PA Meeting November Minutes
Tuesday, 24 November 2009 12:47
Lisa Desimone
Attendees:
Barbara L |
Jane F |
|
|
Casey |
Gail |
|
|
Rochelle |
Beth |
|
|
Lisa d S |
Elizabeth
J |
|
|
Ray |
Oscar |
|
|
Melanie |
Jocelyn |
|
|
Corinna |
Tanya |
|
|
Maria |
Tina |
|
|
Eileen |
Courtney |
|
|
Scott |
Ritu |
|
|
Marco |
Kathleen |
|
|
Amy |
Elizabeth
T |
|
|
Randall |
Sarah |
|
|
Tsering |
Anna L |
|
|
Desmond |
Alison |
|
|
Lawrence |
|
|
|
ITEM |
REMARKS |
COMMENTS |
Co-events
Coordinator Report |
· Kathleen
and Sarah (Co-Treasurer) gave a Fall Fair update: in spite of rain date costs
and re-location, the fair was a great success financially as well as a
community-building event and the children were well-contained in the
alternative location close to Ave B. The fair raised $9,401 and crafts raised
$1,015 separately, to surpass the budgeted goal of $9,000. New Initiatives
were successful and will be continued next year; sponsorship raised $1,000,
advance sales raised $500 which supplied cash to defray set-up costs, and the
farmer’s market sold out. Kathleen and Lisa did a great job coordinating this
and will be holding a “post-mortem” Fall Fair meeting to
discuss what worked and how to improve for next year. Any suggestions can be
addressed to Kathleen at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or Lisa at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
CEC
Report |
· Corinna
(
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) gave an
update on the Community Education Council and announced that a meeting would
be held that evening at PS20 (Houston/Essex) at 6pm that promises to be
intense. The main topic of discussion was to be the idea of a charter middle
school, Girl’s Prep that they were trying to start up in District 1 in spite
of the fact that we have enough public middle schools that are
undersubscribed. The fear is that this school would pull students from
existing middle schools, and their educational philosophy and admission
criteria are widely different from public schools in the area. They have more
funding from public and private sectors and do not adhere to the same
constraints of public schools, so can offer smaller class sizes and other
attractive features. The Ross Academy, a charter school in our neighborhood
on East 11th Street, has already gained students from PS64 and this could open up space in
the building, which makes us vulnerable to Department of Education
intervention and appropriation of class rooms. Tompkins Square Middle School,
in our building, was formed with the help of the 2 former principals of The
Earth School and Neighborhood School and has similar educational
philosophies. It would be preferable to develop and improve existing middle
schools than introduce an unnecessary new charter school. |
|
Political
Advocacy Report |
Beth (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
)
gave a pre-K admissions update. The Dept of Education took over admissions to
Kindergarten last year, which resulted in some Pre-K students being denied
admission to Kindergarten. This problem was brought to Senator Daniel
Squadron’s attention when he attended last month’s PA meeting and he is
supportive of our need to have a smooth transition between these grades.
Alison spoke to the DOE and was told that the policy would be reversed in our
favor, but probably not until 2011. Beth suggested a phone and e-mail
campaign to petition Senator Squadron’s office and will be following up with
information that will be disseminated to the school community through class
parents, who will be asked to maintain a head count of who has contacted him. |
|
Community
Outreach |
· Jocelyn,
the parent coordinator, has been contacting the local Head Start programs,
nurseries and pre-schools in an effort to maintain and increase the ethnic
and socio-economic diversity of the school so that it truly reflects the
neighborhood. She has made up flyers in English and Spanish and has conducted
meetings to explain that The Earth School is a public elementary school of
choice and to advertise tour dates. She needs help dispersing these flyers to
local churches and community centers and to the housing projects on Avenue C
and D. The school website has tour dates, but this form of communication is
selective in itself as it requires ownership or access to a computer. Please
contact Jocelyn at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
if you can help distribute flyers or know of potential places to target. |
|
Principal’s
Report |
· Alison
wanted to address the Special Education situation at The Earth School. When
the school first started 18 years ago, there was no program for special needs
(occupational therapy, speech and physical therapy) and it was handled
in-house and PS64, which did have funding, was also able to help with some
students. Eventually the school got funding and a more structured approach
was developed; when there are concerns about a particular student, they are
addressed by teachers and parents and interventions are practiced. If the
problem persists, the child is formally tested and an Individual Education
Plan is developed. The ideal situation would be Collaborative Team Teaching
(CTT) in which a class is formed with 2 adults, a general teacher and a
special education teacher, and the special needs students are kept in general
classrooms. PS64 has one of these for each grade, and The Earth School
applied for this but did not get it due to lack of funding. Instead, about 5
years ago, a self-contained Special Education K/1 class (Naho’s) was formed
with 12 students (who were new to the school and whose parents had not
toured), who have a wide variety of issues, that can range from learning
delays to emotional problems. Philosophically this is not ideal as it creates
an isolated class where the students join the general school population on
few occasions. These students are now in 4/5 grade and about to enter middle
school, and in addition to any learning or emotional problems, are now
pre-pubescent with all the issues that accompany this. The school now has 2
special needs classes serving K-5th grade, and the students are
evaluated periodically so that they can be placed back into the general
school population. The concern is that as they apply for middle school, if
they have not yet been mainstreamed they may end up continuing to be placed
in Special Education classes.
