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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-06-10-Diamond-min DIAMOND MIDDLE SCHOOL SITE-BASED SCHOOL COUNCIL June 10, 2010 MEETING MINUTES This meeting was a joint meeting of the Diamond PTA and the School Council. School Council Attendees: Peg Mongiello, Co-Chair; Matt Schnall, Co-Chair; Deborah Strod, David Kluchman, Ann Redmon, Amit Roy, Cindy Starks, Ed Dube, Judi Robinson, Kelly Tzannes. PTA Attendees: Julie Vogel, President, Carin Casey, President-elect, David Kluchman, Vice President, possibly others (no attendance taken). Audience: PTA members and general audience did not sign in, but approximately 15-20 people attended, including incoming principal Anne Carothers, Kevin Oye, Kamala Soparkar, Dana Henry-Kuszmaul, Diane Biglow, assistant principal Barbara Haughey, Jessie Steigerwald, and School Council parent representatives-elect, Eric Stout and Margaret Counts-Klebe. Handouts: Copies of a powerpoint from Peg Mongiello, and the summary of the Parent and Student Surveys were available. They will be posted on the Diamond website. Ms. Vogel presented gifts on behalf of the PTA to outgoing Principal Peg Mongiello and outgoing Assistant Principal Barbara Haughey. 1. Ms. Mongiello gave a presentation summarizing progress this year on the School Improvement Plan goals as well as other projects. Please see that presentation to supplement these minutes. Curriculum Reviews: In Math, both Clarke and Diamond are using common placement criteria for placing students in leveled classes for the first time ever. The levels have been expanded, as well as math intervention, to meet the needs both of those who are excelling and those who are struggling. thth The whole system Science Curriculum review resulted in what all 6 and 8 graders will take next year, a new Science and Engineering course. There are also new textbooks which have been ordered through a collaboration between Clarke and Diamond. The English Language Arts Curriculum review is in the stage of information gathering on gaps and redundancies. th The Health/PE Curriculum finished, and this led to all 8 graders getting a health class which will cover career exploration, bullying, and other social/emotional topics. The MCAS scores showed that the middle school students were not as adept at non-fiction reading skills as they were at fiction reading skills, and so there will be a new focus on non- fiction, being developed over the summer. Three Cups of Tea and/or The Omnivore’s Dilemma may be the focus of a cross-core areas project. Curriculum Reviews have all involved the SPED teachers since day 1, unlike in prior reviews. Extended Learning Time: Peg Mongiello said that she did not understand how much project day was a part of the fabric of the school experience for some students and parents, and she should have considered students and parents more in approaching the topic.Parents and students felt excluded and uninformed, which was not her intent. The intent was to let teachers look at what they were doing and pilot some alternate ways of implementing extended learning time. Going forward, the discussion needs to be expanded and involve more people. The pilot projects this year will be evaluated, and a more structured approach to pilots and evaluation of them will take place next year. Repeating some themes from prior discussions of project day, the discussion covered: It was clear from the teacher discussion on Project Day that there was not consistency or commonality in the approach to it or the goals, or how project day met the content teaching goals of the district and state. Parents said that for some of their children, project day provided the opportunity for an experience which has shaped potential career decisions, as well as the extended time to learn by doing and play with or extend or follow ideas in ways that cannot be done in regular class time. Some teachers had felt it was a “lost day” of teaching which did not fit into the curriculum required; others used it to fit in curriculum material (example: one team used the time to write in narrative form, a state requirement, while another team used the time differently). In the fall focus group and survey of students about project day, many had indicated that students valued a night “off” from homework among other aspects of Project Day. A night off was not the intention of teachers. Extended learning alternates included: All grades and teams looking at the census. Grade level events: Myth Masters, Poetry slam, Shakespeare Now, and Bryce Kapel (a singer). thth Delta 8 had 2 days of bioengineering, 6 grade went to Blue Hills, 7 grade went to the Museum of Fine Arts Parents asked directly if the school was not meeting the state standards while project day had been implemented. This was never directly explored, but the sense of some teachers was that the interruption was difficult, and Project day added things which were not necessarily part of the curriculum. Some parents felt this was a good thing, that the inconsistency was “great” and “appropriate.” A block of time where a passion is explored was valued too. Confusion resulted from the free-form pilot structure this year. Reactions from teachers were mixed – some absolutely missed the unit they did on project day, others were delighted to have the time back. In particular, science labs were missed. Teams are already incorporating back- to-back blocks of the same class 3 x a week for the purpose of allowing extended projects in the schedule next year – some of the issue in implementing extended learning is the scheduling, particularly for teachers who teach on two teams. In theory, teachers could have continued Project Day even this year as part of the pilots, but in practice scheduling made that difficult if not impossible. Some of the shared team teaching has been reduced this year. Some ideas which were targeted in project day have been brought into the regular curriculum (work on architecture and the holocaust) – but parents pointed out that the extended time was not brought into the regular curriculum along with these special topics. Parents asked if there will be a report out about the year’s evaluation of project day and the pilots. Peg Mongiello said there is a report by each department chair and