Meeting Minutes - November 8, 2007

Nashwaaksis Middle School
PSSC Committee Meeting
November 8, 2007

Members Present
Mitch Claybourn – Chair
Lori MacMullen – Secretary
Karen MacLean
Tracy Allen
Lisa Rousseau
Tina Brewer

Members Absent
Susan Knorr
Theresa Pyke
Deanna Stewart-McGarry
Heather Touchie-Blakely – Teacher Rep

Ex-Officio Members:
Alan Atkins – Principal
Glenda Saint – School Performance Coach

DEC Representative:
Bill Corby (Regrets)

Guests:

7:00 – 7:05 Welcome and Introductions

7:05 – 7:10 Approval of Agenda
Approval of Minutes

Moved by Tracy Allen
Seconded by Tina Brewer

7:10 – 7:30 Action Items from Previous Meeting

ACTION ITEM - Alan – to provide a schedule of when the committee can expect to receive assessment results, TTFM, any other input we will get etc in order to include the discussion as agenda topics in the appropriate months.

RESPONSE: TTFM will be undertaken in groups – 1/3 before Christmas, 1/3 in the winter and 1/3 in the spring. This will provide easier administration, provide a snapshot of what is happening at the school at certain points in the year and allow the administration to better utilize the information and address areas of concern throughout the year.

Alan provided the results of the Grade 8 math assessment from June 2007 indicating that this information is being assessed by the Math teachers and will be used to develop strategies to address any areas of concern or areas targeted for improvement.

ACTION ITEM: Jeff, Mitch and Tracy to coordinate the delivery of the program for Target for early November.

RESPONSE: An information session on the 1 on 1 program was delivered by Jeff Whipple, and hosted by the Administration on Nov 1 with PSSC support. Approximately 12 -15 parents attended. The session was video taped and will be made available on the website.

ACTION ITEM: Lori & Lisa will work with Jeff to develop a safe computing program based on the information from the district and the other programs. It was recommended that this session be scheduled for January in conjunction with the planned session for students.

ACTION ITEM: The material provided by the District will be sent to the committee.

Follow up discussion from last meeting: Scheduling of parent teacher interviews and how the time can be better utilized.

Thursday evening interviews are slotted for teachers requesting interviews with Friday being allocated for parents to either request an interview during the first ½ of the morning or drop in during the latter ½ hour of the morning. The scheduling of parent teacher interviews has been discussed over the past three years. Teachers continue to work to accommodate parents as much as possible and parents continue to be encouraged to request meeting times with teachers at anytime during the year – not just at report card time.

After significant discussion, the Committee concluded that the question may be one of how to support a more proactive, welcoming approach for parents to make contact with and communicate with teachers not just around report cards but throughout the year? It was noted that many teams and teachers are using prep time (individual and team) to plan for and make contact with parents as there is currently no formal allocation in the teaching day for parent contact time beyond the formal parent teacher interviews as determined by District.

Items deferred from October:

• Posting of homework – To address the inconsistency within the school, the PSSC recommends that NMS develop a policy to require teachers to post homework regularly and consistently. The use of email as a prime communications process should also be established and communicated as policy to teachers and students.

It was noted that this issue would be addressed as part of the overall “communication with parents” discussion under the school improvement plan item scheduled for November.

School wide activities, clubs, etc. – what is available for students? Parents are not always aware of what is available, etc. and therefore cannot support or encourage their children’s participation Can we develop a list/schedule of the various options to provide to parents.

Alan provided a verbal list of the various activities available to students at NMS.

ACTION ITEM: A complete list will be documented and posted to the web site as an information item for parents.

• Connecting PSSC to the issues being discussed/addressed by the Admin team – as members of the PSSC, we are often approached by other parents with question or requesting information on a variety of issues including security activities, academic activities, etc. It was suggested that the PSSC members be cc’ed on Alan’s regular updates (via email) to staff. What are the issues, implications? What is the recommended action?

ACTION ITEM: Alan will add Mitch to the electronic weekly administrative communiqué for review and distribution to PSSC members as appropriate.