· Alison
brought in a consultant from Bank Street and together they decided to plan to
break up the older Special Needs class and bring the students into the
general classrooms for parts of the day, yet also spend time together in
their own classrooms with their teaching staff. Some students are doing well,
and others not so much, but they are being constantly evaluated and their
status being revised.
· Alison
has asked the PA to fund the cost of this consultant at $200 a month, until
the end of the calendar year. A motion was made to approve payment, seconded
and the vote was unanimous |
|
Upcoming
Events |
· Craft
sale in the lobby Thursday Nov 19 at dismissal and Friday Nov 20 at drop off
and early dismissal. Baked goods contributions are welcome. A special order
form will go out shortly to order crafts and there will be 2 more sales
before the end of the year. Contact Barbara at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
for more info.
· Gods
Love We Deliver Race. Luke /ES has raised $2,500 for the race which takes
place Sunday November 22 at the band shell in Central Park at 9:45am This
charity prepares and delivers meals to AIDS patients.
· Rooftop
Garden Committee Meeting Friday 11/20 at 7:45am in Abbe’s Room B1 This will
be followed by a Green Committee meeting. |
|
Next
Meeting |
· Wednesday
December 16th at 8:30am. Location to be announced |
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 04 January 2010 10:34 )
SLT NOVEMBER Minutes
Tuesday, 24 November 2009 12:39
Lisa Desimone
In attendance:
Alison Hazut, Patrice Lorenz, Lisa Desimone,
Jessica Smith, Suzanne Budesa, Laura Frisk, Dyanthe Spielberg, Scott Perez, Loam Disher, Karen Megla
I. Principal's Report (including building maintenance)
A. Building work (including asbestos and mold removal and
auditorium renovation): Every two weeks there has been a meeting with
the other schools and the building people. There has also been
discussions with the monitoring agency. It is important to get the
auditorium stage finished first, even before the seats, so the dance
program can get started. There has been a lot of coordinating to get
the construction workers in building so they can do particular jobs
when children aren't here. It has felt like there are new supervisors
for the construction every time Alison has met with them so it feels
like there is no follow through.
B. The issue of the school entrances and parents coming into the lobby
and signing in have been resolved. Parents are still leaving by the
closest doors, sometimes leaving by doors that have alarms. There is
tension in the building between schools and the leaving by exits other
than the Earth School entrance may lead to our parental access getting
revoked. If some people monitor the doors, such as other parents, and
remind parents not to go out those doors it may resolve the issue.
Alison is going to meet with Loam to arrange for this. It will also be
mentioned at the PA meeting.
C. There was an email from Joel
Klein to principals. It stated that the city has ended social
promotion in grades 6, 8 and 4. It wants to use test scores to promote
children. This was never used for fourth grade, but now the school has
to worry about it. This shows that the city is not trusting teachers,
schools and parents to know when children should be promoted and
instead they are leaving it to a four day test. The fourth grade test
is harder than the fifth grade test. We don't have money for summer
school and parents and children think that if they don't pass the test
they won't get promoted. The Earth School will do a testing night and
talk about our philosophy about testing and the use of portfolios.
There should also be advocacy from the school such as writing letters.
II. Staff Report
A. The staff has been spending time
getting ready for the Quality Review on grade level teams. They have
been looking at planning documents and making them accessible to to
QR. The staff is also sharing what assessments tools they use on an
ongoing basis. They have also been looking at how the standards fit
into our curriculum.
B. The 4/5s are preparing for camp. They are getting chaperones, finalizing the classes, and making packing lists.
C. There were family/teacher conferences last week.
D. The staff has also been continuing to do professional development on differentiating curriculum.
E. The support team has been meeting with teachers to talk about
students they have questions about. A variety of teachers on the
support team talk about the students and see how to proceed with a
child. They have been putting together groups of students that work on
activities and topics like gardening, cooking, art and math.
F.
