Community Meeting Minutes – 10/15/2015
Begin 6:05pm
1. Community Updates (Jim Kohler):
a. Follow up from last community meeting topic: Bathroom Sink Faucets
We are looking into motion sensor faucets; it looks like it’s a minimum of $500 per
faucet + labor. PPS has to do the work. We have ~16 faucets that would need to be
replaced. Retrofitting water fountains to include water bottle fillers would cost an
estimated $3K each through PPS. We could raise funds for this, though it is a significant
expense. Additional follow up is needed to get final cost estimates and more details on
installation procedures then we could decide how to proceed. Also the district is
currently surveying schools for these types of updates, this could help us, but may take
more time.
2. Hiring Update (Heather Hull):
a. Julie Miller has been hired as an Intervention Specialist. She’s located in room 15
upstairs. Julie will be supporting all grade levels. She is starting small literacy groups at
each grade level. Additional groups will be included for 1st grade, including math
groups.
b. Debi Bradway has been hired as a temporary Assistant Principal. Debi is a retired
Principal from Bridlemile Elementary. She will be here to or through January.
c. Currently interviewing for .5 counselor position.
d. Currently interviewing for .5 special ed teacher.
Q: Regarding the new Intervention Specialist groups- will the focus be on kids
who are below grade level or struggling?
A: Yes, the groups are mainly comprised of students who are struggling –
However, in 1st grade one of the math groups is a higher math group and one is
not. Also in 1st grade there is a comprehension focused reading group and a
group for students reading below grade level, so there is more of a mix.
(students below grade level in reading are struggling with reading, not
comprehension).
3. Monique Elliott – Salt & Straw manager from Division St Location
a. S & S partnership with community schools to create new flavors. In April, 3 flavors were
selected from Abernethy student team submissions to sell in the store. Tyler, one of the
owners, worked with students in Garden class to experiment with different flavor
profiles. He brought in 100 ingredients, had them set out on a table and 3rd and 4th
grade students picked different surprising combinations and then they made ice cream
on the spot.
b. Our three winning flavors: Chocolate Overload, Fantastic Fruity Fun, Lick of Happiness
c. S & S has enjoyed the community partnership. As customers come in and see the
student-invented flavors, the staff has gotten to share the story of our garden program.
d. 15% of the proceeds from these ice cream sales were promised to The Abernethy
Foundation.
e. Monique presented Heather with the check! $$!
4. Battle of the Books (Laura Kohler - PTA First Lady)
a. Find all the information for BOB, including a blog, meeting agendas, FAQ, etc. under
Events on the Support Abernethy site: https://supportabernethy.myshopify.com/pages/battle-of-the-books
b. Program is open to grades 3-5. Teams are composed of 4-5 students with an adult
coach. 16 books are assigned reading, divided among team members (or each team
member can read them all). Students read the books and then meet to discuss the facts
of the books in order to prepare for the trivia battles that take place in late Jan/early
Feb at Abernethy.
c. Registration for teams is open today (Thu). The registration form and payment can be
completed on the site. Cost is $25/team; the proceeds are being used to buy copies of
the BOB books for the library. Teams can check out the books from the school library,
the public library, or you can buy them. We have a partnership with Powell’s on the site
so we can get a portion contributed from every sale; there is a similar option through
Amazon Smile or Amazon through the eScrip Mall (Powell’s & Amazon Smile info is on
the BOB page of our site, eScrip Amazon info is here: https://supportabernethy.myshopify.com/pages/year-round-fundraising.
d. There is a bulletin board in the library that Quinn will manage for kids trying to form
teams who do not yet have all their members.
Q: What is the Powell’s partnership?
A: If you buy a BOB book through the Support Abernethy site from Powell’s, the
PTA gets a small percentage; Amazon Smile is on the site too. You can also buy
a book to donate to library using these links. Quinn has designated specific
types of books that are library-approved (durable). Great option for b-days donate in someone’s name and the book gets stamped with a note that is was a
donation from NAME.
