School Council: Meeting Minutes

• April 2007
• January 31, 2007
• January 11, 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006

Pierce School Council Minutes

April 5, 2007

Call to order: 7 am

In Attendance: Mindy Taylor, Cherie Gaehde, Sandra Levine, Karen Victor, Patty Correa, Jenna Goodearl, Gigi Wizowaty, Cass Miller, Pam Wolf, Nancy Springer, Pipier Smith-Mumford, Joshua Frank, Ana Maria Caballero

1. Next meeting:
1. Wed, May 16 at 6 pm

2. Open Discussion:
1. Joan Hamilton presented a report on how the budget cuts are affecting the Library services:
1. Library assistant cut is proportionately greater than at the other school libraries given Pierce’s physical layout
2. there will be fewer classes and programs offered
3. a total of 17 hours cut, including the Northeastern Aides which work in library
2. Joan presented 3 handouts:
1. Letter addressed to Dr. Lupini
2. Research data on strength of libraries names personnel as most important
3. Dates of public hearings to lobby: 4/11 and 4/12

c) Point of action: attend these meetings and send emails/letters to Administration

3. Principal’s Report
1. budget cut items that most affect Pierce
1. on Restoration list: library assistant and after school programming, which included HW centers and before/after school sports
2. not on Restoration list: Northeastern aides and Building Subs
2. discussion
1. try to find creative funding for after school programming through grants and fees
2. try to advocate for full time library assistant, and restoration for items that are not on the Restoration list
3. devise flyer as a way to get parental involvement alerting parents of these cuts, try to get a petition going, write letters to Administration and publicize public hearing dates

4. Review/Discuss Goals for next year
1. 07-08 Goals based on community input
1. technology : embed it in other areas
2. math continues to be a focus; monitor implementation, grants for software
3. middle grades: not enough activities; have different needs that require more opportunities to focus on outside of self, community service; better communication, websites, ECS services
4. Culture of Rewards: healthy lunch program, concerns around candy/food as rewards; more wellness habits
5. Facilities: leaky roof, auditorium, health issues
2. Input from students
1. 6-8^th grade student survey reveal food as major issue
2. students liked the new rotation of teachers
3. Need for find some way to share these goals to parents: one page summary, make it accessible
1. One page in Broadsheet – Cass and Gigi
2. Post on website
3. Copies made available upon request

5. Committee Updates
1. Math: Patty will write piece for Broadsheet about math and new materials
1. Math and technology subcommittees should get together before 4/25
2. Each subcommittee will provide a one page summary of accomplishments by April 25, 2007
3. Pipier will write summary of goals for next year with input from Cass on facilities
4. Cherie will email copy of old goals for council members

6. Elections
1. Ask PTO to start election process as soon as possible
2. Form should reflect new goals
3. Wed, May 9 elections counted

7. Bullying surveys still need to go out; Joshua Frank will do this

8. Budget Advocacy – distribute flyers per following schedule
1. April 9 - 8 am Gigi/ 2 pm Gigi and Sandra
2. April 10 – 8am Gigi and Cherie/ 2 pm Gigi
3. April 12 – 8 am ?/ 2 pm Pam and Sandra
4. April 13 – 2 pm Patty and Mindy

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 am

Pierce School Council Minutes
January 31, 2007

Call to order: 6 pm

In Attendance: Mindy Taylor, Cherie Gaehde, Sandra Levine, Karen Victor, Pipier Smith-Mumford, Ana Maria Caballero

1. Next meetings:
1. March 14, 6:30 pm; School Council Forum for Community Input
2. April 5^th, Thursday, 7 am
3. Cass will circulate email to schedule another meeting to disseminate information regarding the building committee’s work

2. Principal’s Report
1. Pipier discussed the freeze on spending imposed on the school system due to the deficit in budget and anticipated shortfall in monies from the so-called “circuit breaker” account
1. Discussion on the possible impacts on Pierce:
1. Funding for MCAS prep classes for grades 4-6
2. Release days for teacher training and hiring of substitutes
3. New hires approved after the freeze date
4. Paper, supplies, materials
5. End of year orders for curriculum
2. data on disk containing information on Pierce students as compared to district
1. information unclear, leaving many questions
2. Math subcommittee will request meeting with Sarah Crane to review data
3. enrollment data across town

3. PTO Report
1. Dr. Lupini had encouraging information regarding the budget at the Feb 25 meeting for parents at Lawrence School (this was prior to the budget freeze)
2. Lawrence parents have concerns regarding enrollment numbers and lack of flexibility on space; possible use of trailers for Kindergarten; writing skills concerns
3. Dr. Lupini would not answer Pierce question about the timing of the Town Hall renovation before Pierce School building needs

