Parent Advisory Committee
Minutes from November 4, 2013
*Safety and Security
PAC Committee will also be acting as the Briarcliff School Safety Team Parent team.
First 10 minutes of each meeting will be used to discuss School Safety. Members of
the Briarcliff School Safety Committee were in attendance. Briarcliff PAC Committee
members and minutes to be posted on the school website.
Members of the Briarcliff Safety Committee (Mrs. Eileen Ludwig, Mrs. Claudia
Bellotti, Ms. Trish Spence-Reid) were in attendance to discuss HIB process and how
they are reported to the BOE and to the state. Purpose of Committee is to discuss
what HIB is and help with Briarcliff Community awareness. Community extends into
school.
School and Staff use positives to reward and recognize acts of kindness.
Ideas included giving a monthly Laker Pride Award. The students will receive a
certificate and will also have their pictures posted in the main hallway.
It seems as if many incidents happen outside of school- but school is an extension of
the community. Students need to feel safe in the classroom, if defenses are down it
is difficult to learn. Teachers have awareness and discuss in team meetings.
Buzzer system has been working well. Parents were asked to get the word out to
the Briarcliff Community to remember to always look into the camera and say their
names and to wait to be buzzed in individually.
Practice Drills are done every month Evacuation – (fire, gas leak or bomb threat are causes to relocate to another
location)
 Shelter in place (danger in the area, animal outside of building) students stay
in the building
 Lock down – immediate danger. Lock-down for safety.
 Code Anna – This is something new that Briarcliff staff is working on with
Nurse Renna leading the way. Code Anna is security for Anaphylactic Shock.
*TechnologyMr. Fleming explained that we are still in the process of trying to figure out the best
solution for teachers, students and parents to communicate.
The Briarcliff website is updated with announcements daily. Parents should let the
school know if there is anything they feel should be added or revised to help best
communicate information to the school community.
Mr. Fleming hopes to roll out Edsby at some point during the second marking
period. It is likely there will be glitches. Mr. Fleming asked that parents please be
patient. Many teachers are now using the gradebook feature and are posting grades
in Edsby. However, until the glitches are worked out, Mr. Fleming is not going to
fully launch Edsby. Mr. Fleming and the teachers are working on establishing
expectations for posting assignments/grades on Edsby as well as deadlines for
emailing parents and teachers. Mr. Fleming feels that most grades would be posted
within 5 days with the exception of Language Arts, which is 10 days and any other
assignments that require additional time to grade.
Parent asked question regarding having hardcopy textbooks as well as online. If
Internet is not working, there is no access to book. It was explained that it is very
costly to have hard copies and there are changes to the books that sometimes aren’t
reflected in the hard copies. Mr. Fleming also pointed out that most teachers use the
textbooks as resources and they aren’t used on a daily basis.
*Curriculum
Pep and AlliedAllied is a graded course – Pep is an enrichment class
Was suggested to better explain these classes to new parents
Briarcliff looking to do a pilot enrichment program in the winter.
November 4th Attendees
Mr. Fleming
Mrs. Ludwig
Mrs. Belotti
Ms. Spence-Reid
Sabrina Stanisci
Marlo Purcell
Nancy Poletti
Allison Samay
Antoinette Shanker
Mimi Kaplan
Chris Gallardo