Here are the meeting notes as a Word file:  Meeting Notes SWCC Education Committee December 5, 2013.doc

SW Common Council Education Committee

At Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School No. 19

465 Seward Street

Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Meeting convened at 6:44 pm.

Present: John Boutet, Marian Boutet, Margaret Brazwell, Robin Dettman, Bill Nichthauser, Bruce Pollock, Annie Pride , Eva Thomas, Ron Till

Introductions

New attendees:

• Dr. Margaret Brazwell is in her 4^th year as Assistant Principal at School 19, She had been at East High School for 10 years then Charlotte for 1 year before switching to Elementary at School 19. Before getting into education she worked in industry as chemist.

• Eva Thomas, Principal of School 19, has lived in the neighborhood near the school for 46 years. She attended School 19 as a child then latter taught at School 19 for 8 years. She was then promoted to Assistant principal at School 8 where she served for a year until budget cuts forced her out. She was then called back by Dr Vargas to be Principal at 19. This is her 3rd years in that position.

• Ron Till is a retired RIT professor in engineering technology, taught in RCSD before RIT, is currently a consultant with Nazareth working with Schools 9 and 19 in area of STEM. He put in a hydroponics system at 19.

Discussion of FREE, School Partnerships and School Overview A video of this part of the meeting can be found at:   http://youtu.be/3XO8l1zWkPc

• Bruce Pollock, the founder of FREE (FRiends of Educational Excellence) described the volunteer program to Eva Thomas. He gave her a summary of the program and mentioned that as of December 4^th FREE had just added 3 schools in the 19^th Ward (16, 29 and 44) to the number of community/school partnerships they support. In all they supply 275 volunteers. He pointed out that Free could support a community/school partnership at School 19 if they have a community partner. Eva said they have several: The Gandhi Institute, the Methodist Church, U of R, Nazareth..

• Bill Nichthauser reviewed his year of volunteer work at 19 working with the music teacher in 2010. He found it very rewarding. School was K-6 then. Is K-8 now.

• Principal Eva Thomas gave an overview of the school:

  • School 19 was a neighborhood school but when the charter schools started coming in the district decided to give more “choice” and busing options were increased. Now 62% of students are bussed. The rest are from the neighborhood. The Principal and involved parents would very much like to have the school go back to a neighborhood school. Parent involvement has suffered from the busing.

  • School 19 has 90 staff members including 2 administrators, 42 classroom teachers, 9 special subject teachers, 10 support teachers.

  • The school has a dress code requiring uniform clothing.

  • K-6 students come in through exit 7 and middle school students through 8. Students are all scanned. Cell phones are collected.

  • They work with Flint Street Rec Center and work closely with Annie Pride and do extra curricular activities..

  • They partner with Foodlink which does the hot meals for the students.

  • They very much want increase their parent involvement. They combine PTO meeting followed by children concerts to encourage parent participation.

  • School is fund raising for for a trip to Washington DC. Cost is $300 per student.

  • Need volunteers to help kids get in and out for recess.

  • Need coats for their students. They have given out all they have. Need reading students for K-2 students. Also need volunteers in lunch rooms.

• Bruce pollock asked why School 19 math scores, which had been very good, plummeted two years ago.  Their ranking which for many years was no.1 then 3^rd, suddenly dropped to 33^rd. It was caused by budget cuts. They lost 12 very good teachers including 4 African American men who many of the boys looked up to. These teachers got bumped by other teachers who had more seniority. Valuable relationships were destroyed. There was much discussion about the value of continuity and maintaining relationships. For many students from unstable backgrounds the school is a needed safe and stable place but these staff upheavals are a disaster. It takes years to recover.

Coming event – There will be a Holiday Concert on December 19 at 6:00pm. All are welcome.

School Tour -The group then went on a tour of the School 19 building which has three floors. It is built into the hillside and the building is much larger than it looks from the Seward Street. It is actually in quite good condition but is slated for significant renovations. In part this is because the additional needs the addition of 7 & 8^th grades put the building.

The meeting adjourned at 8:41 pm.

Minutes submitted John Boutet

Past meeting minutes can be found in www.Location19.org in the SW Education Forum located at http://www.location19.org/group/sw-education-forum