MEETING MINUTES

Love T. Nolan Elementary School – School Governance Council Meeting

Minutes –May 21, 2014

Members present:Michael Eaton, Michelle Leath, Robin Cobbs, Carol Gaddis, Dr. Lemons, Gail Hollin, Frederick Carter, Inga Holmes, FeFe Handy, Anona Walker; South School Governance and Flexibility Facilitator

Absent: Keeba Roach

Guest: Waple Griffin

The meeting was called to order by Carol Gaddis at 6:09p.m.

The following items were on the agenda:

Carol Gaddis asked members to take a moment to look at the agenda as listed.

Inga Holmes made a motion to add the minutes to the agenda. Frederick Carter made a motion to approve, Michael Eaton second the motion. The agenda was unanimously approved.

Name change: Gail Hollin, Michele Leath. Gail Hollin moved to approve agenda as amended, Michelle Leath second; approved.

Next Item: Title I School Parent Compact/Title I School Level Parental Policy Revisions

Waple Griffin, parent liaison here at Love T. Nolan, responsibility is to providea compact each year between teacher, parent, and student. This year Fulton County strategic goals and Love T. Nolan’s goals were added.

Dr. Lemons: What is the purpose of the compact? Waple Griffin response: Is to build an agreement between the parent, student and teacher. Thecompact is a bridge betweenparents, students, and teachers and statesresponsibilities between parents, students, and teachers. This compact is from the Federal Government and required for Title 1 schools, currently have 51 schools.

The goalslisted for the compact are for this year, they may change due to the assessment from the School Governance Council committee. Waple Griffin passed out the parent policy and at that time will not change, need to wait for the CCRPI (College/Career Readiness Performance Index; taking the place of the AYP) scores come in. Dr. Lemons shared that the scores are in and will share later on. We do have an increase of 12%.

All members signed Title I sheet indicating our title as staff, parent, or community person.

Next item: Needs Assessment Survey/Focus Group Results:

  1. Homeowners Subcommittee – pass out the results of the survey and the survey. Concerns: had a problem from homeowners understanding the survey and 10 questions may have been too many. Received a total 20 responses from neighboring homeowners. The feedback was positive and the Pinetree Home Association is on board to become involved with the school. Will look at getting the neighboring home associations involved.
  2. Parent Survey Committee – pass out the results of the survey
  3. Inga Holmes: caught parents at the Spring Activity, survey at Monkey; phone blast. Received 80 responses. Strong responses. Parents asked for sports for younger students, foreign language, email blast volunteering, bully classes, more field trip, health, more fundraiser, behavior classes, and noted a lot parents were not aware about the mentoring program,
  4. Positive responses; very few negatives (not feel welcome; only get a call when something is negative)
  5. Can go back to Survey Monkey and see what the parents had put in. Inga Holmes suggested should not be the end of this, should be on going. Do a focus group; put it out there; have a contact a person’s name for parents and help to open the conversations between parents and school. Parents can come and hear the general conversations but the school cannot do it all; parents will need to come involved; be will to pay a fee, volunteering, etc.
  6. Dr. Lemons stated for the school clubs, teachers usually nominate the students, they are teacher driven, parents are not asked.

Gail Hollin asked ifsome of these suggestions from the survey, can the School Governance Committeecome up as afterschool programs. Anona Walker stated yes it can be a part of the strategic plan and be a part of the seed money.

  1. Business Owners: survey and focus group
  2. Church: Christian for Change on Bethsaida Road; New Life Presbyterian Church on Old National Highway; World Changers on Burdett Road were there as part of the focus group. Discussed their relationship with the school. None of them except New Life provide school supplies and coat drive. New Life did not know they could come in and volunteer. All three churches are open to ideas to volunteering here at the school. Waple Griffin commented on the amount knowledge New Life is aware of the school. World Changers stated was not aware of the school until that day. Another comment was made that the school is not appealing from the street.
  3. Six attendees from the business group. They also commented the school’s front is not appealing and never been approached by the school. They would like to be a mentor to the boys.
  4. Suggestions were made that little tidbits about the school to be put in the community newsletter; a realtor would put information about the school in their brochure promoting the school to potential buyers in the areas. The school could highlight the partners inside the school, attend activities, and provide them a certificate for their participation. School and business owners need to do a better job of letting them know who we are. Carol Gaddis commented that the business owners want to know who we are, not just to be asked for something.
  5. Dr. Lemons had staff survey and found 5 or 6 areas were the highest need, the lowest answer; some of the questions staff could not answer.
  6. Items to considered:
  7. Question 6: Teachers who consistently under perform on regular, rigorous, and fair evaluations are exited efficiently, while effective teachers are deliberated retained.
  8. Question 9: Assign teachers to differentiated roles to extend the reach of highly effective teachers.
  9. Question 13: Ensure instructional expert (teacher, leader, administrator, and instructional coach) assigned to plan and facilitate Collaborative Planning Time (CPT) with accountability for improving collective performance. (questionable)
  10. Question 16: Teams have protocols and processes they follow to organize time and accountability for using the time well. Dr. Lemons chose this item.
  11. Question 20: Class sizes are reduced in high priority areas (priority subjects, for struggling students, in early and transition grades). Did not receive well.
  12. Question 21: Class sizes in lower-priority areas are higher to better target resources to higher priorities.
  13. Question 29: Teacher integrates Tier 1 social/emotional and behavioral supports into the regular classroom environment. (Questioned; not bedded instruction. FeFe Handy asked what is RTI and response: Response to Instruction and Intervention.

Comments were discussed of the wording “all” within the rubric for Question 22. Anona Walker flagged Question 22 for the wording of “all” and will write ERS for clarification.

Comment: When a guest, the committee cannot respond to their comment. Guest speaks at the end and the committee says thank you. Suggestion: have a blur at the end of the agenda for guest to speak. If the link is there the committee can go and see the document.

Last Item: Set July Meeting Date to plan 2014-2015 Calendar. Meeting set for June 20th is a meeting day to create strategic goals. On June 20th, the committee will have time to create 3-5 strategic goals for the school. Surveys results will assist in driving the goals for the school. Committee is asked to have some ideas we can put in place. Dr. Lemons will meet with the staff to get some ideas on May 29th. Clarification was made for June 20th from 9a.m. – 3p.m. at Professional Learning Center in Hapeville. Question: What common commonalities did we see and what goals we want to set for our strategic plan?

July meeting will be held July 28th at 6p.m. Keep in mind will be a working meeting on strategic plan. The committee recognized that FeFe Handy will get there when she can due to traffic coming from downtown Atlanta.

Agenda- July 28, 2014

Call to order

Setting the calendar

Continue formulate the strategic plan

(A blur will be place at the bottom: about guest’s response)

The meeting adjourned at 7:56 p.m.