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Home My WebLink About2018-10-10-ESTABROOK-min Estabrook School Council Meeting Wednesday, October 10, 2018 MINUTES Members Present: Amy Burk, Steve Chang, Joyce Dvorak, Christina Gavin, Amy Klotz, Chhandomay Mandal, and Rick Rogers Introductions Members introduced themselves and shared their hopes and dreams for Estabrook. These included:  Provide students what they need and offer a robust social and academic education.  Make students hungry for what’s next and prepared for what’s next. Light a fire of interest.  Well rounded education – inclusive of all areas. MCAS scores improve.  Children be happy. Improve Math MCAS. See math as process.  Agree we want children to be happy. Help reduce stress/anxiety when get to HS.  Build on what’s here.  Keep work moving forward and prepare for sustainable long-term leadership. Purpose & Responsibilities of School Councils Rick shared a historical perspective on school councils which began following the passage of the Massachusetts Education Reform act in 1993. He described how he thinks about the purpose of school council:  Focus on the “big picture” of the school community: What kind of school do we want to be and how do we get there?  Assist the principal and assistant principal in the development of the annual School Improvement Plan.  Strengthen home-school connections. He also provided an excerpt from the Massachusetts regulations on school councils, describing the vision and legal responsibilities of school councils. The complete state guidance can be found at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/advisory/schoolcouncils/default.html He reminded members that School Councils were subject to the open meeting law. Members will receive more information about open meeting law and a sign-off form from the Lexington’s Town Clerk office. Nomination of Co-Chair On a motion by Amy Burk, seconded by Steve Chang, the council unanimously elected Joyce Dvorak to serve as School Council Co-Chair. The principal serves as the other Co-Chair by statute. Updates Rick gave a brief update on the opening of school, which overall went smoothly. He noted that because he and Christina were both new to the school, there was a learning curve around operational and procedural items. After the opening two weeks, they have been able to turn their attention to educational priorities. Rick has held individual meetings with nearly all members of the professional staff and half of the support staff. Using 1 information from those meetings, he and Christina identified areas to get additional input from the faculty. We are in the process of working with an 18-member Leadership Team to plan for how best to utilize the available meeting time we have to work on ongoing priorities in the school. MCAS Results Rick shared a general overview of MCAS results. He noted that 2018 results should be considered a baseline year due to the changes in the test – making comparisons to previous years difficult. The state does provide comparison to 2017, but recommends not comparing prior to that. Other key points:  The 5 levels have been eliminated. Schools are considered “Not Requiring Assistance or Intervention” or “Needing Assistance or Intervention.” Estabrook had been considered a Level 1 school, but is now considered “Not Requiring Assistance.” th  Percentile comparisons of schools continue. Estabrook falls in the 98 percentile of elementary schools in the state.  The school indicator for student growth is now calculated as a mean rather than a median – again making comparison to previous years difficult.  School accountability reports now include how the lowest performing students (lowest 25%) in the school performed (regardless of the school’s overall performance). For Estabrook, growth scores for this group were acceptable, but below what they were for the all students.  Overall, Gr. 3 Math is the area needing attention as results were below the district average. The Mathematics Department Head and Math Specialists are meeting with administrators and the Gr. 3 team to begin analyzing these results.  We have begun to look at subgroup performance to identify and address other achievement gaps that may exist. Discussion by members included a question about whether Estabrook’s standing relative to other schools in Lexington had declined and whether we should consider % of Exceeds Expectations rather than combining % Exceeds and % Met Expectations. It was also noted that Gr. 5 performance appeared stronger, perhaps indicating our students improved over time. Rick agreed to keep the Council updated on other findings from future analysis of MCAS results. Discussion: Priorities for the Year Council members were asked to comment on what aspect of their work last year they found most valuable and (for new members) what brought them to volunteer for School Council. Among the topics mentioned:  Social-emotional learning  Home-school communication  Student Risk Survey results  Homework Policy survey & Homework calendar  How to improve MCAS performance Council members were also asked to identify areas they would be interested in working on 2 this year. Among the topics were:  Home-school Communication & Partnering with families  Homework survey results from last year  Social-Emotional Learning  Managing stress levels while developing grit and perseverance  Updates on results of School Improvement Plan work  Student leadership opportunities It was agreed to try to have a focus topic for each meeting. Prior to the next meeting, Rick suggested members review the School Improvement Plan and identify other topics they might like to focus on. The November 14 meeting will focus on the homework policy if the final report on survey results is ready. Plus/Delta for the Meeting Rick asked members to provide feedback on the meeting itself: Plus  Interactive format  Collaborative feel  Informative  Use of time – followed the agenda  All voices were heard Delta (Would be even better if…)  For future meetings, less time on groundwork (okay for this first meeting)  Have a focus topic with at least 30 minutes devoted to it Upcoming Meeting Schedule – Wednesdays 3:30-4:30 November 14 March 6 December 12 April 10 January 16 May 15 February 6 June 5 3