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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-01-13-Diamond-min DIAMOND MIDDLE SCHOOL SITE-BASED SCHOOL COUNCIL JANUARY 13, 2010 MEETING MINUTES Member Attendees: Peg Mongiello, Co-Chair, Matt Schnall, Co-Chair, David Kluchman, Ed Dube, Kelly Tzannes, Ann Redmon, Deborah Strod, Judi Robinson, Richard Comeau, Diane Corbett, Amit Roy Non-Member Attendees: Kamala Soparkar, Diane Chen, Susan Krupp, David Callaghan, Nancy Wilson, Howard Silver, Jerry Harris 1. Approval of Minutes The minutes of the December 16, 2009 meeting were unanimously approved. Deborah Strod agreed to take minutes regularly. Distribution mechanisms were discussed, including distribution via the diamond listserv, and on the website (an email with the link can be sent). The School Council will have a webpage off the Diamond website. Peg Mongiello will talk with Michelle Tanguay, the Library Media Specialist, about getting the minutes up on the web. 2. Budget Status Update A new budget process is being used this year across the district. Peg Mongiello handed out sections of the recently presented draft budget, and encouraged everyone to look on the Lexington Public Schools website to view the budget. The budget is level funded this year (the same dollar amount as last year) but is also level-service (no teachers cut) due to some grants and cost cutting steps. There is some additional, district-wide funding for technology. A full-time technology specialist, to assist teachers in using technology as an instructional tool and provide some technical troubleshooting, will be divided between Clarke and Diamond, half-time at each. This is extending the “5” periods a week Howard Wolke has been spending (more likely about 15 periods worth of time, in practice) to .5 FTE support. Matt Schnall asked if there was a building budget for Diamond, since one of the roles of the Site Council is to review the building budget in light of the school improvement plan. This request was echoed by other members of the Council. Peg Mongiello replied that it is hard to see what is specifically Diamond, since Special Education, Technology, Art and Music are shown on a K-12 basis, and supplies are given on dollar amount per pupil, per department under a formula through Mary Ellen Dunn, Assistant Superintendent for Finance. The Council asked Peg Mongiello to make a request for a building budget. There was a discussion concerning budget implementation and how much flexibility the school has to reallocate funds from one item to another during the course of the year, if, for instance, one item is coming in below budget and another above. Peg Mongiello stated that in some cases discretion can be exercised at the building level in terms of allocations within a particular department, but that reallocations across departments are handled by the LPS central office. 3. School Council Training The School Committee will sponsor a training for Site Council members. Such a training is encouraged by the State and has not been held in many years in Lexington. The nd training will be set up for the week of February 22, for one hour. 4. Potential LEXPRESS stop at Diamond Howard Silver, a Diamond Parent proposed exploring the potential for LEXPRESS to stop in the Diamond circle to pick up students from after-school activities, after the regular buses have left. Currently, the LEXPRESS buses stop at the end of the driveway during those times. He presented the idea to LEXPRESS in the fall, but it did not get anywhere. He presented the idea to the PTA, and they suggested that he come to Site Council. The Council members unanimously expressed support for the idea of continuing to explore the possibility, subject to any concerns that may be raised by the LPS administration. Mr. Silver will keep David Kluchman, who is on both the PTA and the Site Council, apprised of progress as he gathers more information by being a liaison between LEXPRESS, the school and parent communities. A number of questions were presented by Mr. Silver, and others added by the Council members: a) How many students would use this service? Peg Mongiello suggested this would be a good question for the Student Council to explore. b) Mr. Silver should talk with the School Transportation coordinator. c) are there any legal issues in putting kids onto non-school transport while they are on school grounds? d) when will the route schedules be published? e) what happens if the bus doesn’t come? What about the gaps between when activities let out and the bus is scheduled to arrive? Currently, if buses leave, students should only be in the building if they are part of a supervised group. Students waiting for a LEXPRESS bus might be in an in-between state, where their activity is done but the bus has not yet arrived. f) reach out to Clarke to see if a similar service would be useful there as well. Some Council members also asked if there a way to combine the school bus routes and LEXPRESS buses to help kids get to school – but pointed out that this is a completely separate question. Ms. Mongiello agreed to seek input from the LPS administration concerning the proposal. Ms. Mongiello and Ed Dube will also discuss the possibility of polling the Student Council to gather student input. 