Home and School Meeting Minutes 11/5/15
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Nancy introduced the H & S team to everyone in the meeting.
o She mentioned the minutes and asked everyone to review for an approval
Meghan handed out 2 sheets of paper
o 1st one is bank account
We have come to the end of our donations for Color Me Run
o We discussed Expenses vs. what we took in
Nancy will send some new expense updates
o The Color powder was biggest expense –
o Graphics were also expensive but Cannoneers gave us about $2500, we only paid
about 300 extra
o We spent just over $200 for toe tokens
o Paint cans that we used were $45
o Total revenue was $9,365 for Color Me Awesome
Doug / Principals Report
o Triathlon
 Mr. Narcissi is putting a training program together. This is our 5 th year doing it
and every year the numbers get larger
 We’re hoping to push the numbers up this year
 Students are doing all kinds of things that they’ve never done before
 H & S parents came up with an idea of doing another club
 We can also cover Bicycle riding, etc…
 Same thing with swimming
 Weather permitting, we can go outside if it’s not raining and too cold
or we can do laps in the gym
 Matt Connelly volunteered to help out monitoring student progress
 It’s starting in 03/16 It’s a 30 minute training period where they can go in and
swim laps
 Doug mentioned that Tom and his Colleagues have done such a great job with
the Triathlon.
 The website will open up in February or March for registration
 Nancy mentioned that they have had a surplus and have been able to
get grants and everything (for the last 2 years). Each parent paid a
nominal fee to do it.
 Jason Theodore
o Has written to the H & S presidents and asked us to try and
form a committee within the schools.
o Not all of the grants are available this year.
o They are hoping that our sub-committee can help with the
triathlon and they are looking for volunteers
 They need people to run the snack bar
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In order for the triathlon to be its own person under coordinating
council they have to fill out a lot of paper and it’s a long process.
This is when they’ve asked each of the teams to create a subcommittee where any parent that is interested that wants to join the
committee can join the school with the other elementary schools to
meet together
This is to help find ways so that if there is anything that has to be
brought in, instead of saying, will you pay $25 for each student in your
school, who will do it?
They recognize we don’t have that money allocated in our budget. This
way it can run through them since it is non profit and report back out.
The committee would be formed here at Oak Park and then can join
with the other schools.
o Are there parents interested and would want to commit to be
on the sub-committee?
 Darren Smith Volunteered.
 The best thing is, it’s not about who wins its all
about finishing. They make sure that every
child that comes through finishes and every
child is a winner.
o One of the biggest things with having this sub-committee is
keeping costs down.
 It’s expensive. This year will be $22 instead of $20.
 We’re hoping that with fundraisers we can bring the
cost back down to $20. We want to make it cost
effective for everyone.
o The age group is Kindergarten through 6th grade
 K–2
 3–4
 5–6
o The date of the triathlon is the 21st.
o Your child being on training wheels should not stop you from
letting your child participate. For the smaller kids there are
noodles and kick boards to get you through and lifeguards to
help as well.
o K – 2, a parent is able to be with the child.
o The night before they show you how to setup
o Everybody has their own stuff. Different groups start at their
own time. Not everybody is going at the same time. It’s really
well thought out.
o You can look up the information online. K – 2 is completely
separate from the other grades so that the smaller kids are
together.
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Registration is online and opens up in 02/16 and 03/16. You
can also take your information to the district to drop off the
information directly.
 Doug mentioned there was great participation on the parent / teacher
conferences
 Thanks to everyone who participated
 Heard a lot of positive feedback
 Home Access Center
 We had Barb set up in the main hallway
 There were some major communication issues that were cleared up
online
 Initially you were told (by the district) that it needed to be updated
(Medical Only)
 Emergency Contact has to be communicated here through the main
office
 Doug apologized for the miscommunication
 At this point and time we still have hundreds of people that need to
update information.
 What we are doing at this point after we’ve figured out what the
glitches were, those that haven’t completed it yet will be getting hard
copies in the mail requesting the info.
