IV.
Parent Association Updates
Holiday Fair will take place on December 8th,
9th, and 10th. The Fair will be set up in the
gymnasium on Monday the 7th.
The PA is sending 3 of the 4 2nd grade classes
to see Babes in Toyland on December 18th.
There are a few additional tickets. Parents
will be notified by December 2nd if they will
receive tickets.
There are 50 tickets to a weekend performance
of Things that Go Bang. This is performance is
suitable for grades PreK-1 and will be
performed at Hunter College.
The new school on Metropolitan Avenue, grades
6-12, will be zoned for all of District 28.
There are 250 seats for grades 9-12. Grades
9-12 are partially zoned for PS 144 and PS
101. The boundaries are Union Turnpike and
Austin Street. Some PS 101 families will not
be zoned for it. There are no principals
assigned to this school yet.
V.
Principal Update:
250 students were vaccinated successfully for
the H1N1 virus. There will be a second dose of
the nasal spray in early January. The new
playground “Out-to-Play” is underway. There
are 3D plans for the playground and equipment.
These will be depicted in posters that will be
up for the week of Holiday Concerts.
The new middle school, grades 5 and 6, will be
accepting applications. Magnet schools and
zoned schools will also being accepting
applications. Fifth graders can apply to
Russell Sage in April.
On Tuesday, December 8th, at 8AM, there will
be an ARIS workshop for parents. Over 400
parents still haven’t logged on yet.
The SLT minutes are up on the PS 101 website.
December newsletters will be up there soon. A
hard copy of the newsletter goes home. Parents
have stated that they would like an email in
addition to the website. The Parent
Coordinator can send out an email link, grade
by grade. The newsletters also have a link to
the PS 101 website.
VI.
CEP update
Title III, which is detailed on pages 34-41 on
the CEP, was approved.
Page 17:
Revisions:
Differentiation of instruction as seen through
supervisory walk-troughs and observations.
Review of teachers’ data collection;
conference notes; TC running records; On
Demand writing.
Page 18:
Revisions: Continue and expand monthly grade newsletters to be available on the school website and distributed through student backpacks.
Website needs to be advertised at PA meetings and at the Winter Concerts. We need to reinforce red folders at home and school. Students end up losing the newsletters and they don’t make it home, especially in grades 4 through 6. Email and websites can resolve this matter. In terms of the red folders, the school will look into getting more durable cardboard folders. The plastic folders allow papers to slip out, whereas the paper folders are not durable enough for the lower grade students.
Student planners can be sold for as little as $2.25 a student. The students seem to really like them. There are lower and upper grade versions. Teachers can use the planner as a means of communicating with the parents. If we keep it uniform throughout the grades, it will prove to be a valuable tool and easy for parents to follow. The early bird order is due in March for 25% off. 115 students ordered from grades 4th-6th. The planners can be customized for an additional cost. This can be a tool to strengthen home and school communication. Parents can sign planner. The planner won’t be included in the CEP until we are sure that we have the resources available. We may not need planners for grades K-1.
The PS 101 website is updated immediately by the webmaster, Marisol Catucci. SLT members suggested monitoring “unique hits” to see if new parents are beginning to view the website.
Page 19:
To further increase the number of teachers participating in Collaborative Inquiry Work-
There are many types of collaborative teams-grade level, special education inquiry team, ELL inquiry team, etc…
All teachers selected 3-5 students and assigned interim and long term goals. They will be looking at their practices to meet the needs of these students. These students were chosen from the lower third of the class population.
Two inquiry groups were selected last year and one the previous year. We are building the school’s capacity. Teachers are becoming more reflective about meeting the changing needs of diverse learners. Teachers have specific goals for the year. They looked at hard and soft data, spoke with colleagues for a common thread among these students, and determined what would be the next steps. They are working on something specific.
Every grade is involved with 3-5 students selected per class. Upper grades used Scantron. These 3-5 students will be the same for the whole year and parents are not involved. This is part of differentiation within the classroom. Whatever is learned by the study of a few students, will be generalized to the whole class. Children were chosen based on need.
