- Housekeeping
- Minutes from meetings earlier this year had been posted to website, but link to the minutes had not been working. The link has been corrected and all minutes are now available.
- Family Outreach
- Valerie Mallett presented an article from The Washington Post about home visits through the DCPS Family Engagement Partnership (FEP) as an effective intervention tool.
- C reported it’s an interesting idea, but that Murch is not eligible for FEP due to school demographics.
- On a related note, the budget information to be presented later in the meeting suggests increasing the school social worker to full–‐time as a means of trying to address the same issue –‐ outreach to families who need it the most.
- Not practical for Murch to do home visits for each student, but also would want to approach the topic in a way that does not make people feel targeted.
- Out of boundary students often have difficulty socially because it is hard for them to engage in after school activities at Murch. Also, weekend activities like sports are often geographic based. Although many leagues (Stoddert, Cap City) are increasingly opening up to the school populations, the travel time alone makes participation impractical for many OOB families.
- School faculty interested in trying to reach out to OOB families in their own neighborhoods. One option would be to host a neighborhood coffee or playground dates where one or more faculty members would attend. It would help families find others in their neighborhood. Martha McIntosh noted the HSA has information on where families live.
- C reported it’s an interesting idea, but that Murch is not eligible for FEP due to school demographics.
- Valerie Mallett presented an article from The Washington Post about home visits through the DCPS Family Engagement Partnership (FEP) as an effective intervention tool.
- Enrollment Project Update
- Official projected enrollment for Murch for next year is 680.
- DCPS has no policy under which they can tell us we don’t have to take OOB kids. Individual placements still happen. If class size is really low, we may have to take additional kids.
- DCPS has confirmed no spots are being made available in lottery.
- Chancellor Henderson, Mary Cheh, and other public officials are visiting Murch for Read Across America on March 3. This is good exposure for Murch. Best advocacy for the school is for officials to witness the current conditions in the school first hand.
- Budget Update
- Results of the meeting with the Chancellor
- Anticipated budget process and schedule (all likely to occur within the same week)
- March 3 –‐ Mayor’s State of the District speech
- After that the Chancellor will give a speech
- After that the LSATs will receive budget info
- Chancellor advised LSATs to “think big” –‐ what would you do with 10% budget increase? Murch anticipates that the increased funds may not be distributed evenly so we may not receive a full 10% increase. To be best prepared, Mr. C is planning for three possible scenarios:
- Plan A: Even if district per pupil funding to Murch is the same, Murch will get approximately $690,000 increased budget due to increased enrollment (based on last year’s funding figures).
- Plan B: additional 5% increase in budget overall.
- Plan C: additional 10% increase in budget overall
- C reviewed the following possible additions/changes to the Murch budget from last year’s staffing. The below list identifies each new possible addition to the staff if Murch were to receive the maximum amount of additional funding that has been identified. Real budget figures are likely to be more limited and will require the school to prioritize among the following options.
- Increase one class section in K, 1 and 2. Critical issue is finding space to house the classrooms. Options include library, additional trailers and/or swap out existing trailers for better trailers.
- Special Ed:
- Add a Special Ed coordinator position.
- Additional Special Ed and ELL aides –‐ Would be key to continuing learning when teacher not in the room. Question whether this is a half time job, with other half being in the classroom?
- Behavior Technician
- Help implement Responsive Classroom throughout the school. Would act as an “RC Coach.”
- This position could also complete the SSTs (Student Support Team) and collect data in classrooms for difficult students.
- Technology coach
- Essentially an instructional coach focusing on technology. Would have a dual function, both coaching teachers and directly teaching students space permitting. Realistically probably would not directly teach students until after renovation.
- This position is in part planning for the school’s post–‐renovation future
- Enrichment specialist.
- This position would plan lessons with staff, gather resources and prepare space for lessons. Could also lead small groups. Could be available to work directly with groups of top students as well (top 3%).
