South Hill Site Based Council Meeting

South Hill Site Based Council Meeting

October 20, 2004

In attendance: Zenon Wasyliw, Joan Grossman, Kim Capalongo, Pat Karr-Segal, Leslie Shakespeare, Rae Covey, Jon Hilton, Allison Pritz, Deb McCall, Deb Minnick.

Absent: David Lee

1.  Agenda item: Approval of minutes—Motion to accept minutes by Kim, no discussion, minutes approved. Motion to accept May 2004 minutes, minutes approved. We do have a quorum tonight

2.  Introductions of new members who were not present at the September meeting.

3.  Agenda item: Report on the auditorium/cafeteria—We tabled this item until the end of the meeting when we will take a tour of the auditorium/cafeteria

4.  Agenda item: Committee reports—

A.  Joan Grossman reported on the arts committee meeting and she shared the minutes. Currently we are using BOCES money for arts and are looking to put some money in to performing arts. The committee recommended continuing with the music festival. The school has had Vitamin L for several years and are now looking at having visiting artists such as Beauty and Beast story tellers, and the Sons of Pitches singing group, with the same person performing every fourth year or so. The committee wanted to keep the school wide Hangar play that gets brought here but wanted to add something new such as an “Artist in Residence”. One suggestion was to have Jorge Cuevas-a Latin American musician who teaches dance, music and how to make instruments. When adding in a focus on performing arts it was suggested that whatever is added must dove tail with other curriculum i.e. the movement component could take place during PE classes. To obtain the money for this the committee thought about grants, fund raising, or taking $100 a grade level from PTA monies. Other ideas suggested by site based council members were the Hispanic Association at Cornell who raise money to expand culture locally and the IC partnership. Some suggestions were that the committee look at connecting with both IC and Cornell’s strong dance programs, that we look at adding an African dance program because 3rd graders learn about Africa, drumming to tie in with African culture and the BJM African drum group made up of students. The cost for this project is estimated at $1800 with the program beginning in the spring. The committee suggested having the author visit occur every other year. On the “off” year the school would invite a local author-particular to some grade level as one possibility. The committee looked at current grade level programs. The 4th graders have the 8 square school house visit, the 5th graders have the Omni pre-Columbian Johnson art museum visit, the 2nd graders have the Cayuga chamber orchestra visit and animals of art at the Johnson art museum. Currently there is nothing for 3rd graders, kindergartners and first graders. One suggestion for kindergartners was Mrs. McPuppet or a trip to the Iron Kettle pumpkin farm for nursery rhymes with pre-k classes joining in. For the 1st grade nothing set for arts trip but they have been thinking about doing something where students would make something such as a basket at the plantations that would tie in with their earth worm and other science curriculum. Site based council members suggested a poet and it was suggested that we provide something where kids are actively involved rather than watching. Rae reminded us that the charge of the group was to go to staff to find gaps in curriculum and they quickly saw that there were strong vocal and visual components but dance and performance is lacking creating definite gaps in art standards. This fits in writing grants because they look at you to connect it with curriculum. The committee was looking for something that will happen consistently every year that parents will know it is coming.

B.  The next committee report was from Allison Pritz and was on the school climate. Allison P. said this committee felt like everyone should be included and have a shared vision. Several committee members went to a presentation on team building at IC which was very helpful. From surveys that school personnel filled out on strengths and areas for growth at the school they identified as best things about the school parent involvement, para support, the kindergarten and 5th grade buddies, and a clean building. The survey presented a list of strengths and those that were identified as “least agreed upon” were the pledge with kids in am and a willingness to be flexible. New ideas that most agreed upon were having Pre-k reading in the library, adding a Pre-k and 4th grade buddies program, having teachers and paras visit other classes to observe, and having each kid plant a bulb and say what they wish for the year. Least agreed upon were having teachers switch classes for a day teachers and whole school assemblies. Area for growth identified were more time for all adults to communicate perhaps taking time at staff meetings, and daily appreciation of staff. The overall conclusion is we need a shared vision for the school. Sometimes people say it’s not my issue, but if it involves the school it relates to everyone.

C.  The third committee report was on the school’s 50th birthday party. Rae handed out a copy of South Hill Notes that will be going home with students about this event. Suggestions by the committee for commemorating the 50th birthday were to give kids an opportunity to give school a present and one idea was to collect change and kids would donate a book to school from their grade level. Other suggestions are to have kids draw pictures of “What I love best about South Hill”, inviting people in the community who attended South Hill to visit the school, perhaps doing a big celebration in the spring, creating a time capsule, and having a sock hop. The sock hop will be held on Friday November 19th .They have found a dee jay who will help teach dances (which the kids will practice ahead of time in gym class) during the sock hop.

Rae drew attention to an article on courage-and having an honest dialog. Open dialog is a good thing and something to be encouraged. One role of parents on site based council is to go out and talk to parents and Jon to community members about what their concerns are. We should bring back to site based the pulse of the parents and the school community to give honest feedback.

