Minutes from Parents as Partners

Parents as Partners, Thursday May 6, 2010

Attendance:Kelley Charland, Laurie Singer, Gail O’Connell, Sharon Sturm, Laura Cunningham Firkey, Mary Lou Lord, Julie Mueller, Laurie Lavallee, Woody Martel

Laurie Singer:

• Algebra seminar: Targeting free/reduced lunch students to lessen the gap and open it up to more students. Ensuring support toward success with a goal of 10% of the group taking algebra eligible for free/reduced, doubling the current five percent.
• Staff leadership sharing – how to get families more involved, empowerment for teachers to make more decisions about what happens at ADL. Staff will look at decisions that were made over the last year and evaluate how many had input from staff, from families, and work on raising the bar for next year.
• Differentiated Instruction/Curriculum goals for next year include formative assessment (as opposed to evaluative assessment)– figuring out during a unit of study whether students are mastering the topic rather than waiting until the end. Exit cards can give teachers on-the-spot feedback in terms of who needs practice on what. A group will work with a consultant, every teacher here will have a chance to work with him over the next three years. The consultant is a teacher at Colchester High School. He works in class as well as outside of class.
• Standards-based assessing will lead to standards-based grading. Fleming, Hiawatha, and Summit are moving to standards-based grading next year. Standards skills are broken into a rubric with specific feedback for each student for each skill. This leads to clarity in objectives for families – what is the student learning in class and how is the student doing? Skill days built into the schedule so that students can work on specific skills. Education around this system will happen with students and parents to explain, show what it looks like. Possibly run a side-by-side system for the first semester with both grading systems displayed. Less emphasis on number/letter grades (e.g. honor roll, etc,)– effort/participation/improvement may gain significance. Probably in the first year of implementation it would happen just in 6^th grade, then 6^th and 7^th, then fully, since lower grades will be used to the system.

Environmental: Wellness coordinator is using surveys and data to develop programs. How do students get released from education plans? The goal should be that students move out of the need for this kind of support.

Gail O’Connell:
Financial report: Unchanged from last meeting. Update in June.

Upcoming Events:

• Teacher Appreciation week: May 3-7
• 8^th grade science NECAPs: May 12-13
• Last dance: May 14
• Incoming 6^th grader night: May 19 at 6:30pm
• Spring concert: May 27
• Memorial Day assembly 8-9 with bbq lunch 11-12:30: May 28
• Last Parents as Partners meeting with Principal’s school report: June 3
• 8^th Grade Sleepover: June 4 8pm to 7am
• Spaghetti Dinner: June 9
• Last day of school: June 16

The musical: Great! Very ambitious. 50 students participated. The director did amazing amounts of much-appreciated work.

Book fair: We didn’t do as well as last time. We needed $1800 to get cash, but only got around $1600, so we got $969 in book credits instead. Charlee is burnt out on organizing these, so we need a new coordinator. The fall fair generally coincides with conferences to get parents. We did better this year in the spring, but we generally do better in the fall. We may scale back from two fairs and just do one in November.

ADL’s Got Talent happened the Friday before vacation and just after the musical. It went really well with less participation than last year but good variety. A bagpiper, a soloist, and a unicyclist were among the acts, and about $300 was raised for Relay.

There will be a bake sale after school on May 14, the day of the last dance to raise money for Relay.

The Washington DC trip went well. They brought home the same 49 students that went down. The weather was good with overnight bus rides on either end. Mr. G’s pedometer registered about 42 miles of walking over the trip. Woody and Laurie had a good time chaperoning. There’s a new sign for the bottle box. Bottle drive proceeds go for spending money, all other fundraisers go toward the cost of the trip.

8^th grade sleepover and Memorial Day bbq volunteers were recruited. 8^th grade end-of-year activities include a baby picture match-up for students who want to bring in a picture. Pictures should include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. The Spaghetti dinner will be followed by a dance. The boat trip happens on Graduation day. Promotion Night: 8^th grade parents go in and help decorate first, 6^th and 7^th grade parents serve at the event. The stars will have calligraphy-font labels and photos.

Promotion Night: 6^th and 7^th grade parents work on set-up, serving, and clean-up. Punch is mixed up while ceremony happens. Gail and Kelley will work on that.

Snacks for NECAP testing – water and a granola bar work well. 110 students. Costco shoppers will drop stuff off with Barb before the testing.

Snack cart as of Tuesday was kind of low and could use drinks, Sun Chips, Pretzels, no Nutrigrains. Hard granola bars are ok. Costco person can also pick up stuff for Snack Cart and the dance.

Step-up day on the last day of school when 5^th graders will be here for the full day.

Gail will be facilitator for next year. Kelley Charland will step up for the following year.

Staff appreciation week is going wonderfully. Still to come: coffee/desserts and goodies.

8^th graders on the last day: practice for promotion night, go on the boat trip, Promotion night starts at 6:30, the dance runs 8-11.