The Meeting convened at 6:10 pm.

Present:  John Boutet, Dan DeMarle, John Laing, Deb Leary, Bill Nichthauser, Jay Ross, Jon Schull

Review of School Situations:  After the introductions a copy of the Update on Schools 10, 16 and 44 and on SW Education Committee and 1... was distributed and reviewed.  Discussion followed concerning the planned closing of School 44.  Of four schools in the 19th Ward, 44 has the smallest lot and is at the most dangerous traffic intersection for young students.  It would also need extensive renovations.  The students currently there will stay at least through the 2013-2014 school year.  Students will then probably be bussed elsewhere and the District will use the building for swing space for other school renovations until 2020 when the building will close.  It is hard to argue against closing that particular building, but there is still a need for a neighborhood school in that area.

There are 565 RCSD students in the School 44 feeder pattern.  74 of them attend School 44 and the others are bussed.  John Laing found out that School 44 has a disproportionate number of English-as-a-second-language students.  This has contributed to 44's test score problem which is another factor cited for closing it.  

It is difficult to know what the charter school impact will be on the public school enrollment in this area.  To provide a "neighborhood school" in this area, public or charter, a new building would need to be constructed on a larger lot north of the current Building 44.  There are some industrial properties that might be used to avoid demolishing many homes.  Industrial land however, frequently has contamination problems that would need to be addressed.

The relative performance of charter and public schools was discussed.  So far the performance of charter schools overall in Rochester has not been dramatically better than public schools.  There have been good ones and bad ones.  Several have had to close.  Jon Schull pointed out that a new company created by Joe Klein is looking at bringing to Rochester experienced organizations which have managed successful charter schools in California.  Check out:  http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/a-surge-of-charters... .

Continuing role of SW Education Committee:  Earlier this year the SW Education Committee recommended the 19WCA Schools Committee be reactivated to serve as the vehicle for establishing "Community Accredited Schools" in the 19th Ward.  John Laing has been chosen to Chair that committee.  John has finished selecting the 19th Ward resident members for the Schools Committee.  They will have their fist meeting next week.  They are almost all past members of the SW Education Committee.  

The continuing role of the SW Education committee will be:

1. Work with the other SW Quadrant neighborhood groups to strengthen their involvement with their schools.
2. Provide an open forum for the discussion of school issues in the SW quadrant.  Any individual involved or interested in our SW schools is welcome.  Information will be relayed to the appropriate neighborhood groups.

Recruitment and use of volunteers in our schools:  At Square Fair we had a "Location19/SW Education/19WCA Schools Committee" table where we reviewed what we have achieved and invited visitors to volunteer to work in our schools.  We succeeded in recruiting 12 volunteers.  Willie Lightfoot offered to place recruitment material and a sign-up sheet in his barbershop to connect with more volunteers.  We will also look at placing recruitment information in other neighborhood businesses and churches.

Contact has been made with the Center for Community Health and the Thurston Road YMCA to investigate providing exercise programs in our schools.  These could serve as after-school activities and also possibly be a way to get parents and neighborhood residents involved in the schools.  The more people come into the schools the more likely they can get involved as volunteers.

On-line tutoring:  Jon Schull offered to provide opportunities for volunteers working with children to test virtual tutoring software that his group at RIT has been developing as part of http://knowledgecraftprojects.com.  This would allow volunteers to connect with students remotely using computer video conferencing and would give them access to various online teaching resources to help the student.  At this point Jon would be interested in trying a small pilot program with maybe a half dozen participants to shake down the system.  This could be a good opportunity for finding more ways to get people involved with our students.  This might be of particular interest with School 16 because it is currently across town at Freddie Thomas.

He suggested we check out the Kazooroo module in KnowledgeCraft and also mentioned using www.KhanAcademy.org.  I just looked at it and this is great!  Be sure to check out KhanAcademy and in particular watch the video in https://www.khanacademy.org/#mission-statement .  

This is an absolute must-see!

The direct link to the video on YouTube is :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gM95HHI...

School Pages: Dan DeMarle has been working hard publicizing positive things going on in SW neighborhoods by posting comments, pictures and videos on Facebook and Location19. He suggested that it could be helpful for us to provide an easy to locate online page for each school in the neighborhood that would let people easily get familiar with each of the school. All this information is on the RCSD and other websites but is not always easy for people to find.

The meeting adjourned at 7:30pm.

The next SW Education Committee meeting will be Tuesday, July 2, 2013. Time and location TBD.

Minutes submitted by John Boutet