Activity:Southside Math Night
Date:March10, 2005
Location:Grandview Elementary
Time:5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Competency:3: Skills in Communication and Community Relation
A. Articulating the district or school vision, mission, and
Priorities to the community and mass media
B. Writing and speaking effectively
F. Engaging in effective community relations and
school-business partnerships
G. Building Consensus
Activity Summary and Reflection:
When my principal and I met on January 13, 2005 to discuss my internship, one of the directives she gave me was to chair or co-chair our annual Wilson Family Math Night that occurs in the spring. She suggested I contact our PTA Math Night Chairperson from previous years and our Math Teacher Leader to begin planning for this event.
I made my initial contacts with both of these people the following week. Since they had both been instrumental members of the committee last year in planning and hosting the event, I requested to have meetings with them at their earliest convenience so I could begin to formulate a plan for the upcoming event.
We held our initial meetings on Friday, February 4. I met with the Math Teacher Leader before school and the PTA Chairperson and PTA President after school. At my morning meeting with the Math Teacher Leader, she shared about a possible new angle to approach our building Family Math Night that would draw together the four elementary schools in the south portion of Rapid City: Wilson, Robbinsdale, Grandview, and SouthPark. We discussed the benefits of changing the emphasis from individual buildings to a regional/broader community aspect: (1) we could pool our resources from all four schools in terms of PTAs, staff, and community/business support, (2) rather than having each school do something different, perhaps all schools could focus on educating parents about our new inquiry-based mathematics program, and (3) the four schools are feeder schools for Dakota Middle School; giving participants an opportunity to interact together with groups they will eventually have close contact with in the future. She alsorecommended we hold the event on a Thursday night versus Friday in order to avoid conflicts with sporting events. She proposed holding the event on Thursday, March 10, 2005 at Wilson Elementary.
I took our Math Teacher Leader’s proposals to my afternoon meeting with the PTA Chairperson and President. Both recognized the benefits of approaching our Math Night from this angle. A question they posed was: Did we want to have a theme such as a Luau or beach party (south side…South Pacific?) The PTAs could share the decorating expenses. They recommended I take these proposals to our PTA at our upcoming meeting on February 8. I shared my desire to bring in our corporate sponsors for our Wilson Character Counts Program and provide them with an opportunity to take on a more active role within our school. Both felt this would be a great avenue to explore. Following this meeting, the PTA Chairperson and I spent the remainder of our time retrieving and reviewing the materials from our previous events. Later that evening, I began to visualize and formulate a long-range plan in terms of committee work, activities, etc. (see artifacts contained within my Portfolio)
I brought the proposals forward to our PTA at our luncheon meeting on Tuesday, February 10. Just as our PTA Chairperson and President had supported our Math Teacher Leader’s proposals, so too, did our PTA. I left the meeting with a number of questions and thoughts for both our Math Teacher Leader and myself. Below is a list of those questions/thoughts and the subsequent answers upon meeting the Math Teacher Leader:
(1) Could we change the night and move it to March 17th because pulling together a labor intensive event of this nature may require an additional week for planning purposes. (No)
(2) Could we change to an alternative location such as Grandview due to space constraints at Wilson? (Yes)
(3) We need to hold a meeting with PTA representatives and Math Teacher Leaders from all four of the schools. (Yes: planned for 2-17-95)
(4) Could I submit a proposed budget to our PTA President ASAP for expenses incurred by our PTA (as it turned out, there was no need to submit a proposal as expenses were minimal for our PTA – 100 paper lunch sacks and popcorn supplies-which we already had.
(5) Could parents, after completing their session the gym, hook up with their children in the classrooms? (Yes)
(6) Could the name of the event be changed because the word South in the title may: (a) scare parents away, and/or (b) mislead parents into believing that this event is something that has to do with SouthMiddle School (No)
(7) Decorating with a theme? (No – let’s keep it simple with basic refreshments of popcorn and pop)
(8) Could our corporate sponsors for Character Counts! donate funds for purchasing that much pop? (No – there was no need since my first call about pop was directly to the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of the Black Hills. They donated all of the pop and bottled water. Employees from our corporate sponsor were invited to (a) assist in the classrooms with the inquiry-based mathematics activities, and/or (b) to bring their children and participate with other families.)
