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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-12-15-CLARKE-min PUBLIC MEETING NOTICE Jonas Clarke Middle School School Site Council Meeting December 15, 2020 3:00 PM Zoom Meeting, Jonas Clarke Middle School 17 Stedman Road Lexington, MA 02421 Meeting Zoom link: LittE,n.a 2 oil o�.cc2??? N!Ln >c IF::: lllz 11W..0. NIF::II r 0 Agenda Attendance: Dane Despres, Principal; Mary Barry-Ng ,Assistant Principal; Jonathan Wettstone,Assistant Principal;Amanda Arnst, Teacher; Michelle Wright, Nurse; Dana Silverberg, Psychologist; Nataliya Paquette, Teacher; Emily Sayre, Parent; Melanie Tanionos, Parent; Kimberly Hensle Lowrance, Parent; Hongmei Zhang, Parent. I. Welcome/Introductions, Call to Order II. Approve Minutes from November 10, 2020 Meeting: htt�so//docs° ooc�leocom/document/d/11lJgPC nY7WXwobGErE2Qo1gVQ47snmb LeQzgxkizzl4/edit III. Parent/Guardian Notes A. Parent- happy through Trimester 1. Expressed concern with eating inside now that the weather has turned colder. B. Parent- question about report card date for T1? Is there a mechanism for you to discuss internally- tweak, change? a. Principal - Portal will open on Monday 12/21/20. b. Principal - there are things that can be adjusted / not adjusted. We are limited by Aspen and its functionality. We'll certainly take feedback and adjust when/where we can. If outside the Aspen platform - open to discussion. C. Parent- looking forward to the principal's forum and the 6th grade information night in January. IV. Principal's Notes A. Update on Covid cases, responses and protocols - two recent cases. We have not had any in-school transmission. We've had success with quarantine. Perhaps the dynamic of week-on, week-off helped in this issue. a. Holiday travel added to the load, with families opting to keep students at home. b. When a student is staying home (for multiple reasons), I (principal) send out an email to the student, family and affected staff, reviewing the learning plan for that week. We work hard to give students a view into the classroom via Zoom link, which gives the kids the chance to see, hear and even ask questions when needed. Staff are working through this change, trying different strategies to meet student needs - either through their own laptop or another. c. Indoor versus outdoor lunch -following protocols for indoor lunch. We allow students to project a show on the screen, making it a more relaxed dining experience. Doors and windows stay open to increase air flow. When students are done eating - they put masks back on. Obviously- working hard to keep things clean. We're also working with a select number of anxious students, finding alternatives to the homeroom. i. Staff Member- acknowledged communication around covid cases, protocols and the use of contact logs. It made a difference in how it feels, while still maintaining confidentiality. ii. Parent- are students eating with their homeroom or mixing with others? 1. Principal - students are eating with their homeroom to minimize spread. Outdoor lunches increase the chance of classes mixing. iii. Parent- have you seen switches from hybrid-remote? Are you pleased with the PBLA numbers? 1. Principal - limited numbers recently. More went remote after the very first reported case. Recently- only 1 or 2 requesting RLA/Remote (no inundation). 2. Principal -yes, pleased with PBLA numbers from Clarke. Roughly 15 per grade level. We staffed PBLA with Dr. Sarah Cammer(from LHS), as well as Jon Roy (Clarke). Great that it wasn't building from scratch. B. Principal - here are a few things I'll cover tomorrow night at a PTO sponsored parent forum. I will review data that came in from the various surveys. I worked with Dr. Cavenaugh (CO) to review data and make it presentable. Shared a document listing data and topics - 5 key takeaways. 63uu 2sxh-cLH7N3ceCRzDnM A/edit a. Communication - apparent strength from both staff and families. Issues brought forth appeared to be between school-team consistency. Admin may need to do some double checks. b. Blue Weeks - %3 found it not nearly enough, '/3 found it barely enough, %3 found it adequate. How to fill out Blue weeks is a struggle, as we've maximized Gold week schedules. As a result, we've maxed out teacher schedules and their availability. To offer more- we'd have to get very creative and may not meet family expectations, as they would be more elective in nature. Question to answer- how do we offer content specific offerings in the Blue week, despite not having the staffing to pull it off. We'll need to continue thinking about creative solutions. i. Parent- students have a lot of free time. Can teachers give them more to do - related to their Gold week work? Perhaps math practice resources? 