Magnet standards, NYC Curriculum Maps, Green Magnet Consensus Curriculum maps, and units of study that teachers developed through the Magnet-sponsored Understanding by Design Curriculum Development 24-hour institutes: http://www.magnet2528.com/
Magnet Recruitment Team and Training. Lainie Leber organized a recruitment team, composed of teachers from the magnet schools.
Bus Advertising Campaign. Ads for the District 25/28 magnet schools are running on NYC buses in District 25 and District 28. This has been a boost for our recruitment efforts and for school morale, because our students, teachers and parents see The Green Magnet School for Career Exploration on buses in Queens.
School. The MTS, principal, parent coordinator, teachers, students, and parents planned events collaboratively. We have a new, excited, involved PTA Executive Board and their input has been invaluable in speaking about their students’ experiences and spreading the word about our school’s Educating for Sustainability, Career Exploration, and Inquiry/Project-based Learning. The MTS and parent coordinator coordinated the events. Through one-on-one contacts, faculty meetings, the Magnet Weekly Update (e-mailed to all school staff), and www.greenmagnet217.wikispaces.com staff members suggested recruitment strategies and promoted the school.
Goals: Reduce the minority group isolation in our school
Objectives:
We did reduce minority isolation from the 2008-2009 to the 2009-2010 school years.
Ethnicity Report from NYC DOE’s School Demographics and Accountability Report, April 2010
Ethnicity / 2008-09 / 2009-2010American Indian / 0.5% / 0.6%
Asian / Pac. Isl / 38.2% / 35.9%
Hispanic / 44.2% / 43.5%
Black / 13.7% / 14.8%
White / 3.4% / 5.1%
Since we became a magnet school, the efforts we exerted to improve our reputation succeeded. Our school’s innovative project-based curriculum, Pollinators’ Garden, Organic Vegetable Garden, and students’ community service events: tree giveaways; perennial garden plantings on Queens Boulevard, and visits to old age homes, have made our school a beacon in District 28.
Our enrollment has increased 11% over the past two years. 2010 Statistics: 1,394 students, an increase of 3.26% over 2009-2010, and a 7.7% increase over 2008-2009. Our school began receiving students from more South Jamaica elementary schools, as well as students attending through the magnet from other parts of District 28 and District 25.
This was District 28’s first year as a Middle School Choice district. We conducted District 28 Middle School Fairs the last three years, but this year a lot more District 28 schools participated in the D28 fair, and a lot more students from D28 learned that they could apply to our school.
During a press conference held at our school, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that we are “one of the city's highest performing public schools.” Guidance counselors in Districts 25 and 28 have advised that The Green Magnet has become the hot school, the school to go to. This is especially gratifying, because for years, there was a tale of two cities in our district. There is the affluent community of Forest Hills and the less affluent neighborhoods of Jamaica, where our students live. When we became a magnet school and went out recruitment in 2007-2008, we repeatedly heard that we had a negative reputation. This reputation belied our teachers’ and students’ experience. Most of our teachers have been teaching at our school for ten or more years, and our students report liking the school, because they like their teachers, they feel challenged in their classes, they feel safe, and cared about. Despite our school’s reality, some prospective parents reported that they refused to send their children to our school, believing that their children would not be safe. With the initiation of the magnet, we rebranded ourselves as The Green Magnet School in 2007-2008, and actively recruited. We directly tackled parents’ negative perceptions. In addition to the Mayor’s comments, additional evidence that our reputation has improved is the number of students applying to our school. Our student population continued to expand.
