RPEMS SFC Meeting 9.16.13
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Welcome
Tish Hild welcomed everyone and introduced herself as chair of the School family Council
Parent reps introduced themselves
o Margo Candelaria PreK –grade 2 rep, has children in 3rd and K
o Anisa Kupiec – grades 3-5 rep, has children in 2nd and 4th
o Brooke Thomas – middle school rep, has children in 8th, 7th, 4th, 1st
o Elisha Hawk– special needs rep, has child in 2nd and k twins
All attendees introduced themselves
II.
State of the school – Mr. Dambrosio
 Mr. D discussed how SFC meetings will work
o Committees are where actual work will get done
o Meeting is where people from committees report out progress, initiatives, and updates
o SFC meetings provide the community and opportunity to get together to discuss plans for school and hear
updates
 Budget update
o Enrollment projection for this year’s budget was 1326 for k-8
o prek funded separately, not included n projection or enrollment
 This year 1343, not including 22 prek kids
 17 more students than projected with Fair Student Funding model (approximately $5000/student)
o We will receive approximately $85000 around October 1st
o 97% of budget covers staffing
o Extra funds will help address unfunded projects and replenish needed accounts such as substitutes, materials,
and supplies.
o Mr. D will report exactly how much money we receive and where it goes when more information is available
 Roof construction
o Roof construction is taking place daily from 4pm – after dark/11pm, not during school hours
o Can’t move students to another area of building so can only work in evenings
o Won’t be completed during school year, will go into summer
o Updates will continue
o Please follow signs/directions for parking. After 4pm need to enter through back.
 Yellow bus service options
o Elementary children who are in zone but greater than 1 mile from school are eligible
o Fliers given out at prek-2 back to school night last week, and will go out to 3-5 back to school night this
week, and followed by a flier sent home in folders/backpacks
o Need a minimum of 35 families, so far 50 families have returned a flier expressing interest
o Will help with traffic, increase safety at drop off and pick up, and increase convenience for families
o Currently do not know where stops will be or timing of stops
o Unclear how 1 mile is determined, Mr. D will find out
o Cost does not come out of the school budget
 Roland park improvement project
o Includes construction on Roland Ave starting in December
o Specific details to come
 So far this year
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o A lot of positive feedback about start to year
o Minor challenges/concerns as to be expected
o Confidant that staff can provide high quality instruction and creative activities
Instructional leadership team
o goal is to look at student data, achievement testing data, and classroom functioning, and make adjustments as
needed
o WIRELESS testing – reading comprehension, phonemic awareness, ability to read and decode, and other
areas of reading are being tested in lower grades
o RISE testing – reading comprehension, sentence processing, and other areas of reading are being tested in
upper grades
o Math pretests and assessments are being conducted to see where they are now
o Team will look to determine if changes to instruction are needed
o Updates will be reported out at each meeting
III.
Announcements
 Design Excellence for k-12 School Facilities: Architects present recent Maryland schools, Tuesday 9/24 at Baltimore
School for the arts, 6-8pm
o Includes presentation for adults from architects who have worked on recent school design examples
o Children’s activity for children ages 4-10 "Design Your Ideal School"
o Ongoing exhibit at American Institute for Architects through 10/31
o Elizabeth Reichelt will post on classroom parent
 If you use gmail, many classroom parent emails/announcements are going into the “promotions” folder. Look there
for RPEMS classroom parent communications.
IV.
