The meeting began at 5:07 P.M.
Principal Ellis reported that Nurse Wright had been redeployed to complete hearing and vision screenings at other DCPS schools. This redeployment could be anywhere from a week to a month. Principal Ellis also talked about the highly successful movie night that the HSA had sponsored the previous Friday.
Karin Perkins, HSA co-president, reminded LSAT members that the HSA’s first general meeting of the year would occur on Tuesday, October 19th and that much of the discussion would involve the 2010-2011 HSA budget, including money available for implementation of the strategic plan.
Lauren Miller updated the LSAT on discussions with Murch faculty about the social/emotional goal of the strategic plan. She expressed the support of the staff and the concern that there be sufficient Responsive Classroom training so that teachers could move ahead with implementation of the social/emotional goal. Teachers also wanted to be sure that students were fully knowledgeable about school-wide social/emotional expectations and were held responsible for meeting those expectations.
LSAT members expressed interest in Responsive Classroom training for parents to foster greater consistency between school and home. Parent LSAT representatives also wanted information on Responsive Classroom to be more readily available to parents by posting information on the Murch website. Development of tasks and other planning necessary to move ahead with the social/emotional goal will be passed on to the Responsive Classroom Committee, composed of teachers, so that decisions about funding can be made prior to the October 19th HSA meeting.
LSAT members returned to last month’s discussion on whether to proceed with renewing our Middle States School accreditation. Neither Ms. Ellis nor Vicki Otten was able to find any information that explained why the accreditation had been sought by Murch in the first place. Only one DCPS school – Brent Elementary School – has the accreditation. LSAT members felt that the major purpose of the accreditation was as a marketing tool and that it was something that Murch did not need to pursue at this time.
The November meeting of the LSAT will be held on November 1st at 5:30 PM.