Meeting+Minutes

· To connect children with an adult for all six years at PFE (6-K) · To build a small supportive community structure · To provide a forum for discussion about all school topics · To reach consensus about items relevant to whole school · To identify issues and topics that are of importance to everyone (Possible Statement) PARK FOREST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL “A kind, welcoming community of actively engaged civic-minded learners and leaders.” Theme for the school year Statement to describe our school Goals for the year
 * SMALL SCHOOL GATHERING** **Team Meeting** Monday, August 17, 2009
 * __Compelling Purposes__**

· We will all have kids K-6 assigned to us with a possibility of 12-14 kids assigned to each adult · Paraprofessionals are teacher support · Special Ed paras will be paired with their students · Relationships are built over their six years at the building · Take the toughest kids and divide them out first · Peer mentoring · May help with transitions from 2nd to 3rd grade, etc. · 35 adults (GROUP LEADERS) · Kids will come to our rooms · For the first year, we will all work on the same activities · Kindergartners - two kids from the same class together · A way to bring issues to the table for discussion in a small way · Small School suggestion box for potential or existing issues · 1 Small School Gathering per week and 3 All School Gathering per week · Provide possible lesson plans with flexibility · Possible students committee to help with Small School Gathering · Reassure adults that there are spaces available for meetings · 40-minute period for Small School Gathering (2:00-2:40) · Meetings will be on the last Tuesday of every month · 4th & 5th go and retrieve students from other classes in order to bring them · On September 21st, we will have our first School Meeting during which we will add Small School Meeting to the agenda so that we can discuss planning for our first SMM session. · Potential testimonials by Delta students regarding the benefit of “CLUMPS” or Small School. · Group Leaders will be partnered. · Opportunity to build bridges across divisions October 20th will be the first Small School Gathering November 17th December 15nd January 26th February 23rd March 30th April 27th May 25th June ? Final Tuesday of October is all-school Halloween parade · Group dynamics · Unknown meeting structure · Change · Some people do not work with 15 kids at a time · Different age groups · Strategically place paras with teachers · Separate siblings · Do not schedule field trips for Small School Tuesdays · Lesson plans are necessary if a teacher is not going to be at school
 * __About what will people be most apprehensive?__**

__Potential Lesson Ideas__ 1. Team Building Activities focusing on our five Lifelong Guidelines · Trust Walk

Present the idea Stop for Delta comments (t eacher, student, and parent perspectives) Return to presentation

** Small School Gathering ** ** Committee Meeting **** November 10, 2009 ** Topics to discuss at next week’s staff meeting: - Google Docs o __ Resources __ : Please provide add to the list of books/resources that you have (and are willing to share). If possible, include specific page numbers or relevant sections. o __ Lessons: __ Next week, we’d still like SSG to focus on community building. A compiled list of possible lessons for tomorrow’s small school gathering. This week’s citizenship theme is: //problem solving//. Feel free to use any of these ideas with your small school group § // Tools For Citizenship // : Chapter 24 (pgs. 24.1-24.12) · Read Aloud Ideas - page 24.10 · Lesson Ideas – page 24.6 and 24.7 - Graffiti Feedback o __ Faculty Room __ – teacher notes and feedback about SSG meetings § Example: Student response: “It’s good to be home” (when returned to homeroom from SSG) o __ Book __ – Each classroom teacher will be provided with a sheet of white paper. After our next SSG, please find 5-10 minutes to let students graffiti this paper with feedback from SSG. We’ll compile this into a book for the PSU researchers. § Note: This does not have to be directly following SSG… morning work is a possibility!

Other Notes: - Google Doc of bin ideas o Puzzles o Team building games o Jenga o Twister - Service learning o Teaching strategy o Students will naturally form into a team/community if working toward a common goal and rallying around a purpose