7:30 – 7:35 Announcements

• PSSC Information Session & Orientation – November 13, 2007

7:35 – 7:50 Principal’s Report

• Interim reports were sent out in October. They are now provided in a standard format for all grades and classes.

• Curriculum delivery days for both district and school based curriculum. School curriculum delivery day will focus on cross grade curricular discussions, teamwork principles, positive discipline, etc. It was noted that a communiqué to parents with respect to how the school curriculum day would be used to support teaching and learning would be very beneficial and would provide parents a better understanding of how these days are utilized.

ACTION ITEM: Alan to compile a “did you know” type communiqué on the subject of school curriculum days, what they are used for and the benefit the provide to both the teachers and the students. This information will be provided to parents via the blog and voice mail.

• Curtains have now been removed from the field house. New curtains are on order and hoped to be delivered over the Christmas break. Scheduling of activities for both NMS and other users of the facility (and therefore revenue) has been negatively impacted as a result of the delay in replacing the curtains.

• The school dance was attended by an estimated 500 students. Security was provided by a private company (significantly less cost than the city police). It was noted that there were many parents at the dance as well. Mitch provided the music as well making announcements throughout the evening relating to activities, etc. at school (sports team placement, etc.).

• Student Parent Perception Survey: The surveys were sent earlier this year and this may impact the results especially for grade 6 parents and new to the school parents.

ACTION ITEM: Alan will look into the possibility of a later send out date next year however there may be implications for the data being available for use by the school in a timely manner.

• The Remembrance Day Assembly will be held tomorrow – November 9. Due to the nature of the event it will be held in the theatre by grade level.
•
The Fireman’s Challenge will be held on November 22nd. Parents are welcome.

• Glenda provided a copy of the results of both the internal and external review process,

• It was noted that there have been an increase in the number of fires around the school, increased drug use etc. with a focus on the wooded area in front of the school.

ACTION ITEM: Mitch will draft a letter to the District and/or City indicating that the Committee is concerned about these events and would like to request that a program such as “Reduce Crime by Environmental Design” be undertaken for the school property.

7:50 – 8:20 Other Agenda Items

• The Provincial Education Strategy – Discussion with respect to the overall strategy and where we might be able to take advantage of new programs or initiatives to support the school improvement plan and our priorities.

ACTION ITEM: Committee members were asked to review the provincial education strategy prior to the next meeting as context for our discussions on the school improvement plan. Please see http://www.gnb.ca/0000/kidsfirst-e.asp.

• Enrichment Programs: What programs are available to students – both from the school and the district? We need an inventory of the programs available – along with the criteria. There are also other areas where “enriched” programs are available within the curriculum, starting in the classroom. The selection and support of enrichment programs should also be reviewed within the school improvement plan priorities. Discussion with respect to extra curricular activities versus academic enrichment would also be very helpful for this item.

Discussion: District enrichment programs are limited to selected students – if parents feel that students require or would benefit from these programs they should be directed to discuss the issue with their child’s teacher and Alan as appropriate.

It was also noted that there are a variety of enrichment activities offered both within the classroom by teachers as well as outside the classroom.

• Educational Based Fairs Is there a way to identify the various district driven fairs and expos in order to target the ones we want NMS to participate in?
• Science Fair (April) – Looking at possibility of participating this year.
• Heritage Fair – Jonathon Carrier has agreed to coordinate this.

8:20 – 8:30 Other Business

City of Fredericton is developing a youth services website and is asking for input from groups, communities, etc. with respect to what is available for youth in the city. Mitch to provide URL.

Fredkids.com will be hosting a family learning series in November – see www.fredkid.com.

Youth Blast will be starting up again this week. It runs from 8 – 10:15: 1 hour in the gym, 1 hour in the pool – every Saturday night – organized and drop-in activities. Supervised. $2 for the individual events or $4 for both.

Discussion of the School Improvement Plan was deferred to December.

Introduction of School Improvement Plan – the plan is being updated by the Admin team to reflect the results of the review process undertaken during the last school year (Note: Good material has been provided in the district orientation session relating to the School Improvement Plan and the role of the PSSC.) The discussion at PSSC will focus on the items we are directly involved with or play a role in supporting.