Parent Advisory
Committee
Review from 2/5/13 Meeting
The first thing I’d like to say is Kudos to The Lobbestael
PTC for all their hard work and commitment to supporting the children, teachers
and parents of Lobbestael. I spoke with
a mom from another school’s PTC at the meeting last night and they have only
2-3 people attend their meetings and have a lack of parent involvement. So, hat’s off to all of you for your
dedication!
Title 1 (31A
Funds)
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Title 1 is a federal education supplemental
resource (student specific) which is allocated per school based on need of
reduced/low income. The goal is to
provide additional funds to schools/children to assist in funding for such
things as: additional teachers, parent involvement plans, staff development,
early interventions programs, materials (ipads/technology) and
paraprofessionals.
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To receive funds, each school must provide a
plan to incorporate and have it reviewed annually.
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Lobbestael is not a Title 1 school
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Within the last 5 years Lanse Creuse ‘Free/Reduced’
or low income has increased from 18% to 35%.
Review of previous
meeting’s Foundations vs. Bridges
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See attached two documents. There are five advisory committee’s (Parent,
Student, Teacher, support services and community feedback) that participated in
identifying strengths and weaknesses within the district. By reviewing you can see the commonalities
across the board.
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Top Strength/foundations are found in the middle
color coded block for the Parent Advisory Group.
o
Top Strength varied but included facilities
buses, parent portal, great teachers, quality programs etc.
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Top weakness/bridge can be found in the 2nd
page which is also color coded for the Parent Advisory Group.
o
Top Weakness was class size.
§
The group had a long discussion on this issue.
The district knows this is a problem but it is not easily fixed. For example, average class size is 35
students by taking one child out of each class would incur approx.. $350k in
additional funding, by taking 5 children (which is really what we would need)
the additional funding raises to approx.. 1.7 million. The district is losing funds constantly due
to various laws and proposals being passed (proposal 1 stopped ability to hire
new teachers, cannot use millage for it, required money to go to technology etc.).
Budget
Talk (the next meeting is all about Budget, this was a small portion and was
discussed due to our discussions of district weaknesses)
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District receives $7,398 per child
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Last year the largest revenue loss was due to
the district losing 238 children of these 117 children lost in the K-12 and the
remainder in the Alternative School. It
was explained that the alternative schools enrollment requirements were not
strict enough and after reviewing the successfulness of these students the
district has updated their Alternative School enrollment requirements to avoid
issues like this in the future.
Curriculum Changes
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The new Common Core Curriculum is being followed
by almost all states. First to be
implemented will be English and Math followed by Science and Social Studies.
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The goal of this new curriculum is to simplify
the curriculum overall. This allows less
requirements so teachers can get in depth on more important topics. Issues rose in the past because there were so
many requirements; teachers were not able to dive into subjects like they
needed.
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Other top rated countries utilizing common core
include Finland and New Zealand
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Next year will be the last MEEPS testing and
will be replaced with Smarter Balance Testing.
Go to www.smarterbalance.org
to learn more about it. It is very
different, what is tested, how it’s tested etc.
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New curriculum and testing will be a challenge
but they are cautiously optimistic
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Mrs. Polega, please give us an update on how the
pilot programs in Lobbestael are doing.
AP vs. Duel
Enrollment Classes
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At the high school level parents are frustrated
in knowing how to advise their own children whether they should take AP or Duel
Enrollment classes because of colleges not accepting credits.
A college night
will be held on April 18th at 6:30pm in the Pankow Center. There will be 100 colleges represented. This will be a great forum for any high
school student to learn more about this.
Food and Nutrition
– Tanya Nofs
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This took the discussion back to a unanimous
weakness of longer elementary lunches.
One of the main causes of these short lunches which include recess is
due to the union contracts which allow teachers 30 minute lunches which
translate to the children getting 30 minutes.
Obviously the younger children need more assistance getting food,
opening containers etc. and by the time this happens their 10 minutes are
up. A main concern is that we are not
teaching our children to have a positive relationship with food.
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Again, this is a challenge and there are no easy
answers, by extending lunches etc. would mean pulling time from other required
programs and/or extending the school day which directly impacts the need for
additional buses etc.
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It was stated, it is much better for the
students to have Recess first than lunch but classes need to rotate through the
cafeteria which requires some to eat first than recess.
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Ms. Nofs discussed the changes in federal
requirements implemented via the current administration. These requirements do not fit the true
nutritional needs of students.
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If anyone would like more information regarding
this, I can get more data for you.
Superintendent
CHALLENGE
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It’s easy to complain and to point out issues,
bridges etc. She is challenging us to
help turn district talk from negative to positive. Check out the Facebook Page and see positive
stories. Get the word out to other
parents to start talking in the community about the positives going on in the
district, approx. 35% of the community has children in school so the only way
to get the word out to those not directly impacted is to talk up how great we
are!
Parent CHALLENGE
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Teachers need more recognition. Currently, many budget changes, curriculum
changes and many other challenges can cause moral to decrease. It was suggested that we do our best to send
a note or do something to show them they make a difference…even as a simple
verbal thanks.
o
Suggestion – when the PTC puts on the teacher
appreciation lunch…prior, send out note to parents asking to write a story or a
thank you to a particular teacher/support staff etc. which would be distributed
at this time. These messages could also
be posted on the district FB page.