- DCPS is adopting a school wide enrichment model. Initial thought was that District would only fund a half time position for Murch. However, District also planning pilot program next year in four schools, which may include Murch. In which case the District might fully fund this position for Murch next year outside our budget.
- Math Specialist
- This position could be helpful for ensuring students get experiential learning opportunities.
- Teachers believe that with Math, the teachers already know how to use manipulatives, etc. The greater need is for intervention support. For kids who are struggling with math, at this point you need a specialist to do the intervention. An instructional aide can’t do it. Frankly, the teacher has already exhausted her knowledge base.
- Even in 4th and 5th grade you have kids needing intense intervention. Math teacher doesn’t have bandwidth.
- Classroom teachers do not have the time to do the level of intervention needed.
- Science Specialist
- This position would ensure kids get experiential learning opportunities in science.
- DC adopted new science standards Next Generation Science. How are we going to get ready?
- Most elementary school teachers are not science experts and they were not taught how to teach science in school. They need training and materials.
- One person to support science throughout the school seems manageable. [As compared to math, where it seems that a school this size might really require two specialists.]
- Parent Coordinator/Project Manager
- Plan would be to hire the school’s current project manager (currently an HSA employee) under DCPS.
- Registrar
- Plan is to add an individual to the front office to free up some bandwidth for current staff. Location to be determined.
- Head Custodian
- School needs one Head Custodian to fill district requirements, including attending District meetings, trainings, etc.
- Pre–‐K teacher
- Plan would be to increase our current Pre–‐K resource teacher to full time to help with in classroom.
- Priorities: After initial discussion, we discussed the following positions being of the highest priority:
- classroom teachers + K aide
- Special Ed Coordinator
- Anticipated budget process and schedule (all likely to occur within the same week)
- Results of the meeting with the Chancellor
- Autism Program:
- All current students within the self–‐contained autism classroom at Murch will graduate this year.
- The District is indicating that Murch may be receiving a Pre–‐School (age 3) autism program as a substitute. If so, Mr. C likely would house this classroom in Kaufman.
- C has indicated to the District that we do not have the space to accept this program at this time, although the school may have no choice.
- Aides
- The group had a further discussion on a topic that has been raised previously: should classroom aides (especially in grades 1–‐5) be designated as clerical or instructional in order to maximize skill set and value?
- Teachers noted that both classroom aides and instructional specialists require a lot of teacher collaboration. Classroom teachers are ultimately responsible for the students in their classroom
- Consistency and reliability is key.
- It was noted that if aides are to be delinked from a single grade, it would be best for them to work with a limited group of teachers. Having the ability to get to know a limited set of teachers and students well would maximize their effectiveness.
- Assigning an aide to two grade levels could have an advantage of adding consistency with students as they progress from year–‐to–‐year.
- Non–‐Personnel spending
- Part of budget planning must include a discussion of the non–‐personnel spending line.
- We ran out of time during this meeting to address it.
- Martha to circulate survey information from staff on non–‐personnel spending and we will include it in our discussions next meeting.
- Teachers helping other teachers in the classroom
- Several years ago teachers could volunteer to spend one planning period a week helping in another teacher’s classroom.
- It was a good program and successful in both supporting teachers with intervention, as well as cross–‐ pollinating teaching styles. Now Murch teachers are siloed in their classrooms.
- Program was volunteer only. It was not required.
- Program happened when the HSA paid for recess aide and teachers had additional planning time free during the day. Not likely teachers would volunteer to do this today because they have so little free time during the day
- Options for Adding Classroom Space at Murch Next Year
- world geography room
- trailer for ELL
- library
- additional trailers
- autism room
- Interim Space Improvement Priorities (possibly to be addressed during spring break or summer break)
- Functioning Wi–‐Fi
- Locks on classroom doors
- Electronic key access to the building
- thorough cleaning of the building
- permit parking for staff in the neighborhood (to free up parking lot to use for trailers)
- Next Steps
- C. to circulate job descriptions for possible new positions to LSAT.
- C to circulate staffing models to teachers and schedule meeting with staff on March 4 for discussion.