Q: In previous years we’ve had an option for BOB Jr. Will that happen this year?
A: Quinn will be running a BOB Jr. competition in the library for 2nd grade.
Q: I have a bunch of past years BOB books. What could I do with them?
A: If you’d like to donate them, bring them in to the office. We bet teachers
would like to have them for in class reading- especially teachers who have
changed grade levels and need to build their collections.
5. School Kitchen Garden (Kari Brooke)
a. They brought us food from the garden!
b. SKG Program Overview: School = hands-on experiential learning in class, covers science
and arts curriculum and real-world math applications; Kitchen = healthy eating influence
(growing, preparing, trying foods), coordinates with kitchen and Nutrition Services
(Abernethy has an actual cooking kitchen, most PPS schools only have heat-and-serve
kitchens); Garden = supports the school garden and garden class.
i. The SKG committee works with Heather to coordinate all these activities from
the different groups.
ii. SKG advocates and lobbies for legislation impacting school food
iii. SKG is a nationally known program; we want to make the program replicable for
other schools.
iv. Committee also supports the new Garden Afterschool Program.
c. Kari showed the Growing Healthy Kids video – go here to see:
https://abernethyschoolkitchengarden.wordpress.com/
d. New partnership with Growing Gardens this year – Sarah Canterbury spoke from
Growing Gardens
i. Growing Gardens is a non-profit that does garden education at home, in
schools, and at correctional facilities.
ii. At Abernethy the main involvement is supporting Sara Murphy (Garden
Instructor).
e. Presentation from Sara Murphy, Abernethy Garden Coordinator
i. Garden class provides hands-on science learning, social science extensions, and
connects garden, food, and cooking with what’s being taught in class. Tying into
the grade-level curriculum is critical.
ii. Focus on nutrition and healthy eating
1. Want to make kids brave food explorers; students are learning the
psychology around food- how one person’s reactions impact others.
Ex., “Don’t yuck my yum” - “yucking” takes away others’ courage to try
something new.
iii. Art and creative thinking
1. In class we’re not always presenting solutions, but instead presenting
the kids with information and then leaving it to them to figure through
answers to questions or solutions to problems.
iv. Math and special reasoning
1. Ex., plotting garden beds.
v. Grade level activities and goals – curriculum overview
1. K- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: create brave food
explorers, learning to study world
2. 1- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: guest beekeeper, insect art,
guest chef to learn cooking
3. 2- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: expert gardeners and
garden to kitchen books, guest chef for cooking class, paper making
4. 3- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: experiment with plant
processes, looking closely at the natural world, guest chef; 3rd grade
curriculum matches really nicely with growing so can go deeper with
them
5. 4- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: connect with Oregon Trail
social science unit, map and plan garden beds in small teams, guest
chef, square foot gardening team, planting, designing
a. 5- Brief examples of events/work emphasis: service learning,
baking partnership with Little t Bakery (owner, Tim Healea),
volunteer with Project Second Wind, visit local businesses,
explore the microscopic world
vi. Exciting new things!
1. Grassroots reporter – you can see these student reports on the FB page
here: https://www.facebook.com/gardenofwonders/timeline
2. Kids cook for the kitchen – helps to bridge the gap between what’s
happening in garden and working within all the requirements of
nutrition services. Allows kids to make dishes in class using harvest
from the garden, and then they take these to the cafeteria for kids to try
during lunch (samples available to all kids whether they have school
lunch or not).
3. New partnerships: La Panza Café, Moon Brine, Ned Ludd, Little t – these
are confirmed guest chef participants, more in process. They’ll provide
in depth cooking lessons to students in garden class.
4. Community Projects – garden makeover, painting shed, fences, new
beds, guest artist to help reconstruct murals and add new ones. Coming
together on garden space with 3 work parties: rehab beds; paint shed,
fences; art installations
Q: How is Garden different this year with your own classroom?
