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BRIDGE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCHOOL-BASED SITE COUNCIL 55 Middleby Road, Lexington, MA 02421 781-861-2510 DECEMBER 21, 2018 MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MARCH 1, 2019 Attendance: Lynnette Allen, Meg Colella, Kristen Gray,Amy Kvaal, Kimberly Hensle Lowrance, Ruth Litchfield, Zeba McGibbon, Sejal Patel, Deirdre Schadler, and Maria Totniou. Absent: Amelia Brower, Lucia Brower, Erin Cerat, Megan Brown,Jon Cunha, Huan Liu, Beth Murnaghan, Kira Sevene, Debbie Side, Melanie Tanionos, and Shawn Wood. The Bridge Elementary School School-Based Site Council held its monthly meeting on Friday, December 21, 2018 in the Bridge Elementary School Library. The meeting began at 8:00 AM with a vote to unanimously approve the September, October, and November meeting minutes. Next was an update on Lexington Learns Together,which was held on November 6. Zeba McGibbon said that one of the highlights for her was the guest speaker on social-emotional development. She also explained that she presented with other Bridge kindergarten teachers on a new social-emotional curriculum that they've implemented. They received a grant from LEF to prepare this curriculum, and have been working on it for over two years. The curriculum includes stories that are read to the children and have accompanying stuffed animals and poem/songs to reinforce learning.The teachers also regularly correspond with parents to explain the curriculum so it can be reinforced at home. The curriculum has been shared with other schools. Bridge first grade teachers use the kindergarten curriculum as a touch point in their teaching to continue to support student development. Zeba explained that the impetus for this new curriculum was teacher observations the student needed more support in this area as well as the addition of a new block in teacher schedules to focus on social emotional learning. Deirdre Schadler continued by updating the SBC on cultural competency work she presented at Lexington Learns Together. She explained that ELL students make up 10% of Bridge students and are the fastest growing portion of our population.Additionally, nearly 30% of our student population speaks more than one language. There was a need to better understand the academic environments our international students call home. To that end, Deirdre received a grant from LEF to undertake a project to connect with representatives of the Indian, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese communities in Lexington to talk about school environment in home countries, parent engagement, discipline, special education, and social emotional teaching. Deirdre noted that a lot of our international/ELL students come from exam-based schools and environments that are more homogenous. Social-emotional learning in these schools is not a priority and parents are unfamiliar with it and/or asking for support has stigma. Bridge staff 1