SFC minutes 4-28-14

Group introductions

Tish Hild – Teacher and SFC chair, Mr. D - principal, Dan Hellerbach – 7th grade assistant principal and Climate Committee co-chair, Sarah Walker – Goucher Higher Education Supervisor, Mrs. Mazziott - teacher, Ms. Carter – pre-K to 2 assistant principal, Nancy Hart – school social worker and PBIS coach, Ms. Claiborne – Kindergarten para professional and after-care coordinator, Ms. Furno – Recess coordinator and coach, Fabienne Guerene – parent, Elizabeth Reichelt – parent, Brooke Thomas – Parent and MS SFC parent rep, Maiju Gardner – Parent and outgoing Wellness Chair, Susan Henley – Parent, Ariana Boch – teacher/parent, Matt Croson – 6th grade assistant principal and parent, Trish Pilla – parent/PTA president, Anisa Kupiac – parent/SFC 3rd-5th rep, Margo Candelaria – parent/SFC K-2nd SFC rep, Ms. Rivetti, Teacher, Mr. Hollis – teacher and BTU rep, Ashley Handwork – parent

Attendance Committee – Mrs. Carter

·  January attendance was 95.4%, up 1%

·  250 perfect attendance for quarter 3 – purple tickets given out

·  letters going out and School Support Team (SST) meetings scheduled for those with a lot of absences or tardies

o  When letters go out varies - usually about 10 absenses/tardies and/or when grades are affected

·  Working on website policies – needs approval still working it out

·  Next 5/15 at 3:15

Climate – Mr. Hellerbach and Margo Candelaria

·  Met on 4/9

o  Main agenda item was to meet with 5th grade team and other teachers and discuss how to best manage behavior concerns in a manner that addresses concerns from all sides (teachers, students, parents)

o  Primarily encompassed general concerns in 3-5

·  Subcommittees meeting throughout so large meeting was mostly updates

·  Middle school taking about how to connect more to make it one school

o  Possibly after school math tutoring with middle school and elementary school

o  After school programs currently have middle schoolers helping

o  MS Behavior subcommittee has been doing a listening campaign talking to relevant parties – should report out soon

·  Elementary lunch/recess team

o  Putting together a training program for parent volunteers

o  Looking into how to get finger printed

o  Looking at how to market – how to find parents that want to be involved and that they are consistent force

·  Town halls for april skipped and set up for May to see how to get a job

o  Kay Halle who was active in the town hall meetings has passed away

Family Community Engagement Committee – Elizabeth

·  Identified chair for nominating committee and helping with that process. Also have 2-3 people working on the committee

·  Worked on job descriptions

·  Gave advice to running team on how to reach goals of getting 200 people turned out

·  Supported Mr. D on how to get parent turn out for the focus group

·  May engagement team will refocus away from turn out and reaching out and identifying new parent leaders

o  Sfc parent reps

o  Trish Pilla

o  Elisha hawk

o  Heidi fancher

o  David lunken have all committed to reaching out to do individual meetings

·  BUILD city wide efforts:

o  rpems 5 year plans shared with city wide BUILD education team

o  They established their ovrall agenda for city

§  Agenda – education, jobs, public safety, and youth opportunities

o  May 14th gubanatorial accountability forum: asking candidates to support the agenda

§  7-9 pm st. Matthews catholic church

Wellness Committee – Maiju

·  Next meeting this may 1st

·  Will review some past activities including

o  Red hot run

·  5th grade fun run Friday may 2nd 2pm

·  Planning field days

·  Getting another nation award – Michelle Obama’s let’s move award as part of rwjf

·  Running festival challenge is ongoing – active and up

·  Have to provide 40 volunteers

o  Provided volunteers on april 5th 21

o  Baltimore 10miler and we need 20 volunteers and that meets our obligation and students can run

·  Now focusing on strategic planning

o  Working toward identifying more needs and priorities

o  Have focused on physical activity and nutrition

o  Want to look at staff wellness

o  How can we partner with other committees?

·  Playworks trainings all complete.

o  A few things in the works for next year such as junior coaches

Instructional Leadership Team & State of the school – Mr. D

·  Looking at planning for next year including scheduling and grouping

o  Looking at heterogeneous groups and appropriate student pairings

o  Middle school team looking at a major revision to schedule to create grade level common planning and truly integrate students across all levels

§  Will be advertised and shared at may 15th pta meeting

§  Big shift with a lot of potential for improvement

·  Looking at student writing, math problem solving and teacher performance data

o  Writing looking at thoughtful text

o  Math unit assessments and be sure we are trending in the positive

o  Teacher performance key action (T6) - how well are teachers encouraging student to student interaction during lessons. Using formal observation data to look at improvements.

·  Just completed school effectiveness review

o  2 day visit from 5 central office people

o  Observed 20 classes

o  Look at all documentation – all meetings

o  Focus group interviews – parents, teacher teams, students

o  Looking at evaluating and rating

§  Highly effective instruction

§  Talented people

§  Vision and engagement

§  Strategic leadership

o  Ultimately will write a report that will give a detailed description and all rating within each area. Each area has 20 indicators and rated as:

§  Ineffective

§  Developing

§  Effective

§  Highly effecting

o  Debrief gave some feedback without some specific ratings but identified strengths and weaknesses

§  Not things we haven’t discussed before

§  Climate making sure students feel safe and secure in the environment

§  Differentiation for students at varying ability level – high and low performers

§  Technology and need to improve the tech for both teacher and student use

o  Because of that visit and the budget process the 5 year plan has been on hold

o  Now want to reach out to existing committees and newly formed committees

·  Attendance – district is focusing on attendance

o  At risk for chronic absence – ARCA plan needed for all schools

o  Had to select about 40 students we would track on a daily basis and then engage with the parents

o  Comparing 2nd q to 4th q

§  2nd q was 12% were at risk for chronic absence (20 for year = 5 for the q)

§  Expect 4th q to reduce by 1%

§  Each administrator has 6-10 kids

§  Probably half of 150 kids we are concerned and ½ not concerned (vacation or sick and not a major concern)

§  Look at performance in the classroom

PTA – Trish Pilla, report given by Tish Hild

o  May Mart is may 10th keep an eye out for how to donate and volunteer opportunities

o  General membership meeting 4/15 at 7pm

o  Traffic meeting tomorrow at 6pm

§  Discuss all issues related to safe travel to and from school including changes in neighborhood, drop off procedures, back parking lot concerns, the officers responsibilities

§  Central office put someone here temporarily additionally in the morning on a temporary basis and may be able to appeal to have it permanently

§  Definitely getting bus next year for elementary only

Goucher – Ms. rivetti reported for Ms. Walker

·  7 interns and 2 student teachers

·  Goucher wants us to come up with topics or things they can help with to bring speakers or workshops