1. Principal - thoughtful - perhaps we work with the department heads to develop these resources. We run into problems with this tactic, unless the teacher is ,'mandating" completion. We'd be relying on the family to make these opportunities a priority. Parents might want to reach out to the teacher individually, requesting other tasks in the Blue week. ii. Parent- I wonder if more WIN opportunities would be beneficial. In some cases, these were invitation only- which would be helpful in making it happen. iii. Parent- I appreciate the note about cameras ON. My kids are reminding one another to keep cameras on. 1. Principal -we tried to make this a learning community need. iv. Parent- for every child that wants MORE, there are just as many parents that want LESS (kid is drowning). So tough to find a one size fits all. 1. Principal - putting in another block in the blue week is an opportunity for the students, but is not a guarantee. It does appear that the blue week is lacking -we need more there, but is that social/emotional or is that academically focused? A lack of staffing is also an issue. 2. AP - enjoy time in the classroom - they like being in the building. Students reports drowning in the blue week with so much work. They wanted less. V. Parent- coming out of Bridge with a no-homework policy. Have you noticed a pattern of Bridge versus Bowman? 1. AP - no pattern observed over the past few years. The kids jump in and see it as the norm. 2. AP -we've examined data as a team and have not noticed one elementary feeder school being the sole or main source. 3. Parent- seems to be more kid specific based on their personality. Some kids just put in more time or take more time with the various projects and assignments. This is unique time, teaching kids to be more flexible. 4. Parent- reports that their child wished their Elementary had given a little bit of homework to prepare. Having said that, the growth was manageable. How many instructional hours are needed? Are we missing a chunk? Study halls in the blue week? Not sure what a normal day would look like, so I'm not sure if we're missing something. a. Principal -we are missing some class time. We're looking at around 30% less time, which prompted departments to meet and identify priority standards -what is meaningful. While they are meeting fewer times, they are meeting for a longer period of time - a great thing according to some staff. Having said that - it's not 5 days a week, which gave the opportunity to see and follow up each day. c. Student Engagement &Academic Challenge - RLA families were citing more engagement, but less academic challenge, which was in contrast to that of their hybrid peers. If we beef up the academic challenge, do we decrease student engagement? i. Access does not appear to be a hurdle to engagement. That would be access to a trusted adult (support) as well as adequate i nternet. ii. 70% request for more interactive experiences, especially social and emotional support. This could be counselors offering drop-in sessions - similar to hosting a club. This is another opportunity to provide a social and emotional check in. Do we look into having parent volunteers to help in this area? d. Time- staff were looking for time to work collaboratively with colleagues. This churn of developing lessons has become much more complex, as they now have 8 different sections, instead of the typical 4 from prior years. Each group is in a different spot based on when their class meets, holidays, etc. i. The move to Standards Based Report Cards was another move that has challenged staff. The need to review and norm grading around these standards is needed. e. Cameras On - staff were finding many/most students with their cameras OFF, which was having an emotional (negative) change to the learning environment. Once one camera went off- others followed, which eventually led to a completely blank screen in front of the teacher. V. Staff Notes A. No notes to add - discussed topics in the prior section. VL Adjourn A. Next Meeting: Thursday 1/14/21 at 3PM B. Snow Day Question - if the day is "called" by noon the day before, it would be a "remote" learning day. If the day is NOT "called" by noon - it would be a traditional snow day (no school). `19-'20 SIP: tt // ca gooe�leocom/docurr�ent/d/1 k Fm aOXK2f9ZQ rtf8QHN0FgLw15XSiWZ-AMsfod s/edit2usg=sharing A. Principal - update on the SIP and our goals going forward.