SWCC Education Committee Minutes for Wednesday May 21, 2014 Meeting at the Flint Street Community Center

Here is a .doc file of these minutes if you need it: Meeting Notes SWCC Education Committee May 21, 2014.doc

SW Common Council Education Committee

At the Flint Street Community Center

271 Flint Street

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The Meeting convened at 6:40 pm.

Participants: John Boutet (19^th Ward Resident, SWCC Education Committee Chair, Location19.org manager), Jeremy Coleman (19^th Ward Resident), Robin Dettman (Education and Business Organization Development Consultant, on Board of Baobab Cultural Center, works w/ JOSANA Safety Net for School 17), Cecilia Golden (Currently is Executive Director of Education at Hillside, Formally a RCSD teacher, principal, reading supervisor and finally the Chief Academic Officer for the District, 19^th Ward Resident), Bruce Pollock (Director of FREE - FRiends of Educational Excelence), Alison Skvarla (Music Teacher, Vision Quest), Erick Stephens (19^th Ward Resident, Parent Engagement Coordinator, Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency (FLSA)), Ron Till (Retired RIT Prof, Consults w/ Nazareth School of Education Volunteer at Sch19 and 9, Prosper Rochester)

Vision Quest Update, Teacher-Led School Assessment, Rochester Teacher Center - Race sensitivity training - Alison Skvarla

Teacher Alison Skvarla gave a quick overview o the objectives of Vision Quest for the benefit of those who had not attended previous presentations then addressed questions that had been brought up at previous meeting including the presentation to Dr. Vargas on 4/21, to this committee on 4/30 and to the 19WCA Schools Committee on 5/6. These questions include wanting more details on the governance model of the school, methods for ensuring accountability for performance, possible EPO's (educational partnership organization) , information on the effectiveness of other teacher-led schools in the country, questions on student recruitment and selection. This is the link to the Vision Quest Community School Proposal Draft - May 2014 update.

Vision Quest has scheduled a meeting with Caterina Leone Mannino, Executive Director of the Office of School Innovation, for May 29th and are trying to schedule a meeting with Adam Urbanski. The objectives are to get assistance in working out details for school governance, finances, and working out methods for assessing performance and accountability.

The interaction Vision Quest has had with RIT was reviewed. They had met with the Dean of the College of Sciences last June and gotten a letter of intent from them to work with Vision Quest. RIT students who do 4 years in of science in RIT then a year of science education at Nazareth have been found to need more hands on working with elementary students and would be an asset to Vision Quest. Ron Till suggested Alison also connect with with the RIT WE (Women in Engineering) Program. The program cuts across many of the college silos and probably has the broader focus that Vision Quest is looking for.

Alison reviewed the “Resources on Teacher-Led Schools” she had put together at our request. The advantages of having the school administrator keep a foot in the classroom by doing a small amount of teaching each week was discussed. Ron Till pointed out that this model imitates higher ed considerably where having shared governance is used and where department chairs are expected to teach at least one class. “That model works at universities all over the country.” Robin Dettman also reviewed how at Monroe Middle School had develop a process where teachers could come up with a program proposal and make a presentation to the school based planning team for evaluation. That worked well for improving the educational program and keeping teachers involved.

At the last SWCC Education Meeting we had asked Alison to look into the possibility of having Education Committee take advantage of the Race in Education training at the Rochester Teacher Center. Alison has contacted Dr. Susan Goodwin at the Rochester Teachers Center and she is willing to put some training together for us.

There was significant discussion of the selection process and the mandatory parent involvement requirement. Cecelia Golden pointed out that getting other adults involved with a student as a mentor can be just as effective as parental involvement. We need to be creative at promoting extended family members and friends at getting involved with the student and the school.