4. Committee Updates
1. Technology: survey results being analyzed
2. Facilities: want to schedule School Committee members for a walk through to press our case, maybe in March
3. Home-School
1. Responding to families for giving input on communication: 4% families don’t have email; 14-15% don’t rely on email for information
2. Pierce Post discussions
3. Recommendations will be forthcoming
4. Math:
1. meetings with specialists are helping to narrow a wish list from teachers in order to write grants
2. Program Review Committee will present its findings to the School Committee Thur, Feb 2, 8:30 pm; open to public

5. March Community Input Meeting plans
1. Laptops to scribe what’s discussed in small groups; need 4 scribes and 4 facilitators; will ask Sandra Sicard for help with laptops
2. Babysitting will be arranged and provided by 7/8^th grade community service volunteers
3. Snacks provided and served at 6:45; Sandra Levine will buy snacks; money request from PTO
4. Advertisement in the form of 2 flyers/letter from Principal to go home with students
5. Format of evening was discussed
6. Sheet for written comments will be sent home for parents not in attendance

Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm

Pierce School Council Minutes

January 11, 2007 7:00am

Present: Pipier Smith-Mumford, Nancy Springer, Josh Frank, Jenna Goodearl, AnaMaria Caballero, Patty Correa, Cass Miller, Gigi Wizowaty, Cherie Gaehde, Mindy Taylor, Pam Wolf

1. Next meeting is set for Wed, January 31 from 6:00 – 7:30 pm
2. School Council training documents are on CD ROM and will be distributed to the group,
3. Budget Information: Schools have received concerning messages from the state and town. Where in the past the town received state funds in the amount of $800, 000, this year is may be as low as $250,00. Urging people to be present for the January 25^th meeting with Dr. Lupini at Lawrence School.
4. Updates from Sub-Committees

1. Math: Meeting with teachers across grade levels to get a good picture of math across the grade levels.
2. Home/School: Got in touch with room parents who received information on how parents want to be contacted. Received survey information that could be used to inform the March Parent Feedback night.
3. Technology: Passing out survey to teachers to find out what teachers have in the way of technology and what they want.
4. Facilities: Small group meeting scheduled for the 18^th to follow up on meeting with the superintendent.

5. PTO Update:

1. Planning for the Auction is well underway.
2. Annual fund is going well. 85 families have donated and $19, 353 has been raised.
3. Equity had good attendance and received positive feedback.
4. Working on building team for town spelling bee on March 11.

October 2006 Minutes

Wednesday, October 4, 2006, 6 - 7:30 p.m.

Present: Pipier Smith-Mumford, Cherie Gaehde, Gigi Wizowaty, Ana Maria Caballero, Nancy Springer, Sandra Levine, Pamela Wolf, Mindy Taylor, Karen Victor, Cass Miller-Schmidt

Absent: Joshua Frank, Jamie Lyons, Jenna Goodearl, Sue Whitman-Helfgot (ex-officio, PTO liaison)

Minutes submitted by: Patty Correa

Mission/Process of the School Council

Pipier informed us that Dr. Lupini has been concerned about the composition of the various Brookline School Councils and whether they conform to the State guidelines on composition. She thought that he would find the Pierce School Council's composition acceptable (although she mentioned that we are short a community member). He expects to visit the various School Councils to review with them the necessary composition.

Pipier explained that the primary purpose of the School Councils is to act as an advisor to the Principals. In that regard, the School Council may participate in such matters as reviewing the school budget, curriculum issues, and school structure. School councils are mandated by law to be knowledgeable and involved in these areas, which have not traditionally been areas in which PTO's have been involved.

The first step in school improvement plan process is that the schools submit the improvement plans to the Superintendent. This school year (in the Spring 2007), the Superintendent will present all school improvement plans at once to the School Committee. Pipier anticipates that the School Councils will be present for this presentation in order to answer any questions.

There was discussion about the utility of the parent input night traditionally held the second Wednesday in March (in lieu of that month's PTO meeting) to assist the Council with preparing the School Improvement Plan later each Spring (last year, a separate input night was held for teachers and staff). There was a discussion of ways to increase parent turnout. Some commented that if the School Council could increase its visibility within the school, there might be a greater level of awareness in the Council and therefore interest. For example, the Council could use the various subcommittees (which work on areas itemized in the School Improvement Plan) to organize events or make other efforts of interest to parents. Gigi volunteered to write a Broadsheet article exploring the respective roles of the PTO v. the School Council to help increase awareness.

It was agreed that the School Council would allocate the first five minutes of each meeting for community comment.

In terms of meeting times, the Council agreed that alternating meeting times (7 - 8:30 a.m. and 6 - 7:30 p.m.) may maximize the ability of all members to attend at least some meetings.