team leader about the year and what they feel needs to happen to continue to the next step. A number of summer workshops, including on on the Omnivore’s Dilemma potential project, will occur. Team leaders will spend two days with Ann Caruthers; professional development days will be used for teachers to improve what they are doing. Ann Carruthers has all the information about Project Day from discussions and surveys. Leadership Site Council and PTA Team Leaders meet every other week Social worker, nurse, psychologist meet every other Tuesday Department heads meet every Monday morning School-wide Student Council got up and running (in prior years had grade-level) Students were involved in interviewing for new principal Teaming Much discussion with parents, students, Clarke and Dr. Ash The goal in changes was to achieve clarity around the names – there were perceptions about each team which were not accurate. According to Ms. Mongiello, 1/3 of students stayed on a single team all three years. 65% of parents came for the optional conference with an administrator th about the 6 grade placement and there was not info about the other third of the kids. The th process this year involved information from 5 grade teachers, parents, current teachers in the middle school, student data. The belief is that all teams need to meet the needs of all learners. Some skill-based courses do require leveling. Differentiated instruction – hard work based on learning “profile” which involves how a student takes in information and how they give it back (versus the prior learning “style” concept which involved considering a student’s learning along the dimension of concrete to abstract, and sequential to non-sequential).Teaming won’t ever be perfect but a lot of thought and energy went into placement this year. Clarke does their teaming randomly, informs students of their placement just before school, and believes they get the same result. There will be 5 or more new teachers next year, and after that 10 or more – within 2 years there will be 22 new teachers on staff. Tech .5 FTE Technology Specialist will be Howard Wolke, helping to integrate technology in the classroom. The focus will be on integrating technology as an instructional strategy and not just bells and whistles. More equipment will be purchased this year as well including whiteboards and laptop carts, “Active Expressions” used to take votes, document readers to project a page so that everyone can see the same page, Open Classroom. The school Peg Mongiello will be at next year uses no paper – students are all on laptops and text books are electronic. 2010-11 Goals District Initiatives – see Peg’s slide. Goals were formed this year with “If….then” statements, with feedback from the ground up into the Central Office. The goals are described on the powerepoint presentation. There are social-emotional goals, expanded technology integration and ____________. The implementation of district goals at the individual school level must be determined by the end of June, but other building-specific goals will be added by next year’s School Council at the beginning of the Fall. This year’s Council members will cull suggestions from the survey, but cannot approve anything without an official meeting, which members did not schedule. Broad discussion of the social-emotional needs of students ensued – how much students are sharing and communicating 24/7, but not always in a thought-out way. A parent on the survey has asked for more times to come together as a community, not just to watch students perform. The student survey showed kids go to their friends and parents most with any issue including school issues. Summary of Parent and Student Surveys Matt Schnall summarized quickly the results of the parent and student surveys which had been done this Spring. A written document was available at the meeting and will be posted on the Diamond Website. Communication with students and to parents as well was a key issue – most feel well-informed about what is going on in school but not major decisions. Speakers make the announcements hard to hear. Safety – students felt physically safe, but 30% did not feel emotionally safe. 90% of students feel comfortable talking with teachers about academic issues, but most would go to a friend or parent about a social issue. Homework – Parents and students had very similar responses and perceptions, although students reported somewhat more stress around homework than parents did. The majority felt that the overall homework load was appropriate, although there were responses at the extremes on both ends (too high/too low). Most students reported being able to complete their homework, although the reported time spent on homework was somewhat higher than the district recommendation at the 6th grade level (average reported weekly loads for 6th, 7th and 8th grades were 6.9 hours, 8.3 hours and 9.1 hours, respectively). Although the comments indicated that both parents and students perceived a significant difference in homework loads between teams, the difference in reported time spent on homework was relatively small, with Sigma and Omega students reporting about 25% more time spent on homework than Delta students (similar to the differential between 6th and 7th grade loads). Coordination of homework within teams could be improved in terms of providing steadier loads night-to-night and week-to-week. There was particular concern reported about overlapping tests in team subjects. Open Responses Yin: Praise by students and parents for teachers, their passion, compassion, ingenuity, creativity, high professionalism Yang: comments on the big changes this year Minutes Minutes from prior meetings and this meeting will be circulated to members for review and comment. Minutes with which everyone is comfortable will be posted as unofficial records for the public; official minutes will be approved by next year’s council in the Fall. Communication next year Ms. Carothers participated actively in the discussion. She will be available after 7/14/2010. She invites anyone who wants to come and share concerns – students, staff, family. In the fall she will hold forums for listening, and say what she heard, what we can take on now, what we can’t take on now but what the plan is, and “I heard you.”