All of the above and much more can be viewed in the video: http://youtu.be/wxv9m7AXHp0

FRiends of Educational Excellence (FREE) Partnerships Update & Need for Volunteer Recruitment - http://freepartnerships.org/ – Bruce Pollock

FRiends of Educational Excellence Partnerships is a 501c3 and has an MOA with the School District. FREE tries to provide volunteers in the classroom to help support teachers to give more attention to students who need it. It is completely up to the teacher as to how many if any available volunteers they want and how to use them. They can use the volunteers to provide more intervention with students who meed more one-on-one time with an adult or they can use them to help provide differentiated instruction where the teacher can divide the class into groups so that they can work at different levels with the different groups.

The goal of FREE is to recruit enough volunteers so that each teachers can provide at least one more hour a week of additional one-on-one interaction for each Level 2 (yellow) rated student in their classroom. Most volunteers are best qualified to work with Level 2 students but if they are they are capable they can work with Level 1 (red) students. Look at the graphic: FREE Partnership Schools: 2013 ELA Results

Based on the Level 2 criteria Free needs about 65 more volunteers to work in the five FREE Partnership Schools in the Southwest Quadrant. Last year John Laing, the 19WCA Schools Committee chair, approached Bruce and offered to have the 19WCA partner with FREE to support schools 16, 29 and 44 in the 19^th Ward. School 10 also in the 19^th Ward already had a partnership with The Rochester Engineering Society and FREE.

As of April, in School 4 there are 23 volunteers providing 54 hrs of support a week and they need 10 more volunteers. In School 10 there were 12 volunteers providing 46 hrs per week and they need 3 more volunteers. In School 16 they need 15 more. In 29 they need 6 more. In school 44 they need 34 more volunteers. These number of course do not reflect that most of the schools have a lot more Level 1 (red) students than they do Level 2.

Bruce said he is always looking for volunteers and is also looking for a volunteer to work with him at reaching out to local organizations to recruit volunteers. Jeremy Coleman volunteered. Bruce also asked for suggestions for recruitment opportunities. The 19 Ward Square Fair and the Square Parade were suggested as were other 19WCA events such as the Citizen & Merchant of the Year Banquette and the 19WCA Convention. Contacting people through Location19 was suggested and several churches and community organizations were suggested.

The following is a video of the presentation: http://youtu.be/4vWuerNQ2LA

Walking School Bus Update – Erick Stephens

Eric works for Finger Lake Health Systems Agency and is involved with 8 schools receiving funding from the Greater Rochester Health Foundation. The 4 schools near or in the SW are Schools 2, 10, 19, 12. They are struggling to find adult volunteers to walk with the kids for the Save Walk to School program. They are trying to start with a one Wednesday per month walk effort for Schools 2, 10 and 19.

They did a Bike Rodeo at Schools 2, 10 and 19 this spring and also purchased bike racks for all three schools. A big obstacle to the kids biking to school is that the schools are not neighborhood schools so only a few of the kids are from the school neighborhoods. The question was raised as to whether School 17 in in the program since they are trying to be a neighborhood school. They are not. Erick encouraged all schools to apply for grants to participate in the program. It is a $350,00 grant over 3 years and can pay for all sorts of equipment for exercise. Eric suggested contacting Heidi F. Burke at http://www.thegrhf.org/about/staff/ to apply.

This winter they did a school route walk-ability assessment for 2, 10 and 19. Many problem were recorded for poor school traffic signage, speeding and lack of respect for school crossing guards.

The video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttr-xn7mtqI

Walk in Item – School 17 Start-time Problem – Robin Dettman

School 17 wanted to start at 8:00am and end at 4:00pm. Because of busing schedule to accommodate a new charter school they are being forced to start at 9:00am and end at 5:00pm. Ralph Spezio thinks this is going to be very harmful to their program. We are urged to lobby the District to let 17 have their preferred schedule.

The meeting adjourned at 8:15 pm.

Minutes submitted John Boutet

Our next meeting will be June 18, 2014 at 6:30pm at the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, 929 South Plymouth.