The purpose is to bring attention to a discrete focus. In this way we can move students along. This type of differentiation occurs when the class is working in small groups. This is an effort to move the bottom third as per the DOE. All data looks at the bottom third and year-to-year progress. This doesn’t take away from the other groups of students who may be working on enrichment during these times.
VII. SLT Subcommittees
By the January 5th meeting we need final number of hours for subcommittee work. We will decide how we will schedule time for the subcommittees to meet. We may be able to designate a half hour of SLT meetings to subcommittee work. Each SLT member needs to be on one team. Subcommittee members will come with materials. On January 5th, any ideas for subcommittees will be shared. We can then work on scheduling more time. We will know how many hours we have by then.
VIII. Survey Updates:
For lower grades, the question referring to how often during the school year parents receive information about their children, has room to move. Clusters should get a parent directory to send home positive reinforcement. It would also be helpful for sending emails, good or bad.
In terms of the school report, letter grades will not affect anything in terms of our school budget. Schools receiving “A” letter grades do not need a Quality Review. We will have a Quality Review because of a change in administration. If a school is under-performing, then it will be closed. Failing schools are closed.
In terms of high expectations for children, goals should be a way to communicate these high expectations. Parents can’t really understand abstract goals. High expectations need to be advertised as highest potential.
There are very different understandings of high expectations. Even in terms of writing pieces, there are some differences in what teachers look for and what parents look for in their child’s writing. For example, teachers look for deeper meaning and content, while parents may be looking for correct usage of periods and capitals.
Parents expressed a huge interest in more frequent emails, weekly, bimonthly, monthly, etc… There were also requests for more information from the clusters. Some teachers do answer parent emails often.
Newsletters are considered informational and not a “true” form of back and forth communication.
IX. New Items
The new UFT president is trying to foster partnerships between parents, teachers, and the community. SLT members are the best people to foster these partnerships. The UFT president would like to form a community outreach team. Rhonda Corin already heads one team. The team should consist of 3-5 people to go to CEC meetings, PEP meetings, community board meetings, and merchant meetings. This way we can communicate our needs and issues and share information. Members could be from the parent community and teachers as well, SLT members, parent coordinator, etc..
Our district is the most under-represented by parents and teachers. Forest Hills Gardens wasn’t even in the running for the new high school. The PEP is making a lot of changes. If we don’t have adequate representation, it is considered as lack of interest and that lack of input is used to make decisions.
X. Agenda Items for Next Meeting:
1. Resume survey review- there will be a full report on upper and lower grades and details about the comments.
2. Workshops will be discussed at next meeting
3. Community Outreach Update
4. Time for subcommittee break-outs
XI. Miscellaneous items:
School website is being updated with information more often. Parents were emailed about after school, it was on the website, and hard copies were sent home. Every once in awhile after school sends notes home. There are reminders about cancellations and the PA will send a note wishing everyone a happy holiday. Notes usually go home on colored paper and there will be a Save the Date for the Photography Show.
Parents have asked teachers to post homework online. There is a teacher website that allows teachers to post homework but they charge a fee. Long term projects can be posted online but to update homework on a daily basis would be too much. DOE does not have a website to post homework.
Parents would like more frequent, and greater in-depth information about their child’s progress. Report cards and Parent Teacher Conferences are not frequent enough. Some schools have a low turn-out for Parent Teacher conferences and don’t give out a report card unless parents come into the school for a conference.
Parents and students are happy about the Math certificates and pencils. Character Awards should be brought back in some way but with some minor modifications. Maybe something can be done within the classroom. Some children never received an award and students that were in the middle population were lost. We should encourage good character traits throughout the school. The school currently gives purple checks for good behavior of classes. We will need to have a school discussion on character awards and rethink how they can be implemented.
XII. Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at 4:15 PM.
Minutes submitted by: Michelle Trinchese
November 17th Minutes approved by: Members of SLT
