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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-10-11-CLARKE-min`O VS M010? 1775 �c a ° a U APRIL79" l F XI NC, Jonas Clarke Middle School 17 Stedman Road ❖ Lexington, Massachusetts 02421 Anna W. Monaco, Principal Jennifer E. Turner, Assistant Principal Jonathan R. Wettstone, Assistant Principal Jonas Clarke Middle School Site Council Meeting Minutes Thursday, October 11, 2012 3 - Main Office Conference Room Office: (781) 861 -2450 Fax: (781)674 -2043 In Attendance: Mrs. Monaco, Principal; Suzanne Cherenson, Parent; Sandra Mayo, Parent; Elizabeth O'Neil, Parent; Jonathan Schechner, Teacher; Kelly Manor, Teacher; Kristen Rangel, Teacher; Jonathan Wettstone, AP; Jennifer Turner, AP. I. Meeting Minutes: May 2012 - Mrs. Monaco included the minutes to see where we left off from last year, which were also emailed to site council members. Minutes were approved. II. Introductions Went around the table, introducing the different members present and not present. III. Our Purpose Principal - School council is charged with reviewing the annual school budget (as one example). Principal does not typically put a budget together. Our primary task is to verify staffing and adjust based on enrollment and /or programming. AP - The example of parents identifying the need for 8th grade health curriculum prompted an adjustment in course offerings and consequently a budgetary change. Principal - As members of the site council, you should feel open to bring forward voices from the community and the school to make Clarke a better place. Parent - great to hear. At the elementary level, we were much more involved in developing the school improvement plan. IV. 2012 -2013 School Improvement Plan Parent - who created this plan? Principal - all nine schools have the same goal 1 and goal 2. Some schools have added goals to their own individual plans. Each school has it's own implementation and monitoring steps in the plan. The school council should be in charge of developing and implementing the plan. At the end of the year, we talk about the results. The School Committee approved this plan in May 2012, which was a new timeline. In the past, plans were not approved until the fall of each school year. This new timeline allows us to jump right in and get started. AP - while the goals are district -wide, we should be looking at the details of each goal. Principal - Goal 1 - RTI (Response To Intervention) - identifies struggling students before they get to special education. One example would include Math Intervention. Child Study exists to discuss students before moving into special education. Parent - is this RTI also district -wide? (YES) Is this strategy trying to get those students on the borderline Principal - diagramed the RTI pyramid on the board to illustrate Tier 1, 2, and 3 strategies. Principal - how about the kids on the other end of the spectrum? Teacher - it comes down to differentiation. Parent - we noticed a big difference with the MCAS Long Composition results - lower scores when compared to other scores. Principal - Math and English MCAS scores cannot be directly compared. AP - MCAS scores are used, specifically for reading, to identify and support specific students. Teacher - Dept. Head has provided multiple spreadsheets outlining MCAS data by question /student to investigate data at a deep level. Teacher - are parents aware of changes in the curriculum? There may be a breakdown in the communication to the parents. Parent - I would agree. Not sure how well it is consumed. Principal - the curriculum is nationally based. Massachusetts has adopted the common -core standards. Math is one area that gets more attention that other areas. Teacher - integrated curriculum is being used at the high school, where the students will take Math 1, Math 2, etc, where they will get an integrated math each year. No longer just Geometry, Calculus, Trigonometry, etc. Principal - at the middle school level, our math department is looking at how these changes will affect our own curriculum. Principal - Goal 1 - basic structure is looking at student performance. It also includes the Dept. Head model, where they work with the staff at both schools. The budget was adjusted to increase their time to 75% Dept. Head and 25% teacher, which allows them more time to work closely with the teachers in the respective departments, talking about curriculum and instructional strategies. Principal - teachers continue to meet as content teams, which include the intervention teachers. The goal is to increase communication Principal - technology is an area for continual improvement. For the teachers to use it, we need to have access to professional development. Parent - how much time do teachers spend in meetings each week? Principal - reviewed the weekly schedule for a typical teacher. Principal - Goal 2 - looks at pro - social behavior and building resiliency. What is realistic for a student to be able to do? The guidance department has spent a great deal of time focusing on this task. Jennifer Wolfram, the head of the Health & Wellness department, runs a wellness survey each year. The survey comes from researchers at Northeastern University, which includes questions related to risky behaviors, some of which may not be appropriate for the middle school students. What we do want to focus on are stress level of our students, which we would want to get parent feedback on. Parent - I participated in a town -wide committee, which did recommend having the middle school student taking the survey, but was dropped due to the content not appropriate for these kids. Parent - very concerned about how text messaging and social media is affecting these kids. These behaviors are relatively un- monitored, so keeping track can be difficult. This would be a great area to focus on through the survey. Discussion continued, which included education building blocks with Julie Fenn, as well as a potential parent education piece. Parent - has there been any data on the effectiveness of Rachel's Challenge? I wasn't wild about the tragedy being the centerpiece. Principal - we certainly try not to focus on the sensational aspects of the presentation. While we do not have specific data, we know it has given common language to teachers and students. The language has been adopted and we are hearing the language used. We agree - while we do not want to focus on the sensational aspects, we do appreciate the message and how it can improve our school. Parents - it would be great to use the same language at home. Principal - October 25th, we will be holding our grade -level assemblies, reminding students on the five challenges and common language. Parents - recommended to communicate the five challenges and common language to the parent community. V. Questions Parent - are we considered a school council? Principal - Yes, and we post meetings and notes. I will send them out. The group examined the regulations to identify rules and regulations that we need to follow. Next Meeting I would like to aim to meet once a month. Thursdays will work - perhaps the third Thursday of each month Principal will create a schedule for the year, with the flexibility to adjust as needed. Please feel free to email with suggestions for the meeting agenda.