Date: 9-2-09 Event: Intro teacher meeting at PFE Observer: Dana Mitra

Small school gathering—an offspring of all school gathering Marion: In all of our classes we can identify children who are quiet but have something to say, who we’d like to get to know better. When our feet hit the floor we have a chance to make or break everyone’s day. We’re here to make a positive difference and make one life better. Here we go with our Small School gathering. You know them Compelling purposes: [GET THE rest from the Slides] · To connect children with an adult for all six years · To build a small supportive community structure To provide a forum…. OVERVIEW Three all school gatherings and one small school gathering once per month Once a month all professionals will meet with a group of about 15 students; paras will be strategically placed to provide teacher support Students will report to assigned teachers room or designated meeting spot Space issues: some of us don’t have a space for 15 people but I know there’s a corner or a hall to meet with children Hopes and goals: our hope is that we will all be group leaders acting as advisor, confidant and guide for students, peer mentoring, may help with transitions from 2 to 3 and 4-5 and5-6 Lessons: There will only be 8 times that we meet with small schools; You will be provided with lesson ideas and guides; Tools for Citizenship will act as framework; begin with community building; will address ideas and concerns Delta presentation: Cheryl Price, Amy, Braden Delta—we call our groups clumps, it’s part of the culture; we meet once a cycle, a 6 day cycle Everyone at Delta except the director and learning support teacher has a clump. Size varies. Half time has a smaller clump than FT. We think it’s important for everybody to have a clump. It’s a connection with students that you might not necessarily have otherwise. It gives you a small group for students that you can connect with in a different way than in a classroom. AS a guidance counselor it allows me to have a more personal relationship with a small group for students. Another thing with students is that it allows families to identify one adult that is their first point of contact. IF you have a question the advisor is the first person that you get in touch with. So those are a couple e of basic things that we do that we think are really important. We do parent meetings that you folks won’t be getting into but it’s that relationship building and you’re talking about doing it over six years. We have students from one to five or six years. Our students have a choice as their advisor after their first year. As high school students we give more freedom but then do develop that relationship. As an advisor it is an important way to connect students you don’t meet in the classroom. As a teacher it’s valuable because I f I have students doing well or poorly it’s another thing to address topics with advisor so it’s another way to access that student. As a parent it’s the first point of connection. You don’t know when the boundaries are as a parent in h.s., So the advisor acts as a sage like buffer for mediating with the parent. Student Emily: My advisor knows me really well to tell me what classed I should take. It’s a good relationship. Brandon: I've been part of both systems. Better to work with someone who knows your name. It’s easier for scheduling purposes. Marion: The focus of our clumps is not class selection but it’s the connection that we’re building with students. Interaction with one more adult that cares in their life. WE know that that sometimes is a pivotal point in a Childs life that someone truly cares about them. There are far too many students in our school who do not have a lot of adult and kind and caring support. Delta teacher: Our groups are all multiple age groups. Those student relationships are important too. That senior has been in the class s that the ninth grader has trouble with. Maybe that fifth grader know as first grade teacher and can help with that. It’s our job as adults to keep that conversation positive. But there’ san lot of learning that can go on with multiage groups. In any school not matter what the age group. It’s like the credit card commercial where you pay for a certain about thing but the experience is priceless. Not all of your relationships will be prices, but you do have those kids hat you connect with and you make a difference in their lives. Marion: Think about small school and questions you might have. Questions? No hands are raised.

Teri:: When you have someone who has difficulty with a teacher. Do they become an advocate with the teacher? Does the teacher receive it well? Delta counselor: We do a lot of conflict mediation. Very often we’ll get everyone together to talk about it. I think if you buy into this you’re not going to be defensive. Usually we’re fairly mature about it. There’s a reason. Even a personality conflict. So you can have that with a student. So the difficulty is when you have a conflict with your clumpers. Ito’s one thing to say you’re not doing your homework and another when you butt heads with the clumpers. Sometimes we change the clump and other times we stick it out and change at the end of the year. All kinds of mediation and efforts are made before a change needs to make. PF Teacher: Do the adults have a designated time to talk about what’s going on in the clumps? Delta: We have ea lot of meting time set up and after school to talk thought these things. And we case every student in the building so we get to know all the student s in the building and all the clumps. PFE: How do you choose children for particular clumps? Delta” Returning students pick. Otherwise we try to balance new versus returning and ages and number of students with periods, and male female e and it works better in some situations than the others. Starting out fresh you can balance those things starting out And we know kids coming in, we don’t want to put some together. And we try to spread out IEPs out as well PFE teacher: How large are your clumps? Delta: I have six. Because I will pick up the newer students. Largest is 18 and it varies from 10-12 to 16 for FT people. And it varies depending on the enrollment because we have the highest enrollment at Delta in my 17 years. PFE How many kids at Delta we have 150. PFE has 500 Delta: It really comes down to your relationships with students Donnan: one of the things I’m hoping that this becomes a great forum for is that this becomes a great forum for people to look at service learning activities that they can do throughout. We’ve got $10,000 that needs to be put into those activities. I’m hoping that becomes a place where we make those decisions made make those activities. Something that we commit ourselves to doing and it’s a great place to give kids a room to have voice. Delta: And your room is a great place to talk about things that are helping at school’s Cell phone policy, dress code, murals. Those discussions start in the small groups. The we took that to the all school meeting in the larger group to let everyone have a chance to say something. Student: It’s important that is’ not a homeroom for announcements. A lot of times when that happens it defeats the purpose of the clump. Just alienating students. We realized it was happening earlier and we decided we didn’t want that and we didn’t give announcements to clumps at all.