A: So much better! Can cover greater breadth of material. Can have
multi-station, advance set up.
Q: Can we guarantee the classroom will stay?
A: (Heather) It’s entirely dependent on how high we want class size to
go – more classes = less space, fewer classes = greater chance; this is a
tricky balance.
Q: how often can we cook and serve in the kitchen? Connection here
has been struggle in past.
A: It’s happened every 3 weeks right now. We have a goal to do it
multiple times in a week, one week per month. Requires a lot of
coordination. The other biggest connection to the kitchen is Harvest of
the Month (once/month). So two times a month there are weeks with a
big kitchen connection. We’ll also coordinate putting small harvests on
salad bar (ex. Edible flowers, jalapenos); trouble is for kids not buying
lunch, they can’t go to salad bar. We don’t want to tell them no, but the
policy is not to allow this, so it’s difficult to make that sustainable.
Q: Can we have a separate lower charge for just the salad bar?
A: No, due to regulations. The nutrition regulations for school lunches
are very specific for allowable carbs, salt, etc. so we have to be careful
about these additions to the salad bar.
f.
Brynna McCarter from the Garden Afterschool Program spoke
i. GAP is a partnership between Abernethy, Green Schoolhouse, and SKG
ii. Serves grades K-5, 20 kids, runs 3-5:30
iii. Just broke ground on garden space just for the GAP; supports larger school
garden too
Q: Will there ever be an option for 1 day a week?
A: We’re limited with one instructor to 15 students a day. As the program
builds, we may have more flexibility.
g. Fundraising Efforts (Allison Lathrop)
i. SKG Business Sponsorship Drive – reaches beyond parent community for
funding and expands our messaging to other community members.
ii. It is our only garden program specific fundraising effort (all other fundraising
done goes to PTA general fund to be distributed across programs according to
priority).
iii. Raised $15K in the first year (2014-2015). We’ll work to renew those sponsors,
and then we need to expand this to fully fund the program.
1. Approaching people we know in local businesses we frequent have been
most successful ventures
2. We need help – only Allison doing it right now. Volunteer to talk to
businesses, update materials, help with recognitions of sponsors,
provide business names that we could approach.
h. We need your help all around! Lots of committee volunteer options: mtgs, no mtgs,
project-based, all-hands calls, nutrition services liaison, business sponsorship help, grant
writing, garden class volunteers, garden class needs egg incubators
Q: Do the business need to be in the Abernethy zone?
A: Businesses could be local or not, in zone or not. We have a mix right now.
Q: Are you going to send these forms out to whole community (forms to name a
business to approach were handed out)?
A: Great idea- yes, we’ll plan to backpack these forms to reach out to whole
community.
Q: Parent feedback: enjoying the highlights in the Monday mailer of the
different businesses who have become sponsors. It makes me want to go there
to thank them for contributing to our school.
A: Very glad to highlight businesses that are donating, glad to hear that’s
working for everyone. Facebook is main mode for communicating about
sponsors – so please comment on the business profiles we put there, like us on
FB, invite friends to like it so we’ll be able to offer increased publicity to entice
more sponsors with the additional value.
Q: The Sunnyside afterschool program has been distributing monthly email
profiles to community members that highlight their sponsors: “Know your
neighbor”. Doing something like that would be great.
A: Please send example so we can take a look.
Q: Encountered a problem this week with a last minute menu change that we
weren’t aware of; no food options available that were gluten free. How are
menu changes communicated and can this be improved?
A: If kitchen knows of a change, they will tell Heather and she will send an
email; if the change is unplanned, for example: trying to make replacements for
things we’ve unexpectedly run out of, we will from this point forward make
replacements with like items (i.e. gluten free for gluten free). From this incident
we found out our internal systems are not working correctly. So we’re working
on that tracking so nutrition services knows all allergies and teachers know as
well.
Adjourn: 7:31pm
LW