Selwyn Elementary School
School Leadership Team Meeting
January 12, 2015
Present: Shane Lis, Ghazale Johnston, Anne Lam, Katie Davis, Lecia Shockley, Nikia Kilgo, Katie Patton, Karen Fowler, Cannon Cory, Karen Swing, Becky Muth, Tom Price, Megan Anderson, Lauren MacWhinnie, Jennifer Monaco, Elena Hartmann, Bernice Clark, Sharone Harris, Richard Morrow, and Beth Stephenson.
Call to Order: Ghazale called the meeting to order at 3:12.
Principal’s Update:
Building Blocks: Tricycle Race for Building Blocks was a lot of fun; great celebration for the kids.
Heath Morrison: Mr. Lis knows only what was in the paper. Very little was shared by the CMS main office. Dr. Ann Clark has taken over as interim superintendent; one of her focal points is on reading as a critical foundation point for students. On January 29th, Dr. Clark will give a State of the Schools address; Lecia Shockley has been invited to speak at that event which is a feather in Lecia’s cap as well as Selwyn’s. With respect to the foundation point of reading, particularly Balanced Literacy, we need about 1,000 books per classroom. We already have a great number of books in classroom libraries, thanks in large part to the PTA. Selwyn’s PTA gave $20,000 last year for books and another $2,800 this year to fund the new K and grade 1 classrooms’ libraries.
Selection of New Kindergarten and First Grade Classes: Letters went to kindergarten and grade 1 parents after the number of students stabilized after the 20th day of school. Last year, we lost 2 assistants right before school due to retirement/moving but didn’t hire anyone to replace them so we were able to trade in their two positions in order to keep a kindergarten teacher who we otherwise would have lost. As of last March and due to budgetary cuts in Raleigh, Selwyn’s allotment for staff was frozen. Mr. Lis spent all of June and July dealing with the office at CMS that deals with allotments and student projection to lobby for the additional needed teacher. The expectation was that the allotment would come in but it did not. After the 20th day of school, we had 841 students. We were projected for 819. The state caps the classroom size of grades K-2 size at 24 kids. The state legislature tried to remove the cap two years ago. Regardless of the General Assembly’s efforts to eliminate the 24 students per class limit, CMS wants only 24 kids in K-2 classrooms. When it became clear that Selwyn would need to add both kindergarten and first grade teachers, the administration and the kindergarten and grade 1 teams selected highly qualified candidates who then shadowed current teachers prior to the creation of their own classrooms. Letters went out to all K and grade 1 parents explaining what happened. The letter first asked for volunteers (some families volunteered in both grades); in the grade 1 level, they eliminated kids who had an interim teacher (maternity leave) in K; then they eliminated any students with behavior or anxiety problems (teachers had input before they even knew there would be new classrooms); then students were randomly selected to yield a diverse and balanced class list. It is important that we understand that this was literally a random draw lottery – there were baggies with kids’ names in it and names were drawn out of each baggie. No favorites were played. Period. The assembly of these classes was done the right way. We cannot necessarily avoid this in the future because of how the state makes projections and allocates funding. The best way to try to avoid this in the future is to encourage parents to register their children early because that greatly affects the school’s allotment of staff via budgetary projections and allotments. Selwyn’s current enrollment is about 850.
Re: the kindergarten and first grade reassignments, after the lists were complete, Mr. Lis called every family, letters went home, the school held Meet the Teacher events, the counseling department made sure children were transitioning well, and the new teachers shadowed all of the other teachers so they were familiar with their methods, language, etc. before the students switched to their classes.
Lecia added that from a staff perspective, it is tough to lose your students to a new teacher. Her son switched classes or had new teachers a few times at Selwyn. The great love and professionalism shown to him during those transitions were remarkable. When people question these transitions, as members of SLT and PTA, we need to show what we believe – Selwyn is a fabulous place for our children, this is a wonderful school, and our children are well taught and well taken care of at school every day. We need to foster trust in what is going on here as parents and educators.
Ghazale noted that SLT members need to serve as ambassadors in our circles to share that this process was handled the right way.
Real Estate Developments in the Selwyn Zone: Re: the new developments in Southpark, they will affect enrollment but most new developments are luxury condos which do not tend to house that many school aged children. We did lose some kids from an apartment building that was torn down at Park and Selwyn but the new developments will probably even us out. We lose a few kids (4 this year) to Metrolina who are zoned for Selwyn; there is a new lab school uptown; private schools do some pull kids especially as students approach middle school, but Selwyn is such a strong school that our retention rate is consistently strong.
Health and Wellness Fair: The Health and Wellness Fair will be tacked on to the school picnic on April 26, time TBD. Carolinas Healthcare System will help us. Dr. David Price (SLT member) has been very helpful in this regard. Coach K, Dr. Price, and the school nurse will all be helpful with planning. Parents who have specialties that relate to the wellness fair would be encouraged to participate. Coach K asked SLT their opinion as to how many stations to have at the fair. The consensus was perhaps 10 stations if we project 150 children will attend with their families. Coach K distributed a hand-out with ideas for stations and asked SLT members to circle the options they felt would most appeal to families. The building will be closed that day.
Marketing: Finally, in an effort to increase awareness about SLT meetings, our Minutes will be posted on Eagle Email going forward. Re: marketing, do we need a two to three year marketing plan for the school? The next Communications and Marketing PTA Chair will plan to publicize two to three big events for Selwyn per year, whether it is through press releases, engaging the media, or engaging sponsors. That will not create more overhead for us as an SLT since we are not a programming organization. We can as an SLT make an effort to bring the great things going on at Selwyn to the larger community.
School Improvement Plan: Ghazale reviewed the School Improvement Plan. Staff and parent representatives signed the SIP after the meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:55.
Upcoming Meetings:
Monday, February 9th at 3:00 – all SLT
Tuesday, February 17th at 3:00 – Health and Wellness Committee Meeting
Monday, April 13th at 3:00 – all SLT
Monday, May 4th at 3:00 – all SLT including newly elected members
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