PFE I love the idea. My son was involved in small l school initiative as a junior last year. For my son it was He did a pay it forward. He came in early in the among. It impacted him in a positive way. Kind of like as elementary students we want to have an impact on the students. I’ve seen how well it works. I think it’s incredible not for us to connect with a small groups but for students to connect with each other. PFE: Unfortunately my son had the opposite experience It point to you as the adult make or break it for the kids. The person he had. I don’t know the person’s name and he didn’t either. The person did nothing. Once he said I’m supposed to bring in a can of food for advisory. It really just … Brenda’s son had a great experience and my child did not. Delta: you have to have adult buy in and you have to have a positive attitude. They’ll catch on quickly. Student: At the high school not all the teachers bought in so it didn’t work well. Others treated it as a homeroom. Debbie Patrick: I don’t think we can compare this to the high school. You can help someone not fall through the cracks. You get a chance to help someone. It’s very different for elementary than high school. I’m excited. [lots of applause after she Delta teacher: Change is hard, I embrace you for stepping up t o do that. [applause] Marion: Anya and Cheryl rearranged their meetings with parents and children to be with us so to all of them we say thank you. [Delta leaves] Marion: Grouping slides—our experience if we’re going to go at it. It will be a bit different because of the age level. We’re not going to be talk about course selection but we can talk about the issues of the schools. We’ll talk about lunch time and also talk about the connection between students and every year we talk about treating one another with respect and kindness and this would give another opportunity to teach these skills and to help children to get along with another. We’re teaching civic discourse and how e get along and the rules of humanity. Marion: Our student will be divided out. We’ll take the challenging children and spread them out. We did think that because kindergarteners are so young we will pair them two kids would be in the same clump. AS we move through school that doesn’t seem to be an issue but if you’re 5 that can help. We also talked about separating siblings. We will spread out siblings so that e3very child has a voice. [Dates proposed are still the same] Things to keep in mind: Think of scheduling around small school because we’re all important to this initiative. Lessons plans are necessary if teacher is not going to be at school. Possibility of partner classrooms. First lesson guides will be presented during staff meeting on September 21. Lesson plans are guidelines and you tweak as you see fit. It’s your time with the students. Questions? Florence: What do you mean by a partner classroom. If someone would be absent then possibly having a schedule partner classroom and 2 clumps. We hadn’t thought it through. If the possibility of getting two clumps together so they could work with the other teacher is an option. Cindy: How will the clumps be decided? Discussion of the names—bubbles is shouted out as an idea. Lot s of chatter around naming the groups Marion: The initial question was how will the bubbles or clumps be decided? We have kicked around the idea of taking those children that would be our challenges. Opportunities and spreading them out first and then spreading gout kindergarten partners and working clumps. No one will be dumped on. It’s an opportunity to make a positive difference. Florence: How will parents be notified? Marion: There’s a lot of things that happen in a school that happens without parent in out. I’m guessing that we as a faculty will create the bubbles or the clumps. There are chances for parents to help and explore. Florence: In Delta model thy chose. Marion: And I think that’s a difference in how an H.s. and an elementary works. In this point we’re taking beginning steps so for us we need the structure and who know sin the future but there will be information coming out. And important for parents to know and the purpose is for children to connect to one another and adults, PFE teacher: WE were talking about kids choosing. So our kids will go for the comfort level. WE won’t expand the adults I their lives if we choose teachers who they already know. Mel PFE: I debated what I was going to say but I am going to. One of the issues since it is elementary. One of the issues that concerns me. One of the issues of secondary is that it became a popularity contest with teachers at secondary level. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Delta. I taught at the high school not with small schools I personally feel this might be more successful. The popularity thing will not happen here. I keep thinking of the person who had 18. That’s a good size group! The nice thing here is that it is good that we assign the children and look at it that way. There were some other issues. We aren’t counselors We aren’t training with counselors. And that’s a good thing. That became a big issues with teachers at secondary. They were very uncomfortable with that. The third issue and I don’t think we’ll have that problem. In the morning. There were teachers who brought breakfast in. There was a food issue and that became a huge issue at secondary. I don’t think we’ll have that issue here at the end of the day. And so I debated and I don’t need to be negative. I’m trying to show you how this could work because I do think it can. Unfortunately I’ll be at another school. I wanted to share that with you. I think there are some interesting things that could happen. IT is going to be different than what Delta does and what happened at the high school. Marion: Any information that we have about the high school and the challenges can work to our advantages. Carrie: A resource with our district. Mel talked about comfort level. Primary may be comfortable but if you’re not used to having kids in front of you. All kids new to the district receive Children’s response to Conflict. And we have two facilitators in the building. So we could organizing a training for teachers who want to get more information on conflict resolution. Lisa: Also like Debbie I’m really excited about doing this too. Debbie stood up and shared her enthusiasm and excitement. The way the schedule works. In California I was used to recess a the same time. I got to see all the kids and to get o know them. I see all these other kids but because I don’t see them on a regular basis, it’s hard to put faces and names together. You’re dealing with so many and moving from table to table. …I’m looking forward to it…. PFE: Community building ideas for classrooms and for small school gathering. This is obvious the first year that we’re doing this and it will take time to iron out difficulties. We’ll keep suggestion box open to teachers, student and parents. Something you want to talk about—theme of that small school gathering, make those suggestion, we’ll keep in the main office. It will take time to iron things it. It’s not supposed to be something else to do. Donnan: At the first meeting we’ll choose the name for the groups and we’ll also create an all school theme. You can put ideas in the suggestion box. And Brenda has been pushing us to give ea mission statement for the school. Brenda? : We always talked about civic and service learning for the student sand environmental… Donnan: We hope you see the advantages in this. I think Marion’s done a wonderful job of presenting this. we’re not advising students. The kids will advise one another and help with transitions. We’ll be there as the rock that brings everybody together and helping set up those things. And if you’re apprehensive then talk to somebody else. We’ll give you lesson ideas centered around tools for citizenship. The group that goes out to Denver and learns from Service Learning we’ll share that with folks. All of you are such great teachers. Paras will be spread out. If we have students who is an opportunity we’ll have the para go with them. So the teacher you’re with in your bubble/clump. We’ll send them with the needs. Marilyn and I volunteered first to spread them out. Start with IEPS and then Kindy and then we plan to spread everyone out. IF anyone wants to b ea part of that process. It’s an overwhelming task to take 500 children.

