Summary of
January 15, 2014 SCAPE Meeting
Updates on Action Items
--Website
We will continue to explore getting our own
URL and creating a website primarily designed to share information with SCAPE
members. We will try to get madscape.org
as our URL. Other discussion included
making sure the website is current, accessible and uncluttered.
--Meetings
at Boys and Girls Club
Nancy was able to reserve a meeting room for our February, April, June and
August meetings.
--Assessment
The SCAPE letter was sent, but no response
has been received from MMSD.
--Attendance
at Board of Education meetings
This will be crucial as we look to get
information and to influence policy.
--Conferences/Ready
Set Goal
Discussions with MMSD and MTI have not
produced positive results yet. There is another
meeting scheduled for next week and Andy will report information from that as
it is available. Currently MMSD staff is
expressing a possibility that RSG's will not be funded in future budgets.
--Technology
and Budget
Due to the unexpected introduction and push
to pass the MMSD Technology Plan we spent a significant time discussing the
plan and its potential implications.
Major concerns centered around the fact that the plan is being rushed
through, the evidence supporting the need for 1:1 student to technology ratios
is not there for elementary students, and that given current budget concerns
the price tag for the plan will impact other programs and staffing in a way
that is of significant concern.
Discussion Topic- Grouping, Clustering and Tracking
We had a great, although somewhat
abbreviated, conversation about this issue.
Some thoughts that were raised included:
-What drives this process is it student
centered, curriculum centered, budget centered, or
based
on legal requirements?
-How are students grouped/identified and
what can be done to improve this process?
-How do we "remove the edges" and
make our classrooms places where all students are
engaged
in learning appropriate to their needs, not removed or given "one size
fits
all"
activities.
-There was concern raised that the inclusive
climate at Crestwood is changing because of
initiatives
like Mondo, math grouping and Interventions.
-Elementary grouping is, in many ways, a different creature than Middle and High School grouping.
-What do the different communities and
groups in our school need/want to make sure that
all
of our students have opportunities that are geared to their needs?
-How do we have conversations that are not
compartmentalized by group or by interest?
This
is the current reality and causes conflict between different groups instead of
creating
a cohesive solution to our challenges.
"To Do"
--Meetings
at Boys and Girls Club
More follow-up with B&GC staff will
occur to try and increase neighborhood attendance at our meetings.
--Assessment
Andy will follow up with the Superintendent
and we will consider communicating our concerns at a future Board of Education
meeting if no response is received.
--Attendance
at Board of Education meetings
Cris will email the Board's weekly schedule
as it becomes available. We will look
into getting buttons made so that we can be identifiable at events and meetings.
--Technology
and Budget
We will gather information about the plan
over the next couple of days with more info coming in from a contact on the Technology
Steering Committee.
Then we will begin a letter writing/phone
campaign to ask questions of the Board and Administration. We will be asking these individuals to slow
down the process and explore all options before passing a plan that could
negatively impact our students and schools.
We will also look at getting some
information out in the media as well (letters to the editor, Facebook, etc.)
We will also communicate with other schools
in order to expand the voices that are heard on this issue.
Over the weekend we will share ideas and
formulate some "talking points" for people communicating as SCAPE
members. Members are welcome to
communicate their ideas as individuals, but we want to make sure that SCAPE is
heard as well.
It is important that we get this started
quickly so that our opinions are heard during the decision making process and
not just "after the fact" at a Board meeting where the votes have
been decided.
--Increasing
SCAPE Visibility
We will try and make contacts in the Allied
community as well as in our ELL community to increase participation from these
groups.
Next Meeting:
Wednesday
February 19th 6:30 @ Boys and Girls Club
Potential
Topics:
-Follow up on "To Do"
list
-Improving
Communications
-Continue
our Grouping/Tracking/Clustering conversation
-Presentation
on Homelessness by a Crestwood Parent
Feel free to suggest other items. We would like to have a focus so that we can
communicate this with B&GC staff or other Allied neighborhood sources to
try and increase attendance from that community at our meetings.