On election day the staff went to the Brooklyn New School and joined
with other schools in our network. Each school led two workshops and
teachers got to pick a workshop to go to. The Earth School led a
workshop directed to paras and one about our support team work.
III. PA report
A. Parent participation is at an all time high. There is a range of new and old parents at meetings.
B. The PA needs a Title I representatives to go to twice monthly meetings.
C. Alison spoke at the PA meeting about the special education
consultant and it was approved that the PA would pay for that. The
special education practices that the school is putting into action
support the goal of the school.
D. There was a question about
how the PA is communicating with the school. Is it too much? The
consensus was that it seems to be less than last year. There was a
suggestion that if something needs to be posted, could the hard copy be
put in our box?
E. Abbe did a wonderful presentation for the parents about her curriculum.
F. Children and staff raised $2500 for the God's Love We Deliver race that will be held on Sunday.
G. $9000 after expenses was raised from the Fall Fair.
IV. CEP (Comprehensive Education Plan)
A. Every year the school has to do this. It is an 80 page state
document that is supposed to detail the school's educational plan. It
is to be done by the SLT. It says what the goals are and what the plans
are of the school. Last year it went well and Alison shared the work
of it with others. This year it was due quickly. Alison submitted it
as a draft. Alison has to make principal's goals every year and so
she rewrote them for the CEP.
Demographics are put in and are from another data source.
The
CEP asks for a needs assessment: what are the school's strengths, what
are areas of issue. We can talk about budget cuts and that we are at
risk of being reduced. We can talk about what the city cut from our
budget.
The CEP asks for three goals. They want measurable goals. The goals for this year are:
1. A support team description and what it will accomplish this year.
Action plan: meeting regularly, reflecting and assessing
2. The school will look at how we are going to differentiate for all learners in our classroom.
Action plan: The professional development the staff does and how they use it.
Resources: Teachers use afterschool hours that aren't paid for.
(should write that we don't have the funding to support this goal so it is done after hours)
3. Testing and test scores: Some children who did not make
progress on tests, especially in the special ed class. So goal three
will be focusing on our mainstreaming of the special ed
class.
Action plan: Pursuing CCT classes, the special ed consultant that was hired,
Resources: The PA is paying for that.
There
was question about if there is any follow up. The principal is
accountable for this. It goes into Alison's principal grade.
CEP appendix:
It
is very similar to last year. It asks for the number of at risk
periods. Alison looked at Carole and Tina's schedules to see which
children who get services and don't have IEPs. It asks for the
programs that we use to support children.
There is an ELL
section. We have 8 children in this and there is a huge amount of
paperwork. There is a lot of state law around what they need provided
for them.
There is a Title I section that has to be filled out.
There is a parent involvement policy. 1% of Title I money needs to be
set aside for parent involvement. That would be $1871. There are
guidelines available on the website. This is assuming there are
targeted Title I children. The school decided it would use the money
for school wide decisions. How does this impact us? Alison will email
the SLT about what we want to do so that it can approved. Some ideas:
maybe doing workshops for Title I parents. There were some suggestions
from the city? on how to spend the money
but they did not seem that helpful. Could there be computers in the PA
room to give the parents access to the internet? The money could also
be put towards staffing the library at arrival and dismissal so parents
could check out books with their children. Michael could give a
tutorial on computer literacy for parents. Could the school give
computers that are no longer being used to families that need them.
The school could also give parents access to a typing program. The
school should offer these services to all parents and not target
certain parents. Jocelyn can be used for outreach.
It was asked
if Alison could use this 1% for translators and then use the
translation money in the budget for something else. Some things can't
be changed in the budget and one of those things is the translation
money.
We need to prove we have the curriculum and resources that we need.
The goals make sense because that is what we are doing right now. They are all related to the school philosphy.
V. Follow-up to community outreach for getting new students
A. It was brought up at the PA meeting but it didn't seem much came of
it. Jocelyn reported that she was posting signs at nursery schools and
daycares. Lisa found a few people that could possibly go out to the
community but there doesn't seem to be much progress. Ideas: Maybe
some people don't know that the Earth School is a public school.
Should there be outreach at the playgrounds? The PA could host an
evening where Earth School families bring a friend. The best bet may
be Jocelyn reaching out to daycares. The diversity of the second
school tour was unknown. Alison and Lisa will meet with the parents
who volunteered to do outreach. Maybe do a little marketing such as
giving people something like key chain or something for their children
with the Earth School name. Maybe reusable bags? It is advertising
and promotes our mission. Put the Earth school sign at door again?