For the first time this year, we had numerous parents from the Forest Hills elementary schools attend our Green Green Magnet Welcome Tours and apply. When we attended the District 25 Middle School Choice Fair and the District 28 Magnet Fair, we heard very positive feedback from prospective parents. This year, when we went out and spoke to families in their communities, the major issue was whether or not their children would get into our school on the blind lottery. Following the magnet fairs, we invited families to visit our school for daytime and evening Green Magnet Welcome Tours. Parents and their children were impressed by testimonies from students, parents and school staff. Parents reported seeing evidence of our staff’s dedication to nurturing individual student growth and achievement. One of our accomplishments is that parents’ perceptions have changed, continue to change and our reputation continues to improve. We now hear people from all parts of District 25 and 28 favorably responding to our school. Parents are impressed with our Magnet Standards, our Green Initiatives, our technology integration, and our professional staff.
· Implemented a recruitment plan, including revising and distributing a M. S. 217 Green Magnet brochure, iMovie, Educators’ Fair, and District 25/28 Magnet Fairs.
· Developed Student Presentations by the Green Magnet Green Team: Technology, Arts, Sustainability, Academics.
· Developed an applicant pool from Districts 25 and Districts 28.
Activities:
· September 22, 2010. Recruitment Planning Meeting with Specialists, Director, and Magnet Recruiter
· October 14, 2010. Recruitment D25/D28. Educators’ Fair: Demystifying School Choice
· October 14, 2010. District 25 Middle School Choice Fair
· October 21, 2010. District 28 Middle School Choice Fair at M. S. 217
· October 29, 2010. Presentation at P. S. 140
· November 9/11. Afternoon and evening parent-teacher conferences at elementary schools D25/28
Elementary School Parent-Teacher Conferences
· November 13, 2010 District 28 Middle School Choice Fair at D28 Offices
· November 15, 2010 Presentation at P. S. 144 PTA
· November 17th, 2010. P. S. 117 PTA
· November 22, 2010. Morning Green Tour at M. S. 217
· November 23, 2010 Evening Green Tour at the Green Magnet School
· November 30, 2010 Morning and Evening Green Tours
· December 10, 2010. Green Literary Evening at The Green Magnet
· December 17, 2010. Welcome Tour and Winter Concert
· October, 2010 – June, 2011. Individual/small group school Tours for 100+ parents.
· Brochure and magnet fair flyers to libraries: Forest Hills: 108-19 71 Avenue; Kew Garden Hills:72-33 Vleigh Place; Pomonok: 158-21 Jewel Avenue.
· May 20, 2011 - Green Magnet Evening Welcome Tour for prospective families
· Middle School Choice Fairs. At the end of our Green Magnet recruitment video, we ask people to “join us in educating for personal and world sustainability,” people clap. They are also impressed with our revised, professionally produced brochures. We got great responses and interest at the 10/14 Educators’ Fair and District 25 Fairs, the October 21st and November 13th District 28 Middle School Choice Fairs.
District 28 Middle School Choice Fair at Green Magnet M. S. 217, 10/21/10. The most exciting event was the 10/21/10 fair held at our school The Green Magnet. Our Green Team had harvested oregano, mint, green and purple basil from our Green Magnet Organic Vegetable Garden, packaged it, and labeled it. About 10 Green Team students came, were talking to and impressing attendees, and giving away their packaged herbs. In addition to our iMovie, our photo-collages of the Heart Surgery Program, Hudson Estuary Testing program, and Pollinators’ and Organic Vegetable Gardens, the Green Team greeted and handed out “Ways to Save Energy, Water, and Reduce Waste,” gave tours of our gardens, and some of our Metropolitan Museum of Art print collection.
We brought in some of our $30,000 Green Library. The Green Team said we should have been selling the books, because attendees wanted to buy them. Our students were running the Green Magnet Video, interspersing it with videos from our Spring Green Arts Festival, magnet trips, student presentations of magnet-integration projects, etc. We had our Animal Science Lab teacher bring his bearded dragons, snakes, hissing cockroaches, turtles, and other animals. Our Literacy Coach, A. P.s, and Magnet Specialists were constantly engaged with interested parents and students. We had some of our teachers stop buy to lend a hand and show support. We had 1700 attendees from all over District 28.