November 2019 Meeting Minutes

Nov 6, 2019



Present:

Claire Lowenstein, Principal

Ashlee ___________, Designate (UFT Chapter Leader / Mandatory SLT Member)

Jason Isbell, PTA President

Diane Shoemaker, PTA President

Alice Hsu (3rd Grade ICT Classroom Teacher / UFT Member of the P.S. 333 SLT)

Emma Epner (4th Grade ICT Classroom Teacher / UFT Member of the P.S. 333 SLT)

Karen Dunner (2nd Grade Classroom Teacher / UFT Member of the P.S. 333 SLT)

Katelyn (Kati) Bornholdt (4th Grade Classroom Teacher / UFT Member of the P.S. 333 SLT)

Kathryn Good, Parent Rep and Secretary

Kiki Herold, Parent Rep and Time Keeper

Justin Schwarz, Parent Rep and Chair

Kerry Powers, Assistant Principal 

Sasha Rudenstine, Parent Rep


Review of contributions and comments for CEP in iPortal

Justin led the explanation of feedback/inputs and group determined what to incorporate in the final version of CEP for submission.  The SLT reviewed the four areas:


  1. Restorative behavior and safety

Claire explained that the Climate Walks last year raised several issues and that, as a result, MSC has hired a full-time Respect for All (RFA) liaison.

MSC is committed to bringing restorative practices to all areas of the school by:

Building trust

Creating a staff charter

The RFA Liaison is working with teachers to lead restorative circles as classroom activities

The RFA Liaison is the family contact for bullying, sexual harassment, and cyberbullying

Claire reported on the Professional Development program on 5 November 2019: 

Restore 360 and classroom interventions with outside experts and met goal of 100% of faculty compliance in RFA overview/exposure

K-3 teachers focused on therapeutic crisis intervention in schools (TCIS)

To date, 5 teachers have been trained for the full 5 day TCIS certification

The PD program provided an overview of the TCIS.

Teachers discussed trauma/pain-based behaviors and how they are realized in the classroom. Teachers reviewed scenarios and practiced reflective language in situations.  Key phrase: We cannot change the child who is in crisis, but you can change how you respond to the child in crisis. Full staff of K-3 had 3-hour overview 


Grades 4-6 teachers attended Restorative Circles workshop on PD day on 5 Nov

This followed a first day of school presentation which brought everyone into compliance on the RFA program model.

Kerry, Ben and Allie (RFA Liaison) used a powerpoint to lead the Restorative Circles session for grades 4-6 teachers .  Kati shared her participation has given her some options to be used in the classroom


Parents asked about how to extend the learning and train more teachers.  What happens in the classroom for those days and that the teachers are out of classrooms? Claire explained that the 5 full-day training requires money from the MSC budget to cover replacement teachers if teachers are out on the days they would teach and/or to be paid for work on weekends, etc to attend training.


Restorative practices/no excuses mediation training - Allie works with some teachers on how to incorporate aspects of the certification program in their classroom activities.  

How Do We Best Respond (Stephanie Saunders) and Life-Space Crisis intervention (part of Restore 360) were covered on PD day.  Allie is trained in Restore 360, which encompasses all the other segments.  5 teachers and Claire trained in TCIS. 


With two FT social workers and one school psychologist, parents asked if  we need another colleague to support the needs of teachers and students?  

Claire explained that last year there was only 1 certified guidance counselor.  The content of

Mondays PD sessions varies as a number of topics must be covered.  Staff/school climate, trust, etc, Diversity and Inclusion Meeting, other PD, Restorative practices 


Claire explained that one guidance counselor is for mandated counseling and at-risk counseling (Amy).  Allie (second guidance counselor) does RFA and does join classes that indicate needs, responds to bullying, sexual harassment, cyberbulling.  The psychologist (Alison) is for crisis situations and sees students. She works only with MSC.


Jason asked about Dean structure.  

Claire explained that MSC has 2 assistant principals for discipline.  Any increase in staff from the budget would take away from the direct student contact/services to students.


The SLT recalled that all questions for clarification on staffing and procedures are to further the committee’s understanding about safety and discipline.  The goal of the SLT in this context is to improve MSC numbers on data/reports and to identify ways to meet all the needs of staff and students in the area of safety.  Therefore, the preferred frame for the discussion of staff might be to “add supportive structures to enable the restorative practices framework”.


ORS (online and recurring systems)

Sasha shared that Schedule and other database systems are options for communicating across the school so that teachers and administrators can access information about the students and inform each other on the best ways to support students through a centralized platform.


Justin asked about plan for addressing the issues raised in the 2018-19 surveys that indicated not everyone fully understood and knew how to implement the behavior/discipline system and that it was applied unfairly or inconsistently.

Jason shared info about survey responses and disparity between respondents and experience with system.  From the teachers’ survey, SLT recalled that responses from teachers indicated that ⅓ didn’t agree with the policies, ⅓ did not fully know what/how to implement the policies, and 1/3 didn’t feel supported in applying the discipline policy/that it was not uniformly applied.


Justin identified a gap in the school survey data since only students in grades 6-8 are able to respond.


Reviewing feedback on Gap Analysis

Is this area for identifying the student needs (what the school must work to develop) vs what the students need to do.


Advisory - has a curriculum.  Check-in is different.  “Do now.”

Discuss different options for mentorship and finding time for students to feel seen and heard and to build relationships with others across the school.


Timeline for Staff School Charter  

Kati reported that staff are modelling how to work together to make this a successful year.  What do we need to be happy and successful in our work environment (same as classroom practice)

Agree on what we value and want and writing up the contract


→Claire will identify all the TCIS training dates and share with all faculty and staff to provide opportunity to sign on for the certification.  Target = 12 teachers by end of 2020 school year.


→School will explore the possibility of increasing the number of days/week for Advisory and will explore the possibility of cross-grade Advisory groups to build peer support


4:40 PM Jason had to leave and designated Kathryn as PA Rep


  1. IEPs and Absenteeism - one special education teacher will assist with compliance requirements

The conversation focused on Case Managers of IEPs, which are the school psychologist, IEP coordinator, and this year, IEP teachers.  SLT agreed that the target should be 100% compliance even though 90% is understood to be very good, perhaps more realistic.  

Discussion of timeliness of IEP meetings proceeded.  


Some teachers have time in their circular 6 to work on inputting data.  This time is based on what teachers have selected for their area of focus- therefore, there is time on the calendar to meet the recommended areas.


Move to 3. Math and 4..ELA

No significant challenges presented in the feedback on these sections of the CEP


Section 5 - IEP

Question of timing for IEP and implementation - 10 days is the required period for the IEP to go into effect and action to be ongoing.  

MSC administration has resolved items in IEP area based on additional oversight as a result of last year’s experience with (not) meeting compliance dates


Action Items

Claire will reach out to MSC’s K-5 math partner to see what they might offer for 6-8 math support


All agreed that no additional changes to the document will be made per the CEP’s collaborative mandate, except for cleaning up items and then will be submitted.


Claire announced a C30 to hire for a permanent Assistant Principal (December 4)

Needs 2 teachers and 4 parents.  These were identified from the SLT. 


Welcomed Sasha Rudenstine to the SLT and thanked her for her contributions


Requested the Principals report next time to include agenda item from this meeting

Requested Running Records report

Requested IEP compliance report  = 94.5%

Identified School survey results for December meeting

Creation of new Committees within SLT (data and school visiting/best practices)  Kati was nominated to be the Chief Facilitator for the Visiting Committee

Sasha was nominated for the data committee and Claire offered another team that is already reporting and Justin agreed that there will be collaboration with them