 Medical info was able to be changed this year. We just had an admin meeting
yesterday over at the central office and discussed lack of communication
 We will work on having this updated moving forward
 Why can’t they allow us to change anything on the paper that needs to
be changed?
o We don’t have an answer at this time
o Instructional administrators are trying to work with the
support/technology administrators to get this corrected
moving forward
 American Education Week
 Tuesday - 9:15 – 11
 Thursday - 1:15 – 3:15
o Do I need to send in a separate sheet for each child?
 Yes, it’s helpful if you do it that way instead but we’ll
accept the other ones
o Can we just put it on the 1 sheet and have them inform the
other teacher that there are multiple children?
Minutes were approved
Mrs. Kosydar gave the Teacher’s report on what is going on within each grade:
o Jonathan Sprout Assembly next week
 Everyone is really excited
o Everyone is also getting ready for our first English language arts common assessment
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Elementary progress Reports Grades K – 6
o Doug handed out packet with helpful into to explain the different details
 Pg 4 of the packet is the most important
 For each of the indicators on the report card there are:
o 4 – exceeds
o 3 – meets expectations
o 2 - approaching and
o 1 - beginning
 In a separate location, you will see on pg 5 – Characteristics of a Successful
Learner
 One of the big changes – assessing how successful a student is meeting
the standards for that specific area
o The traditional was 90% was an A
o Could’ve been homework, tests, worksheets, participation
o What the teacher decided what was important and was in the
curriculum as well
 When you are looking at standards, homework & participation help to
support that but the bottom line is, is the student meeting the
standard or not
o Most likely the students with the typical grading would
correlate pretty strongly
o Here it’s clear cut and broken down with PA core standards
and PSSA with all of the emphasis on that movement.
 The curriculum is written to align with the PA core standards
o The other controversial part is o What’s the difference between meeting the standard and
exceeding the standard?
 If they meet the expectation (that’s the goal), that’s a
proficient student
o Exceeding is really going above and beyond
 Showing that they are above or beyond the standard
o Questions about the Progress Reports
 What do you do when a child is exceeding?
 Do you have something to keep them from being bored?
 If they do a project, will that be reflected to show them going above? Will it go
toward their grade?
 All projects now have to be aligned to the standard. It will be reflected
in some way to their grade itself.
 If there is something that would fall in between homework and a
project (Characteristic of a successful learner)
o It would have to be tied and linked to the standard
 Any project or homework should really be helping to support the
students in improving in the standards.
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Will it be graded as a project or still a number grade?
 That’s going to depend on the discretion of the teacher
 It will have to be factored in to the report card
 Projects aren’t necessarily bad but should be linked to supporting the
standards because that is where everything is going
 I have a 6th grader now it so may not matter but for those who still have
children. Is this elementary school only? Jr high still has their grades?
 How do the parents know based on this going from 6th grade into 7th grade? To
know what they are, going into algebra for example.
 The new visual would be if they’re meeting expectations.
If they meet do they go to honors or standard?
 6th grade there are several different indicators not just the report card.
 When moving into 7th grade there are several different things that the
teacher will use. There are other tests that are taken to the class,
PSSAs and other tests. That has always been the case and that will
continue. PSSAs are a big deal based on what the middle schools are
looking for.
 Doug mentioned - If they are at an ‘exceeds’ – they are actually doing
the next grade level of standard. That’s a good way to describe it but
not always the case. Meghan’s not an expert in the 2nd grade
curriculum but she can push students.
 For the teachers we are asking them to be at the next grade level. If
they have exceeds in every single thing, maybe then we need to talk.
Here and there it just means that it came very easy to them.
o Holiday Fair
o Jumping jacks – 12/18
 Planned just before the holiday break so that if someone has holiday stuff to
do sans children you can leave your kids at Jumpin Jacks.
 $9 for the child.
 Jumpin Jacks have people there to do anything than Jumpin Jacks
writes a check for ½ the total admission for that day
Misc Follow Up info. / Questions
o How much have we made so far towards our yearly goal?
 The net revenue for the Color Me Awesome $9,363.21
o Unless my son keeps missing it, there hasn’t been a lunch menu being sent home.
When he asked he was told there wasn’t any.
 We’re trying to go with less paper.
Nancy closed out the meeting