VI. Confirming SLT jobs
--Personnel: Loam, Dyanthe, Scott, Karen
--Secretary: (rotating) Karen and Jessica
--Chair: (two rotating chairs) Jessica and Laura
--Annual Town Meeting : Loam, Suzanne, Melanie
--School Picnic: Jocelyn, Melanie
--Quality Review/CEP: Lisa, Jessica, Patrice, Suzanne, Laura
VII. SLT Information Meeting about the Budget
A. The only fluid part of the budget is the per diem, per session and
OTPS. The budget comes too late to present to the SLT. Overall, the
SLT does not have much say over the budget.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 November 2009 12:41 )
|
November PA Meeting Minutes
Monday, 23 November 2009 11:59
Lisa Desimone
Attendees:
Barbara L |
Jane F |
|
|
Casey |
Gail |
|
|
Rochelle |
Beth |
|
|
Lisa d S |
Elizabeth
J |
|
|
Ray |
Oscar |
|
|
Melanie |
Jocelyn |
|
|
Corinna |
Tanya |
|
|
Maria |
Tina |
|
|
Eileen |
Courtney |
|
|
Scott |
Ritu |
|
|
Marco |
Kathleen |
|
|
Amy |
Elizabeth
T |
|
|
Randall |
Sarah |
|
|
Tsering |
Anna L |
|
|
Desmond |
Alison |
|
|
Lawrence |
|
|
|
ITEM |
REMARKS |
COMMENTS |
Co-events
Coordinator Report |
· Kathleen
and Sarah (Co-Treasurer) gave a Fall Fair update: in spite of rain date costs
and re-location, the fair was a great success financially as well as a
community-building event and the children were well-contained in the
alternative location close to Ave B. The fair raised $9,401 and crafts raised
$1,015 separately, to surpass the budgeted goal of $9,000. New Initiatives
were successful and will be continued next year; sponsorship raised $1,000,
advance sales raised $500 which supplied cash to defray set-up costs, and the
farmer’s market sold out. Kathleen and Lisa did a great job coordinating this
and will be holding a “post-mortem” Fall Fair meeting to
discuss what worked and how to improve for next year. Any suggestions can be
addressed to Kathleen at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or Lisa at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
CEC
Report |
· Corinna
(
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) gave an
update on the Community Education Council and announced that a meeting would
be held that evening at PS20 (Houston/Essex) at 6pm that promises to be
intense. The main topic of discussion was to be the idea of a charter middle
school, Girl’s Prep that they were trying to start up in District 1 in spite
of the fact that we have enough public middle schools that are
undersubscribed. The fear is that this school would pull students from
existing middle schools, and their educational philosophy and admission
criteria are widely different from public schools in the area. They have more
funding from public and private sectors and do not adhere to the same
constraints of public schools, so can offer smaller class sizes and other
attractive features. The Ross Academy, a charter school in our neighborhood
on East 11th Street, has already gained students from PS64 and this could open up space in
the building, which makes us vulnerable to Department of Education
intervention and appropriation of class rooms. Tompkins Square Middle School,
in our building, was formed with the help of the 2 former principals of The
Earth School and Neighborhood School and has similar educational
philosophies. It would be preferable to develop and improve existing middle
schools than introduce an unnecessary new charter school. |
|
Political
Advocacy Report |
Beth (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
)
gave a pre-K admissions update. The Dept of Education took over admissions to
Kindergarten last year, which resulted in some Pre-K students being denied
admission to Kindergarten. This problem was brought to Senator Daniel
Squadron’s attention when he attended last month’s PA meeting and he is
supportive of our need to have a smooth transition between these grades.
