Parents Were Notified by Mr. Holligan That We Had Translation Available If Needed. There

MINUTES

January 5, 2016

Parents were notified by Mr. Holligan that we had translation available if needed. There were no parents that needed the translation.

Pledge of allegiance.

Total Present: 35

Meeting was called to order at: 6:08 PM

Quorum was met.

Parents were asked to go over the minutes for December. There was a change made to the December minutes to read that Broward schools require staff to be on school campus 30 minutes before students arrive. Change was made. Approval of minutes for December as amended by Ms. Stroud and seconded by Mrs. Miller.

Mr. Holligan introduced the parents and the SAC committee to the next step in accreditation, training for the staff in teaching and assessment of learning by students.

Further information available on accreditation can be found on the website. www.broward.k12/fl.us./acc

Mr. Holligan introduced, Ms. Lori Turner our Assistant Principal to speak about the VAL ED survey.

Important to our accreditation as we use these results to evaluate how well our school is performing and what areas we can work on. The faculty of PLE will be taking the survey starting January 8 – January 31st. Then the parents will be asked to complete it. The survey will be introduced to our parents and other stakeholders at our next meeting on Feb.2, 2016.

It is an anonymous survey that reports on customer service, performance and relationship with staff at our school.

Mr. Holligan introduced Ms. Renatta Zotti, our primary Reading Coach to put a proposal forward for the use of SAC funds to the committee.

Proposal: Fundations teacher books for our teachers that are helping our students during the extended reading hour, success groups, as introduced to the committee on Sept. meeting. 4 Kindergarten, 8 2nd grade and 4 1st grade teacher manuals as well more shelving for our Reading Resource room to house our leveled readers used by all grade levels. K – 5.

Proposal for books and shelving will be:

Fundations Books: $1,716.12

Shelving: $600.00

TOTAL: $2,316.12

The proposal was accepted as presented by an overwhelming majority, there were no objections.

PRINCIPAL’S UPDATE: Ms. Orinthia Dias

Welcomed parents and stakeholders. Happy New Year!

Asked the PLE staff members to stand and introduce themselves,

Ms. Wagner, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Vargas, Ms. Nichols, Ms. Seay, Ms. George, Ms. Hanlon, Ms. Jaudon, Ms. Frederick, Ms. Strachan, Ms. Stroud, Ms. Goodman, Ms. Campbell, Mr. Bronstein, Ms. Turner, Ms. Knabe, Ms. Pratt, Ms. Reid and Mr. Holligan were in attendance for our PLE faculty.

Introduction of our new Community Liaison, Ms. Terriyah Pratt. She will be working with our PTA and partners on our behalf.

Hope that the parents had a great Winter Break. We are back to work and on schedule for our first round of testing, Benchmark testing for grade levels 3 – 5 will take place starting Jan. 11 – 22nd. Once these results are tabulated we will look at the individual areas that need extra assistance per student.

Past Events:

PLE Parent nights – McDonald’s Night and Chuck E. Cheese night, were well attended, thank you to all that came. We will receiving a percentage of the night’s receipts shortly. There will also be another family night for both.

Dec. 4 - Storybook Parade where the students and staff dress as their favorite book character. We held it indoors, our plan B due to the very rainy weather. Many participated and had a great time, reinforcing the importance of reading.

Dec. 8 - Hour of Code, all grade levels participated in their tech classes as well as some in their classrooms. Thanks to Ms. Dodge for coordinating this effort. There are many jobs in the coding field and parents are highly recommended to check out the code.org website.

Dec. 16 - Assembly for Dictionary giveaway – Our business partners, The Kiwanis Club, South Central location, donated dictionaries to all of our 3rd grade students and Thesaurus to our 4th grade students.

Many of our students went on our grade level field trips.

We had a fun time celebrating our winter holidays with our all day “Polar Express day” where the majority of our students and staff wore their pajamas and watched the Polar Express movie and were able to watch our holiday performance in the cafeteria.

Admin. Working is with teachers and curriculum to find out where the students may be having some difficulties.

We are a uniform school. The colors are light blue, dark blue or white shirts, blue and khaki bottoms. It is important because the students are dressed for success.

If the student is out of uniform we will be sending a reminder note home.

Tardies – parents must walk in and sign in at the front of the school if they are late.

Drop offs are over the bridge on 36st.

Please schedule a conference with your child’s teacher, you should have 2 per year.

Students should have a book to read with them at all times in their book bags. They will be rewarded with “Caught Reading” tickets and have a chance to win books or other prizes if their ticket is chosen.

End of day pickup – parents must pick up their students by 3:00 at the latest as our day ends at 3:35.

Parents were reminded to keep their contact information up to date with the front office, it is very important if we need to contact for an emergency.