5. Crisis Plan A recent incident prompted discussion of the school’s crisis plan. Police were searching for two armed robbers in the neighborhood, and three schools were asked by the police to “lock-down” which meant no one could come in and no one could go out. There was not a system in place that worked to inform all parents, nor a policy about when to inform parents. There was in place a Global Connect system for the whole school-system parent body, and there is a reverse 911 system which is used by the police to reach residents in an emergency, but such a system was not in place for each individual school. The Global Connect system, which was successfully piloted at Fiske, is now available to all schools. Three emergency contact numbers can be entered for each of two responsible adults for each student. The numbers cannot have an extension. It is a voice-activated system – if a cell phone is called and the phone is not answered, no message is left. Separate buildings, and even separate grades, can be dialed. Diamond tested the system and all the contact numbers which had been entered, and requested parents and guardians return an information sheet to determine which numbers actually worked. The system took approximately 30 minutes to dial all of the contact numbers that are currently in the th system. They will test again on January 15. Council members suggested a) posting emergency information on the web, in the same manner snow closing information is posted and updated, so that parents could check for updates. b) seeing if text messages could be sent to phones also. An extensive Crisis plan was done in 2002 and revised in 2007. The Crisis team has been expanded and now includes the nurse, social worker and physical education teacher…. 6. Registration/Teaming/Placement Peg Mongiello discussed plans to revise the teaming structure and placement process. A draft plan will be presented at a future Site Council meeting for discussion and input. Ms. Mongiello stated that the school is committed to the concept of teaming, which is one of the hallmarks of the middle school model (as opposed to a junior high school). Some of the goals of the new process are to include parent input as well as input from current teachers, and focus on creating 9 solid learning groups of students, as well as streamline administrative time, and complete placement earlier in the year. Peg Mongiello and staff are looking to create another format which is more uniform and constructive, and reassure parents that if there is a special concern they will still be able to talk with administrators. In recent years, the Diamond teaming procedure has focused on input from parents through one-on-one conferences. (Approximately 2/3 of incoming 6th grade parents attended conferences last year.) Peg Mongiello stated that these conferences, together with other aspects of the teaming process, used approximately 1200 person-hours of staff thth time. The procedure did not involve any input from 5 grade teachers for rising 6 thth graders, nor from 7 grade teachers for 8 grade placement. At Clarke, by contrast, information was gathered from current-year teachers, but not from parents. As part of the new procedure Diamond and Clarke will try to develop joint written forms to request information from teachers and parents. During February, the elementary principals and Clarke Principal are being consulted about placement. Early drafts will be developed in two staff meetings will be held in March, and Council input will be given in th that timeframe as well. It is hoped that by May 13, a professional development afternoon will be taken to present the new teaming process to staff. Ms. Mongiello solicited the Council’s input on how best to implement changes to the placement procedures while preserving parent comfort with the process. Among other considerations, Council members discussed the need for parents to feel comfortable that they are heard in the process, and that they receive information about the teachers. They suggested that once students are assigned to a team, their placement letter include a page in which each teacher has written a paragraph introducing themselves. Ms. Mongiello emphasized that the school recognized the benefits of parent input and the procedural changes were intended to get that input to staff most efficiently so that teaming could be completed more effectively. Peg Mongiello also stated that the teaming criteria would be revised as part of an effort to combat “stereotypes” that had grown up around the existing teams. She explained that the new criteria would be designed to create more heterogeneous teams with a mix of leaders, learners and interests. Parents commented that some of the benefits of the existing teaming criteria included a greater comfort for children in their learning environment when they were grouped with others who were socially alike and classroom efficiencies for teachers and students when students with similar learning styles and/or academic expectations were grouped together. Ms. Robinson stated that in her opinion a heterogeneous grouping made classes easier to teach. There was a discussion of how teaming criteria actually had been applied in prior years that was inconclusive as to how much consideration was actually given to learning style. Points of agreement included: that placement took into account mathematics leveling, gender, and ethnic diversity; that parents were told that teams were directed toward particular learning styles; and that, in practice, teachers in a classroom setting do not conform to a single teaching style but rather respond to the needs of individual students. 7. Community Garden A Lexington Education Foundation grant of $3,000 has been given to create a garden in the front of Diamond. The project will be tied to the curriculum: chemistry, ecology, and students will plan, design, create sculptures, etc. 8. Additional Site Council dates The Council members wished to meet once a month, rather than every other month. Generally the meetings are expected to run 2 hours. The start times are varied to allow people with different schedules to attend as many meetings as possible. The next meetings are:  February: the Council was hoping to combine the Training with an extra meeting nd in February, the week of February 22. th  March 10, 7am, Diamond Library (only 1 hour) th  April 13, 4-6pm, Diamond Library th  May 10, 5pm, Diamond Library th  June 10, 7pm, Diamond Library 9. Additional topics Principal Search The advertisement for the principal search was to run the week of the meeting. th Superintendent Ash is expected to meet with staff on January 25 to talk about their thoughts on a new principal. The PTA meeting has been moved to February. The PTA will present a Survey Monkey survey to parents and staff in the meantime. Resumes will be closed before February vacation, and read during vacation.