Alison spoke to the DOE and was told that the policy would be reversed in our
favor, but probably not until 2011. Beth suggested a phone and e-mail
campaign to petition Senator Squadron’s office and will be following up with
information that will be disseminated to the school community through class
parents, who will be asked to maintain a head count of who has contacted him. |
|
Community
Outreach |
· Jocelyn,
the parent coordinator, has been contacting the local Head Start programs,
nurseries and pre-schools in an effort to maintain and increase the ethnic
and socio-economic diversity of the school so that it truly reflects the
neighborhood. She has made up flyers in English and Spanish and has conducted
meetings to explain that The Earth School is a public elementary school of
choice and to advertise tour dates. She needs help dispersing these flyers to
local churches and community centers and to the housing projects on Avenue C
and D. The school website has tour dates, but this form of communication is
selective in itself as it requires ownership or access to a computer. Please
contact Jocelyn at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
if you can help distribute flyers or know of potential places to target. |
|
Principal’s
Report |
· Alison
wanted to address the Special Education situation at The Earth School. When
the school first started 18 years ago, there was no program for special needs
(occupational therapy, speech and physical therapy) and it was handled
in-house and PS64, which did have funding, was also able to help with some
students. Eventually the school got funding and a more structured approach
was developed; when there are concerns about a particular student, they are
addressed by teachers and parents and interventions are practiced. If the
problem persists, the child is formally tested and an Individual Education
Plan is developed. The ideal situation would be Collaborative Team Teaching
(CTT) in which a class is formed with 2 adults, a general teacher and a
special education teacher, and the special needs students are kept in general
classrooms. PS64 has one of these for each grade, and The Earth School
applied for this but did not get it due to lack of funding. Instead, about 5
years ago, a self-contained Special Education K/1 class (Naho’s) was formed
with 12 students (who were new to the school and whose parents had not
toured), who have a wide variety of issues, that can range from learning
delays to emotional problems. Philosophically this is not ideal as it creates
an isolated class where the students join the general school population on
few occasions. These students are now in 4/5 grade and about to enter middle
school, and in addition to any learning or emotional problems, are now
pre-pubescent with all the issues that accompany this. The school now has 2
special needs classes serving K-5th grade, and the students are
evaluated periodically so that they can be placed back into the general
school population. The concern is that as they apply for middle school, if
they have not yet been mainstreamed they may end up continuing to be placed
in Special Education classes.
· Alison
brought in a consultant from Bank Street and together they decided to plan to
break up the older Special Needs class and bring the students into the
general classrooms for parts of the day, yet also spend time together in
their own classrooms with their teaching staff. Some students are doing well,
and others not so much, but they are being constantly evaluated and their
status being revised.
· Alison
has asked the PA to fund the cost of this consultant at $200 a month, until
the end of the calendar year. A motion was made to approve payment, seconded
and the vote was unanimous |
|
Upcoming
Events |
· Craft
sale in the lobby Thursday Nov 19 at dismissal and Friday Nov 20 at drop off
and early dismissal. Baked goods contributions are welcome. A special order
form will go out shortly to order crafts and there will be 2 more sales
before the end of the year. Contact Barbara at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
for more info.
· Gods
Love We Deliver Race. Luke /ES has raised $2,500 for the race which takes
place Sunday November 22 at the band shell in Central Park at 9:45am This
charity prepares and delivers meals to AIDS patients.
· Rooftop
Garden Committee Meeting Friday 11/20 at 7:45am in Abbe’s Room B1 This will
be followed by a Green Committee meeting. |
|
Next
Meeting |
· Wednesday
December 16th at 8:30am. Location to be announced |
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 04 January 2010 10:31 )
Rooftop Mtg. November Notes
Monday, 23 November 2009 11:42
Lisa Desimone
Fifth Street Farm
Rooftop Garden Meeting
November 20, 2009
Notes
Present:
Abbe Futterman (tchr/ES), Fred Levrat (prnt/TSMS), Michael Arad
(prnt/ES), Doug Fountain (prnt/TSMS), Peter Sloan (prnt/Neighborhood
School), Richard Brennan (prnt/ES), Carole Scott (tchr/ES), Eileen
Doster (prnt/ES/TSMS) , Erica Zimetbaum (tchr/ES), Brooke Gassel (tchr/64/ES)
Michael’s Report
Much of the work going on the last few months
has taken place outside of the school: working on the re-design,
getting estimates, meeting with SCA, etc. The new design allows for the
project to be expanded in phases. Michael received a cost estimate from
Sciame, a contracting firm that is interested in the job AND is
approved by the SCA, and the first phase came in within our current
budget ($500,000). A meeting with the School Construction Authority and
Stantec, the engineer firm, is scheduled for Dec. 1st. He has also been
working on scheduling time for the engineers to come and take core
samples from the roof slab to confirm its strength.
Michael hopes that we could complete the first phase of the farm next summer.
Next Steps
We
all agreed that it is very important that we keep excitement for the
project through outreach and publicity. We generated ideas for next
steps of fundraising, outreach, and publicity.
• Networking with other schools: School of the Future, I-School, Neighborhood School, schools with rooftop gardens
•
FaceBook & Google Group Presence: Brooke will coordinate; please
send her links, articles, etc. to post. Involve TSMS students on this?
• Curriculum Projects with students
• Bulletin Boards/Posters: Eileen will coordinate
• Fundraiser in the spring: Michael will speak to Kathleen and Lisa for ideas
• Job Postings on FaceBook/Google Group for vacant positions such as Fundraiser, CPA, Graphic Designer
• New Brochure incorporating new design with text from last year’s: Michael will coordinate with Rachel
• Write, post, and distribute meeting notes: Abbe will draft; Brooke will post and distribute to school’s listservs, staff.
|
ESPA