Donnan: We plan to have discussion bout this as a school meeting. PFE teacher: and in between school meetings suggestion box and e-mail Patti PFE: To me that’s the most critical point is to meet and not have feedback is frustrating. Personally I think it is so value for us to grow as teachers. No one could have lived in my neighbors backyards without me telling on the second day. I’m talking about the kid being in the tent. We have to communicate and be in other people’s business in an appropriate and respectful way 5th grade teacher: Patti you touched on important aspect-t-his is about the kids. This is for the kids that are here. If that is our mantra then we know that is the appropriate way to building that community. Lisa PFE: I’m sorry if I’m effusively positive. In addition o suggestion box I think it’s important for you to talk about the positive experiences because they help to light the fires and help people to take a twist. We need to not only come with problems but share the wonderful things. Teacher: When I did class meetings with suggestion box. The troubles would be in the box I ended unchanging it to a good news box and it was amazing how it changed what they were looking for. PFE: Another idea was pods—Ipod, my pod, your pod. Marion: our expertise is connecting with kids and making a different with the kids and for the kids. This is what excites us, connecting with kids. Donnan: We’re creating this as we’re going. For those of you need that structure==sorry. That’s the gift of this is that we’re creating this as we’re going. This is an open palate for us to paint on. Part of my thinking. People like Patti and Sharon and Becky and Melanie. They see children K-5 and once a while kids will go back. And fifth graders don’t have the advantage of having a child K-5. They have an experience and I know all the kids over time but you don’t. You have them for was a snippit of their life. You have that snippit expanded. I see a lot of value in it. Patti talks about how she really knows those children.