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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-03-13-Clarke-minJonas Clarke Middle School 17 Stedman Road • Lexington, Massachusetts 02421 Anna W. Monaco, Principal Jennifer E. Turner, Assistant Principal Jonathan R. Wettstone, Assistant Principal Office: (781) 861 -2450 Fax : (781)674 -2043 Jonas Clarke Middle School March 13, 2014 Site Council Meeting: 3:15PM Minutes In attendance: Anna Monaco, Principal, Jonathan Schechner, teacher, Polly Kienle, parent I. Approve Meeting minutes: i. January Minutes approved II. Questions / Concerns from Members • Parent brought up the high school registration process and how students are still having difficulty choosing to be moderately challenged instead of taking 2 or 3 honors classes. • We discussed the parent coffee about the high school transition process and how helpful the parent panel was in discussing issues. This coffee was very well attended by parents and very much appreciated. III. PPC / CAAL evening for PTA and Site Councils • Mrs. Monaco spoke at the PPC / CAAL event two weeks ago in order to encourage more Chinese families to join school based site councils and school PTA's / PTO's. This was a very well attended event and the overall feeling was positive. Mrs. Monaco reported that one of the CAAL members at the meeting was at the Clarke PTA meeting today. We discussed how to continue to encourage Chinese parents to join school - based councils. A parent also brought up the fact that this was a starting point for other organized groups such as Korean, Indian and Japanese families living in Lexington. IV. Traffic / Safe Routes To School • Clarke now has a parent and teacher representative for Safe Routes to School — Tracy Herbert, Clarke teacher and Michelle Ciccolo, Clarke parent have volunteered. They met this week and we will get an update when possible. • Coffee on April 8 will have an update from the Traffic study and Mary Ellen Dunn will be there as well as Judy Crocker, Lexington School Committee member and Safe Routes to School representative to discuss issues and hear what is being studied currently to improve traffic conditions. V. YRBS (Youth Risk Behavior Survey) • Mrs. Monaco shared a DRAFT of the YRBS that we are proposing for middle school. • After meeting with Jen Wolfrum, Asst. Director for Health and Wellness and the researchers at Northeastern a draft survey was developed to be administered to 7th and 8th graders next year (April 2015). • It was originally intended for this year, but the researchers were unable to work on the draft due to workload last year. • A middle school parent forum will be in the fall for parents to discuss and ask questions about the survey • This is an optional survey and parents / students can opt out • There are many communities surveying their students with this tool and this will give Lexington valuable information about student risk taking and when it begins. • This is done by the same researchers that administer the LHS survey every other year. • This data will give us a lot of information about students in Lexington that we can use to develop programs and curriculum. VI. Next meeting — April 2014 • Next meeting will be in April. At that time we will have an update from the coffee about the traffic study. We will also begin to discuss goals for next year. Draft of SIP for 2014 -2015 will be due in May.