Committee Updates

Building Committee: Pipier said that ever since she has been Principal at Pierce, $500k has been set aside toward an auditorium renovation. That set-aside expires in FY 2009 and is not enough money for the work that is needed. Pipier met with Peter Rowe to discuss using some of that money for a needs assessment (at a cost of about $150k). Mr. Rowe responded that the School Committee and the Superintendent must approve that expenditure before the needs assessment can begin. The hope is to schedule a meeting with Superintendent Lupini and the School Committee sub-committee that works on facility issues to gain the necessary approvals for this project.

Pipier suggested that there are "big picture" questions that should be answered, including the question of whether the school still works (from an architectural perspective) as it was intended to work when it was constructed in 1974; some parents and teachers have expressed that they very much like the uniqueness of the building, others are not happy with the design. Also, she questioned whether it makes sense to look at an auditorium renovation when the ceiling in the auditorium (and elsewhere in the building) leaks and there may be "big ticket" needs at the school such as new windows, a new roof, etc.

Pipier said that it is important that the school identify what it wants to happen as a big picture matter; the school will get slated for work when it speaks up about its needs.

Subcommittees

Council sub-committees convened.

November 2006 Minutes

November 2, 2006, 6 - 7:30 p.m.

In Attendance: Josh Frank, Patti Correa, Ana Maria Caballero, Gigi Wizowaty, Karen Victor, Sandra Levine, Nancy Springer, Jenna Goodearl, Pipier Smith-Mumford, Mindy Taylor, Cass Miller, Cherie Gaehde, Jamie Lyons, Pam Wolf

Review of minutes from last school council meeting

Dr. Lupini will offer day and evening trainings for school councils across the town. Pipier will forward information on dates of these sessions

MCAS: mixed results for Pierce:

Grades 3 and 4 did very well in English/Language Arts and Math; no students in warning category; high in both advanced and proficient categories in both English Language Arts and Math

We are looking at cohorts to look at improvement and decline

5th and 8th grades did not do well in science

Sarah Crane, statistician, is meeting with principals and vice principals and an outside trainer to help make sense of the data

We are looking at Baker, which does well in science on the MCAS, to share information on best practices; do they teach to the test?

Debate about teaching to the test or not

7th grade social studies test was heavy on geography which our kids haven’t had since 3rd and 4th grades

“Teaching to the test” would require a major realignment of our 6-8 grade social studies curriculum and hundreds of thousands of dollars

Reports from subcommittees:

Math subcommittee: Cass, Pam, Jenna, Patti, and Mindy

Grant activities to bring more money into the school

Increase communication about math to larger Pierce community

Home-School Communication: Karen, Cherie, Jamie, Sandra

Going to do a survey about how people in the school community want to hear from the community

Changes to the website-making changes quickly

Ingrid Lederman is working on changing the face of the website

Making it more interactive and logical

Identify which parents don’t use email

Technology subcommittee: Gigi, Jamie, and Ana Maria

Is our technology functioning well?

Do we have sufficient equipment

Are kids getting sufficient access to technology to be sufficiently prepared for the High School, particularly those kids who come from low-tech homes?

How do we decide what we need?

Met with Sandy Sicard, new Pierce technology guru; she has before and after school times that kids can come (under banner of homework club); this is mostly grades 5 and up, on a drop-in basis

Maybe offer a PSED enrichment class in keyboarding for entry-level keyboarders

Need to target some of these things to specific populations

Smart Board and 1 (of 3) laptop(s) are being moved over to the Primary Building for 7th and 8th graders to use

Tracy Bare bought a new program, Green Blobs, to use with her math students

The Pierce server needs replacing; we are at the top of the list; those using the system encounter problems accessing the internet frequently

There is a 5-year lifespan of computers prior to their becoming obsolete

Jamie Lyons has a computer in her classroom that is 6 years old and she’s due for a new one after 5 years

Enhancing Facilities: Pipier, Cass, Nancy

A meeting has been planned with School Committee members and Peter Rowe to plan for capital improvements to Pierce

We need an all town strategic plan; Runkle, Devotion, and Pierce are at the top of the list

A needs assessment needs to be done before any changes can be made

Devotion and Runkle believe that their needs are greater and more immediate than ours

There is a wall decorated with making learning visible to show the many ways in which we learn that are not MCAS driven

Next School Council meeting is Dec. 6 from 6 to 7:30 pm. There will be food.

Submitted by: Pam wolf, 11/20/06

Pierce School Council Meeting

Wed. Dec. 6, 2006 -- 6:00pm

Present:

Cherie Gaehde

Gigi Wizowaty

Karen Victor

Sandra Levine

AnaMaria Caballero

Nancy Springer

Pipier Smith Mumford

Patty Correa

Cass Miller

Pam Wolf

Mindy Taylor

Last months minute changes:

Tech Sub Committee: Gigi, Jamie and AnaMaria

Facility Committee: Pipier, Cass and Nancy Springer.