5. Agenda item: Second Step Presentation. The Second Step curriculum was presented at the PTA meeting by Randy Beckman who spoke about the program and tied together well what she as a teacher learned. Overwhelmingly positive reception and some parents wondered why the school or PTA can’t just fund this valuable program. Rae has been able to use some of her allotted budget to purchase two more kindergarten kits The question of whether or not it takes away from academics was also discussed. Pat Karr-Seagal got feedback from a parent who asked about what happens if kids share upsetting things—teachers are trained and it happens in classes all of the time anyway. Suggestions were made to encourage this parent to speak with their child’s teacher about the concerns. This curriculum promotes empathy and is not targeted to any particular type of parent-all parents can benefit from the information presented. The parent video will be saved for the next parent meeting. The PTA agreed to put in the budget for childcare and food for a 6 night series. Randy Beckman will help with sessions along with colleagues from BOCES.

6. Agenda Item: The Ithaca College partnership was explained. IC (and Cornell) values service to the community and so one way that they put this value in practice was by partnering with South Hill. IC has a list of teachers willing to partner with teachers here. One example is Anne Byrne, an IC instructor who is also a South Hill parent, working on the story telling project with the 4th graders. Another example is the Theater dept building the stage and Zenon gave the example of Native American project being developed. Pat Tempeste is in charge of outreach for the Ithaca College partnership. The former director of the partnership has left IC and the college is trying to decide what to do. It’s really up to staff to initiate things. Ways in which South Hill all ready uses the partnership are the 2nd graders in fall will go to IC to see program tied into plant unit and in the spring go to lab to see vertebrates and invertebrates. Partnership has a request that we work with a faculty member and pull in students. Grant opportunities are phenomenal and staff will need to put together a one page grant. Most grants are up to $500. It took $500 to pay for stage materials and then the students built it.

7. Agenda item: Any other discussion topics?

A. Rae asked for help with next steps for our group. We’ve come full circle with many things that we set out to do. Are we prepared to do this as a group with one meeting at a time or set the big picture for the year? Last year we talked about performance standards and how to set our agenda for the year. One possible point of focus for Site Based Council we discussed the computer needs for the school and how this impacts our technology standards. Rae explained that this district decided to provide computers to adults first. We are in the third phase where most adults will have their computers. Rae talked about electronic field trips-plugging into the Museum of Modern Art, talking to a Zoologist at the Buffalo zoo, etc. Tele-conferencing that’s available to schools is phenomenal. We discussed what would make it available and the impact on all kids in the school and how it opens doors to them. Rae shared that not all teachers feel this is the way to go. Jon asked about costs for these systems and discussed this from a teacher perspective. She would be willing to do it if we had the equipment and it tied right into the curriculum. It’s such a stumbling block to get this done. She discussed the process of getting publishing done in the library lab. She feels that she has more than a years worth of curriculum to teach all ready. Rae discussed that in places where it has worked there was a person set up to be the technician to help with the technology, and also a librarian to help the teachers find a great web quest and the connections to the curriculum have all ready been made. Jon asked if it was possible to hook the computers up to the lab and Rae said it is.

B. Another point of focus for Site Based Council is the school development diversity goal. Joan talked about MLK day and doing something richer around that. Allison said this would fit in with the idea presented earlier of having the artist in residence. Kim spoke about the impact of the Japanese student from last year. Zenon asked about school demographics and Rae will provide this information at a future meeting. Allison said some schools think about doing something on diversity in conjunction with United Nations day. Rae suggested starting with identifying what is diversity and equity and how can we as a school identify our strengths and identify what we should be working on. Rae suggested that we as a group think about what these terms mean to us. Joan suggested a common reading and Rae said she would email us some articles.

C. Kim shared that she had parents approach her about their concerns about the health curriculum and their discomfort with approaching teachers with their concerns. Allison stated that there were concerns raised by parents during the first grade curriculum night. Joan said the curriculum is available in the library. We talked about changes to the letter that goes home to parents. This letter is a district wide letter and is not open to change however an additional parent friendly cover letter is one possibility. Jon will ask about this possibility at the district site based meeting.

8. Agenda Item: District wide Site Based Council meetings: Deb Minnick asked about our connection to district wide site based council. We need a representative to go to this meeting. District site council prefers that some one go consistently. Dr. Russell facilitates that group and David Lee as board liaison is also at those meetings. Meetings are from 4pm – 6pm on Thursdays in the board room. This committee would like to set district goals. Jon said he might be able to go but he asked for help with knowing what to present from our meeting. The minutes from this meeting will be available to him.

9. Agenda Item: field trip to landscaping and the cafeteria: We walked down to the cafeteria to see the new paint and outside to see the landscaping and Rae talked about what will still be done.

Process report from Pat was that we had a good discussion tonight that was balanced.

Next Meeting Agenda—we’ll have a text based discussion about equity and diversity and we will discuss technology

Roles for the next meeting:

Facilitator: Joan Grossman

Minutes: Zenon Wasyliw

Food: Allison Pritz

Timekeeper: Deb McCall

Process: Deb Minnick