Please check the book bags and agendas every day to check on what your child has been working on and for important notes from the teacher or school. We also send out “robo-calls” every Sunday to let the parents know of the important things happening at Park Lakes and off campus. Please sign up for our texting messager. These are very important to remember to do so that we may continue to bridge the communication between school, district and parents.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Jan. 14th ESE Showcase, Ms. Donna Lindsay

Dominoe’s Fundraiser is coming up, please look for the flyer.

Jan. 26th STREAM night at Park Lakes in the cafeteria, International Fishing Hall of Fame, Broward Humane Society and South Plantation Environmental Ambassadors, one of our top magnet programs. Please come out and support your school. We will be providing a snack for participants.

Jan. 28th Report cards will be sent home, please check your students’ bookbags.

Due to the low participation for the field trips, we will be having a cash only day one Friday during the collection date (1st one of the month). Please continue to pay for your field trips online.

Parent questions or concerns:

C: There is a concern about the school hours and transportation.

A: The bus schedule is set by the district and depends on the transportation schedule, where the routes are afterwards.

We have arranged to have Transportation come to our next SAC meeting, February 2, Tuesday. We strongly urge you to come to this meeting and to spread the word. This is an opportunity for you to voice your concerns.

C: There is an issue with the amount of students on the yellow bus, students are sitting on the floor and sometimes 3 to a seat.

A: Administration and Ms. Knabe our bus liaison is addressing it with transportation. As well administration will be monitoring the bus during pick up and will make sure the students have a seat.

C: There is a concern that students are walking alongside the east side of the bridge where this is no fencing by the canal. It could be a potentially dangerous situation. A father is taking it upon himself to walk with those that are not supervised by an adult. As well there has been some excessive horseplay in this area and he is concerned that someone will be injured. He would like to see a fence by the canal as well as some supervision in this area.

A: First of all thanks to that father, we are community and need to look out for all of our children. Secondly, this area is on Lauderdale Lakes city property. We have asked parents by various means to escort students under grade 3 to the school or to the bridge so they may get there safely. We have asked for a crossing guard to be placed at 441 and 41st . The city has not seen the need as they have a crossing guard elsewhere where more students are crossing. Dr. Coleman encouraged parents and staff to attend the city council meeting every 2nd and 4th Tuesday at City Hall. She will be bringing up our concerns to the city.

C: Parent makes sure that her children are walked onto school grounds. However, she has been in the situation that she had to intervene an altercation between children. She feels that safety needs to be addressed before school hours.

A: We have security guards at the bridge and we will keep an eye out for this behavior.

C: Buses are not on time, sometimes coming to drop off after 4:00.

A: Buses are not predictable, depends on traffic and the time it takes to drop off children.

No school safety updates

TITLE ONE UPDATE:

Partnership news, we have a new partnership with Calvary Chapel. They donate 96 bags of groceries. Welcome to our new partner.

Ms. Campbell let us know that Dr. Coleman has been supporting our school for many years in various ways. Her Kiwanis club donated dictionaries and thesaurus to our students. We appreciate her very much for her contributions to our community. She has been an outstanding advocate for our school and the community.

We have been working very hard at our school promoting literacy in many ways, for example our character parade, AR parties as well as our Honor Roll celebrations.

Ms. Campbell asked the parents “who by a show of hands, has a computer and knows how to use it?” It is very important that our students know how to use a computer and how to type on a keyboard. We will be using these skills very shortly for our BAS testing and other FSA testing. As well, our children need these skills moving forward in their school year and their chosen career path.

3rd grade assessments will be on paper, 4th and 5th graders will be on computer. We did perform a test on our computers to make sure the computers work for the testing procedures. Benchmark testing is important to see how well the students are understanding the information presented. They are encouraged to ask the teachers where their strengths and weaknesses are. Goals are “what did I learn?” “How can I get better?” Please encourage them to practice, practice, practice their computer skills.

We are celebrating our students’ with an Honor Roll assembly starting Feb. 2, Tuesday for 3rd grade, Feb. 3, Wednesday for 4th grade and Thursday, Feb. 4th for Fifth grade. We are going to be giving students awards for Principal’s Honor Roll, all A’s, all 1’s. A Honor Roll, B Honor Roll, Perfect Attendance, Top AR Reader and this time the Bringing up a grade award. If your student has achieved any of these goals, their parent will be notified. Principals Honor Roll students will be invited to a pizza party. Kids of Character will have an ice cream party.

January 30th, Saturday, Park Lakes will be having their first annual Male Conference.

I Dream … I Lead

Schedule as follows:

8:30 – Breakfast

9:00 – Conference begins.

We encourage you to bring your sons, uncles, fathers, grandfathers and nephews to this great conference. The male students will be meeting with male leaders in the community to create positive male role models. They will be given tools in which to help their dreams come true and become future community leaders.

Please come out and support this wonderful program!

7: 15 - Motion was made to adjourn meeting by Ms. Miller and seconded by Ms. Barker.