Roland Park Elementary Middle School
School Family Council meeting
Monday, September 21, 2009, 4:00 p.m.-5:20 p.m.
In attendance: Carolyn Cole, Ms. Rivetti, Debbie Claiborne, Bob Heck, Sharon Pula, Rob Rubenson, Bob Friedman, Beth Farrow, Scott Summer, Nick D’Ambrosio, Maxine Brooks, Lori Paine, Sandy Fink, Melina Turtle, Susan English, Mia Clapp, Karen DeCamp and Maudestine Godsey, the Goucher College representative who is responsible for several student teachers in the building.
–Ms. Cole brought the meeting to order at 4:00. Ms. Cole stated that after today, the SFC will put the agenda for the next meeting together as a committee. Ms. Cole also noted that in the past, Georgia Woerner has chaired the SIT meetings, the predecessor to the SFC. Ms. Woerner was unable to attend today’s meeting. Ms. Cole asked those in attendance to introduce themselves and tell a bit about themselves.
–Ms. Cole indicated that Roland Park Elementary Middle School has a new representative from the Office of Family and Community, to replace Luke Dillon. His name is Lionel Foster. Karen DeCamp has worked with Mr. Foster, who used to be a writer from the Urbanite. It was suggested that we invite Mr. Foster to our next SFC meeting, and all agreed that this would be a very good idea. It was also discussed that it might be very helpful to have Michael Sarbanes, who heads the Office of Family and Community for Baltimore City Schools, at our next or a future meeting.
–Ms. Cole explained that. by the next meeting. there will be a School Improvement Plan to discuss. The current draft of the Roland Park Elementary Middle School Improvement Plan is in the hands of the Network. As background, Ms. Cole explained that there are 14 networks in Baltimore City. RPEMS belongs to Network 7. Dr. Jenetta Smith has our School Improvement Plan. The School Improvement Plan contains the principles by which the school is governed. It includes topics such as attendance, climate (student behavior, etc.), curriculum and instruction (and subcommittees). The goal is to continue to improve student achievement in our building.
–Ms. Cole brought up one idea to improve our school—Julia Punch’s idea of a vegetable garden. This would be a way to work with the city to improve our cafeteria. Over the summer, Title 1 schools were given help with using fresh vegetables in the cafeteria—we would like to do this too.
–Bob Heck gave a report from the Baltimore City School Board. First, the School Board is looking at the Student Code of Behavior. They are examining expulsions. This is an issue that is in the newspaper today. Bob Heck welcomes comments at robertheck@earthlink.net
Second, Bob noted that the Baltimore City dropout rate is the lowest it has ever been, 6.7%. Almost 1,000 more high school graduates last year than the year before. (960) (62.9% is our high school graduation rate) Next year every student will have a student number so we can really see how many kids are dropping out.
Third, two years ago, 13% of dollars went into schools; now 70% of the money is going into schools.
Fourth, Bob discussed the impact of the federal stimulus package for the Baltimore City School System. Baltimore City Public Schools will get $120 million over the next two years. The city is planning to build a new school at Lexington Terrace; will be K-12 or 6-12.
Fifth, Roland Park is on the stimulus list for new boilers, which Mr. Sharrow has been requesting for a number of years.
Sharon Pula asked whether stimulus money is generally to be used for deferred improvements and maintenance, which led to Bob’s sixth point—some funds have recently gone into a major improvement, expanded pre-k—every child in the city gets pre-k. Children who are zoned for Roland Park will go somewhere else, as there is no room in the building for a pre-k.
Seventh, since September 2, 2009, the Baltimore City Public School System has added about 2,000 new students. We now have about 84,000 where the number was recently around 81,000. Some may be coming from Catholic and Public Schools.
Eighth—the city is redoing all of its IT and record-keeping. There will be one system, so teachers and administrators can access information more efficiently.
–Karen DeCamp asked whether Roland Park would be getting a new roof. Bob Heck indicated that that decision would be made by the State IAC (Inter-agency Committee).
Ninth—Bob stated that this meeting today is very important to Dr. Alonso, because he has replaced SIT teams throughout the city with the School Family Councils. Dr. Alonso really wants this to work.
–Ms. Cole asked Karen DeCamp to speak about what she sees as goals for the group. Karen said she had not prepared any topics for this evening, but some goals that she would like to see happen are:
- an identification of sub-committees to meet under the Council
- a process for electing a chair of the Council
- a process for putting items on the agenda
- a process for distributing the Council’s agenda ahead of time
- a procedure for distributing minutes.
- a procedure for determining meeting times—i.e. sometimes meet later in the evening
–Karen asked whether we are all really invested in this as a group.
–Lori Paine asked how much of the group’s functioning is dictated by North Avenue. She was referred to the Policy and Administrative Regulations which is on the RPEMS website.
–For next meeting, all on the School Family Council should read the Family Engagement Plan and the Goals which are on the Website, and for the next meeting, we will have the School Improvement Plan
–Bob Friedman said that he would like to see minutes available to parents. He wants to see the committee be more responsive to parent concerns and to have consistent answers. For example, last year, there was a fairly large group of parents concerned with homogeneous grouping. Parents want to know how has the issue been addressed in each grade. Susan English explained her understanding, which was confirmed by RPEMS administration, that grades below the 5th grade are homogenously grouped according to reading level. In Fourth grade, it was discussed that the teachers made the decision not to re-group according to achievement in math, making the determination that the time lost in regrouping was the problem. The decision was made to take the topic off the table to a sub-group to meet next Monday, or at another convenient time.
–Another participant noted that last year there was discussion of teaching of Reproductive Health. This may be an issue to revisit.
–Susan English reported that the SIT Team last year broke off into focus groups which was very helpful. Some of the focus groups were Instruction, Grouping, Subject Areas, etc. The SFC also will deal with better communication with parents.
–Mr. D’Ambrosio noted that over the summer there was a sub-group that met this summer and drafted a 1 page document called the “School-Family Compact,” which is a one page document that sets forth the responsibilities of the school, family and student.
–Scott Summer said that previously, when he was Secretary of the SIT, he met with IT individuals and sent the minutes to Mari Satterlee, who posted them. The policy that we all draft will say what we need to do and report. There is precedent for getting minutes posted as a draft copy. Community members should be informed that they can email concerns to SFC parents (Lori, Bob and Sandy) by emailing sfc@rolandparkpublic.org
–With respect to the minutes, Lori Paine expressed an opinion that the format be action-oriented—i.e. we discussed an issue and this is what is going to now be done.
–Sandy Fink asked whether there were consistent RPEMS faculty and administration members of the School Family Council (SFC). Ms. Cole indicated that generally a representative from each grade is present; if not the team leader, then a designate. Also, there are generally a representative from the counselors, and the arts, such as music or drama.
–Mia Clapp noted that for next meeting people should look at the Family Engagement Policy and the Regulations that are posted on the website. And, the school improvement plan will be available for review. She noted that the policy addresses issues such as how parents should be informed about the academic process and calls for parents to give teachers a workshop.
–Mr. D’Ambrosio suggested that the SFC form a subcommittee on Educational Research to inform different topics.
–Mr. D’Ambrosio offered to draft a school needs assessment in order to give a beginning point for the drafting a new School Needs Assessment.
–Some issues for our next agenda:
- Determine who will chair the SFC meetings
- Invite Lionel Foster to be at our next meeting (Ms. Cole will do this)
- Discuss the Family Engagement Policy and Regulations that are posted on the website
- Begin to draft a School Needs Assessment
- Discuss a process for forming committees or focus groups