Changes approved.

IV: New Business:

Pipier: The budget process has begun. All of the principals are meeting to talk about staffing and program changes for the next year. On Dec. 14, Pipier will present our needs. She is looking at retiring teachers (7/8 grade science, and PE) and is considering co-teaching or other models.

On Jan. 25, Dr. Lupini will host an open forum meeting at Lawrence school for the Lawrence and Pierce School community.

Pipier was asked if she wanted input from the council.

Space is our biggest issue. We will have four first grades next year and it looks like we will have four kindergartens as well.

Ask about budget cuts, Pipier answered that was not known at this time. For now, we are just looking at needs.

III: Next Meeting Date: January 11, 2007. 7am.

V: School Council Meeting with Bill Lupini

Several comments both positive and negative were made. Some felt it was helpful as it laid out what the council is all about and what we should be doing. It will put all of the schools on an equal playing field. It will clarify what we need to do to prioritize our goals. What can be accomplished in a certain amount of time and what goals will take much longer to complete. The grid and text format will make the final report less wordy and more complete and easier to do. It will make us more effective. If the goals are laid out, it will be much easier for us to see and we can then decide on which goals we want to be working on.

Gigi and Cherie prepared same charts to share with the council focusing on Home/School Communication. They found that it was not so difficult to do.

Patty responded that the math action plan will be hard and take time to develop.

Some members felt that the process is overwhelming and more paperwork. All council members are volunteers and if the process is too difficult, diversity of the group will disappear as too much will be expected. Some commented that the principals are going to have to sacrifice in other areas if too much time is spent with this process.

The talk went on to the council’s goals. The new process makes it easier to see what our goals are. After the March meeting, council will put down what we think our goals are and begin to get input from staff and parents.

Cherie read over the Elements of a Goal worksheet on communication and Elements of an Action Plan. She explained that the process was not so bad and that following the worksheet made the goal a lot more clear and manageable. Some of the goals are on going and will be repeated every year. This will make the process a lot easier in future years.

The Technology group will need to understand what we have before we consider what other school have. Our goals can’t be met until we have our new server. Now we need to do the paperwork to get the server, but we can’t get the new server without the paperwork…

When asked what happens to the paperwork, Cherie explained that it will create a neat organized collection, rather than pages of text to read.

Facilities Group:

Cass reported that this group will be meeting on Monday, December 11, 2006 with Peter Rose to talk about Pierce. Questions will be about the capital Improvement Document. They will look into money that is being promised to other schools (Devotion $24M, Runkle $42M, Pierce $900K) to see if we can get some of that, or if that is final. Pierce needs to do an analysis costing $150K to see what we need.

Council members asked if it would be helpful to document issues with the building. We also need to consider new building in the district and its impact on the school’s numbers.

Home/School Communications group:

A survey with three simple questions for room parents to call all parents and get information has been prepared and will be delivered to room parents later this week. The questions will focus on how people want to get information about Pierce. It would act as a way for the room parents to welcome the parents and it would be great to do it every year.

A written survey will go home to all parents in the children’s folders. It will be a longer, about 10 questions and will focus on how parents get their information from Pierce and what kind of information they would like to receive. Currently only 100 people have joined the Pierce Post. Why is that? Are people looking for information in other ways?

Technology:

AnaMaria Caballero reported that she attended a conference with Sandra Sicard, our new technology teachers. There she learned about a lot of web sites that have free educational links that may be helpful for both families and teachers. There are a lot of materials out there to enhance our teaching. If teachers knew how easy it was, they would use it more often.

There was a little discussion about whether or not it was the best use of the teacher’s time. Pipier said that all teachers must use e-mail. Some teachers are more comfortable with technology and are willing to help others who are not. There are tutorials available to help learn also.

Math:

This group has had a meeting to gather information using a brainstorming process. Jenna filled in the group about the early grades. Tracy Barr will represent the upper grades. Parents are a little confused about what is going on in math. Perhaps blurbs in the Broadsheet and on the website would help. They would like to see Pierce as a school that “lives and breathes” math. Other schools have a math night, a math games library and a math piece on the website. We need to look into doing some of these things as well.

AnaMaria talked about the idea of doing “math backpacks” in the younger grades. Each class would have 2 packs that children could take home. The packs would have games and information to support curriculum. There was some excitement around this idea, but funds for these things are limited. Karen shared that we do math well at Pierce. We have a math league, summer math, a math word of the week and the math wall.

Meeting adjourned at 7:40.

Minutes recorded by Sandra Levine