Throughout the remaining month, we had a series of informal meeting and contacts via email to fine-tune our plans for the event. (See artifacts contained within my Portfolio)
After school on February 18, the principal asked me if I had a copy of the flyer that was being developed for our Friday folders in order to put the information in an article for our March Newsletter. Since I did not have one because it was still in the draft stage, she asked if I could write up a brief article for the newsletter by the end of the day in order to meet our publishing deadline. I was not able to meet the deadline before the secretary left for the day because another teacher came to my room to discuss playground difficulties our students have been having. I got approval from our secretary to write the article at home over the weekend and email it to her by Monday morning. (see artifact in Portfolio)
At our Rapid CityAreaSchool District late start onMarch 3, 2005, my principal gave me an opportunity to talk to our staff about the event. I gave each staff member a copy of the packet the Math Teacher Leaders put together to explain the event and elicit classroom teacher involvement. I encouraged their involvement and explained that the lime-green flyer that was in their packet would be going out to students and parents in our Friday Folders the next day; so to look for those in their mailboxes the following morning.
Our event took place on March 10 as planned. We were pleased with the number of participants. We estimated that there were about 80 parents, 20 staff members, and 100 students who attended. Earlier in the day, I had mentioned to our principal that I had fallen down on the communication piece of getting the event on our office calendar so our secretary could put it in the Principal’s bulletin leading up to the event. I also shared that I had not been successful in getting teacher volunteers; the staff members I approached in person all had prior commitments. During clean-up after the event, our PTA Chairperson from last year and I discussed our school’s participation and reflected about possible reasons for our low turn-out. Both of us agreed that the major contributing aspect was the fact that our school did not host the event. We pondered some thoughts to consider as we plan for next year. The main idea we came away with was, in addition to the large four school gathering, we should still try to have an event solely for our school due to the concerns, fears, and misunderstandings about our inquiry-based mathematics.
On Friday, March 11, I conducted some closure activities such as writing a thank you to the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of the Black Hills on behalf of all four schools, and prepared the parent packets of information to submit to our school district print shop in order to have copies of the packets for Wilson parents. These packets could still provide much-needed assistance for parents as they try to help their children with homework.
During the following week, I continued closure activities by drafting a letter to go out to parents in our Friday folders that would allow for them to sign up for the parent homework and grade-level packets we gave out at the event. I also prepared this letter for printing, and then prepared them to go out into the Friday folders.
This was a valuable experience for me to participate in. Even though I did not end up taking on the original role of chair or co-chair because our Math Teacher Leader is a strong leader and organizer, I still feel that it was a worthwhile project in terms of my administrative learning. I was able to come away with a new insight into the skills principals need to possess in terms of communication and community relations, writing and speaking effectively, engaging in school-business partnerships, and consensus building.
Below is a table that summarizes the time-element involved for me as a committee member:
Date / Time Involved / Activity2-4-05 / 2 hours 30 minutes / Initial group planning meetings and individual planning
2-18-05 / 1 hour / Telephone contacts: Pepsi and corporate sponsors, drafted March Newsletter article
2-24-05 / 30 minutes / Communications: email contacts
3-3-05 / 30 minutes / Communications: email contacts
3-10-05 / 2 hours / Southside Math Night Event
3-11-05 / 30 minutes / Closure activities; Thank you to Pepsi, preparation of print packets for Wilson parents
3-14-05 / 1 hour / Prepared letter to send out in Friday Folders about parents getting copies of the packets
3-21-05 / 1 hour / Tallied number of responses for requested parent packets; prepared for distribution
4-7-05 / 1 hour 30 minutes / Prepared packets for parental requests upon return of printed materials from the printshop. I attached the request forms to the packets, and submitted them to the appropriate grade level teachers for distribution in our Friday folders on 4-9-05.
Total time toward Internship / 10hours and 30 minutes