Review of SFC committees
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Attendees signed up for committees
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Committee identified chairs, co-chairs and a note taker today as well scheduled first meeting
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Committees will regularly communicate with larger community meeting dates and all activities
 Attendance
o Focuses on improving and addressing attendance concerns
o Look at school data about attendance rate, if see problems can address
o Offer incentives and praise for good attendance
o Generally not many attendance issues
o Can have individual students with attendance problems
o more tardy problems
o Chair and next meeting – TBD
 Climate
o Focuses on student behavior, Interactions between students and with adults, physical environment and how it
feels to be in school, and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) which addresses expectations
for behaviors and incentives for excellence
o Looks at data such as office referrals, # of suspensions, types of disciplinary problems (without sharing
individual information)
o Chairs – Dan Hellerbach and Margo Candelaria
o Next meeting – October 9, 2013 5:30 PM in the school library
 Family Community Engagement Committee (FCE)
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Trying to involve many parents as possible in decision making process such as budgets process, school
committees, and other needs
o Learning from each other so they know what parents value and what they want in a good school
o Identifying parent resources and how we can capitalize on those to improve school
o Reaching out to community so we can take advantage of available resources
o Chairs: Elizabeth Reichelt and Matt Croson
o Next meeting – 9/24/13 7:30 PM in the prinicipal’s conference room
Wellness
o Was an external committee for last 2 years, last year became officially part of SFC
o National Healthy School Recognition coming in October, will be recognized for our work to improve the
health climate of our school. Mr. Hollis will be involved. More details to come.
o Running festival challenge - Mr. D, staff, parents, and students running in Baltimore marathon. Donations
will benefit the school including Playworks
o Playworks is working to improve quality of recess. There was a large training in August and there will be
ongoing training and consultation.
o Also have a JHU nursing/MPH student doing a practicum in evaluation who will be working to evaluation
outcomes of wellness committee to understand impact initiatives have in the school
o Walk to school day 10/9
o Salad bar here at RPEMS. Working to promote salad bar here and in other city school.
o Chairs: Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner and Luke Hollis
o Next meeting – Friday 9/20/13 at 9am in the prinicipal’s conference room
PTA
Trish Pilla, PTA president reported
Board has met a few times, meeting tonight at 6pm
Work day over the summer, classrooms and offices painted
Big initiatives is Parent involvement Committee/Classroom Parent
o Learned at convention that the parent involvement committee should always be a standing committee
o Classroom parents will be assigned for each class and they make up the committee
o Classroom parents will help each teacher as much or as little as teacher desires , keep each other engaged, and
communicate out to parents
o Elementary committee has been solidified. They have been asked to have class/parent socials, most are
working on that
o Middle school still forming, looking for 2-3/section in each grade
o Trish Pilla meet with each team grade to discuss PTA expectations and teacher expectations
Upcoming events:
o Back to school night
o Friday pizza sale this week 9/20 to promote walk to school day 10/9 before next
o Elementary movie night 10/4
o PTA general membership 10/10 at 7pm
 will include finger printing for parent volunteers
 Mr.D will speak
 A representative from the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at JHU will speak
 Will be voting on budget for the year, come and vote to have a say on how we spend money
 Technically can’t spend $ until then, may not fulfill new teacher requests until then
o Evening with the Arts is 11/22 7pm
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big fall fundraiser
if artsy and want to donate please do
Meeting tomorrow night kick off organizing – need help planning contact Debbie Driscoll
dwdriscoll@yahoo.com
PTA meets 3rd Mondays of the month at 6pm
All events are on the school calendar
All of September dates in classroom parent so they come out in weekly classroom parent updates
Teacher wish lists are up, spread the work
VI.
Goucher, Mrs. Walker/Ms. Godsey
 Mrs. Walker spoke
 Thanked school for being hospitable to new 5 interns
 Goucher will ask to do some observations of classrooms and resource teachers, and will interview others such as
social workers, counselors, etc
 Accreditation visit 11/18
o visitors from state will come to to see how well professional development school partnership is going. Will
interview people in the building. More info to come
 There is a Goucher sponsored parent volunteer program. Parents could work with a child or assist in a class through
this Goucher program. Ms. Godsey will provide more details.
 Relationship with Goucher is mutual. Teachers can take advantage of professional development opportunities at
Goucher, take students to campus cultural activities, and take classes at a reduced rate.
 There will be a coordinating council meeting 9/24 to get feedback and discuss how program is going
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