Minutes of the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School LSC Meeting

Lincoln Elementary School Library

615 W. Kemper Pl.

Chicago, IL 60614

November 14, 2017

Call to order: Lisa called meeting to order at 6:09 pm.

Attendees: Nada Riley, Litzy Kurisinkal, Emma Weiss, Ashley Williams, Greg Thompson, Chris Santiago, Bobbi Gajwani, John Falck, Andrea Okun, Lisa Barrow, Mark Armendariz

Absent: Louis Hernandez

Early departure: Ashley Williams

Approval of minutes – minutes were approved with changes. Nada motioned to accept minutes with changes,Andrea seconded, unanimously approved.

Principal’s report –

  1. Calendar –8th grade Halloween dance went well. Currently collecting cans for 2 hands, 2 cans for local food pantry. Offering Junior Great Books for 1st to 6th grades. Thanksgiving Fest and Bazaar is November 20 with K-5 grades performing at assemblies; will be selling gift cards as FOL fundraiser. Reminder that kids goes outside so dress kids appropriately. Thanksgiving break is 11/21 to 11/23. Thank you to Ginny Moffat for coat collection and Diana Canace for organizing report card pick up.
  2. Staff notes- Mark is in the process of interviewing 5th grade teachers, contacted Northwestern and DePaul universities to help identify candidates. Seeking additional funding for special Ed teacher from CPS. Debbie Hayes Miller is out until November 29thdue to back injury. Lauren Neuman is no longer co counselor, Catherine Kowicki is the counselor. Leslie Stoughton is the permanent case manager. PT engineers are here to set up the building. Still waiting to hear back from CPS regarding if we are getting a permanent engineer.
  3. Discretionary budget – to be discussed with budget
  4. CIWP - will start in January. We have not received any information regarding new CIWP. 3 priorities with 1 priority addressed per month.
  5. Grants – no updates
  6. Professional development – 2 teachers attended reading and math professional development. Four teachers attended conference on advisory for middle school, part of socialand emotional development. Network schools participated in summit which is professionaldevelopment over a 3 day period with 10 teachers attending, learning inquiry based approach to teaching, refining math talks, aligning with next generation science standards.
  7. Board policies and initiatives – Most of 8th grade families registered for gocps. Only 2 schools out of CPS received 5.0 rating on SQRP, one of which was Lincoln.
  8. FOL discussion – FOL is fund raising entity of the school.
  9. Mark proposed hosting family movie on Sundays and dads social group. Dads social group could be used as resource for hosting Sunday movies, facilities needs.

Committee reports

  1. Budget–CPS funded the extra students.
  2. Building,traffic and safety – construction is progressing. Still waiting on signage, street barricades. Crossing
  3. Communication – Andrea updated the LSC website.
  4. Curriculum/PPLC-teachers are working on the vision.
  5. LSC outreach – make discussion at LSC meetings more interactive, in minutes, clarify issues that were voted on and the reasoning behind the vote. Discussion around presenting a visual graphic on the budget and having a LSC representative attend FOL or other Lincoln family meetings to simplify the process. Mark will continue to advertise the budget meeting and it will be his role to explain the sources of the budgetary funds. Organizations:

FOL raised $190,000 at phone-a-thon. Teacher/bartender raised $3500. Planning auction and looking for help with solicitations.

PTA organizing hospitality for report card, Thanksgiving Fest. Partner with organization called,Feed my Starving Childrenand have fed hundreds of children.

Looking for outreach, hospitality, noon hour chair, and apparel chairs for next year.

ALESMA concert is Dec 14th.

EFAC – Sept 29th had general assembly, election of new EFAC board, elected a new chair. October 13 was the French cine club. Oct 23rd – new EFAC School counsel. Nov 6this the next board meeting. October meeting was cancelled.

Sports leagues discussion - Mark to talk to Coach Fritts about dates of determining the team members.

Old Business

  1. Budget: see budget above

New Business

  1. Public participation – we agreed to include public participation for issues to be voted on, include comment for vote for items to be voted on, still have public participation at the end
  2. Network LSC chairs meeting – was last week. Lisa attended. 3 networks met at Lane Tech, met new network chief.
  3. Principal review process – discussion about sending survey for principal evaluation, check if survey needs to be approved by CPS legal, disclose upfront that survey results won’t be saved, possible different surveys for teachers, one for parents.

Public participation - none

Adjourn: Nada made a motion of adjourn at 7:58 pm. Chris seconded the motion.