HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-08-CLARKE-min Site Council Notes
January 8, 2025
In attendance: Jennifer Zacharis, Gary VanDeurse, Elisabeth Moeller, Brandy Hartford, Alison
Stevens, Nataliya Paquette, Jamie Welsh, Tiffany Zides, Dane Despres
Agenda
I. Call to Order, Welcome, Council Business & Public Comment
While gathering:
- Showed the new website; discussed the usability of the website and the need to scroll
down to get to the quick links
- Accessibility (visual) of white on yellow is difficult to read
II. Caregiver, Staff, and Admin Check-Ins: December in Review (15-minute
limit)
Floor open for comment:
Parent rep inquired after Mary and how she is. Dane shared we are in touch and
collaborating with her. Shared the update re: Diamond principal change and J. Cole
serving as interim principal. Shared benefits of having folks move around to share
perspective (Clarke-Diamond; LHS-Clarke) and alignment.
Question re: budget freeze and what it means. Shared that we can get the essentials
that we need. Experiences for students that have already been planned (active
bystander training) will still continue. But new things like professional development, days
out of the building, are reduced/cut for the remainder of the year. Working on next year's
budget and cutting that down.
Follow-up: professional development feels like a big blow. Are staff feeling that? Dane:
maybe too soon to know. But it is impacting curriculum development, teams ability to get
a sub to pull out time to work through things together- those things are discontinued.
Follow-up: will that impact summer workshops? A: unclear at this point. Dane explained
what summer workshops are. Suspects we won't have June workshops, but won't know
about those after July 1.
Parent: public-facing communication has cited special education and transportation cost
increases (or potential for increases)
Teacher rep: started discussing what we can discontinue that we pay for but don't use
(ie: subscriptions, etc). Department heads are getting input from staff. Feeling
reassured once DH went through it with them.
Parent rep: recent school committee report has information about the freeze and
mentions some of the impacts. Mentions half-team cuts at Diamond. Follow-up
questions as to whether there's impact on the Clarke half-team.
Teacher-Ease Access
Dane reviewed the rates of review Oust log-in dates). 2/3rds of students had parent
accounts look at report cards; 1/3 students log-in only. Are going to cross-reference LP
standard concerns with the neither-view rates and see if there's correlation that will point
us to next steps.
Discussed possible reasons for why - language, student access as part of team
processes, etc.
Teacher rep: my 8th graders didn't even know they had report cards
Teacher rep: I give out progress reports to students on a regular basis, so maybe
students aren't feeling the need to log in as much?
Parent reps: Is the decreased emphasis on grades a reason that people aren't
checking? If M is the best you can do, and your kid is getting all Ms, why do I need to
engage with the report card? Is the need to log into another system / password fatigue (I
looked at mine through my son's because I couldn't be bothered to figure out the
account). What if we mailed out at least one to see if the reaction is different? Do we
mail to a certain subset?
What about a reverse call re: `report cards have been posted' to notify that report cards
are posted
III. Reviewing Updates/Questions about the School Innovation Plan
IV. Adjournment
7:55am