SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL PTSA
MINUTES OF ASSOCIATION MEETING JANUARY 13, 2004
SAMOHI CAFETERIA
There was no report from SOL/BAC.
Lauri Crane presented the Santa Monica Malibu Ed Foundation report for liaison, Debbie Mulvaney. A celebration for "For the Arts, 2004" will take place May 14 – May 16, 2004. The event will take place at the Pier and there will be visual and performing arts presented by students and food sales. On Friday night, May 14, there will be a fundraising event and the Ed Foundation is looking for volunteers to help with planning the event. Students in the lower grade levels will sell the Golden Ticket Raffle tickets, which funds academic enrichment grants. The raffle winners will be announced at Stairways to the Stars.
The minutes from the November Association meeting were approved by committee and are also available on the school website. Cheri Orgel recommended that parents go to the website for lots of information –the website is updated daily by our wonderful new webmaster.
Barry Snell, President of the AAPSSSG, reported that their committee sent letters to parents of African American students who are receiving low grades. Of the 376 students they represent, 262 have received a "D" or "F" in some of their classes. They had an engaging meeting to discuss ways to help these students. There will be a meeting on Feb. 20 with the Black Student Union (BSU). The newly formed Dad's club meets every month for breakfast.
Cheri Orgel announced recommendations from the Executive Board to approve some extra funding in the following areas: $6350 for extra Library hours to keep the library open Mon. -Thurs. until 5PM and Friday until 4PM, $2000 for bathroom supplies and upgrades and $2000 for the webmaster. Chris Thornton presented the motion to approve the additional funding and Maryanne La Guardia seconded the motion. All present agreed and there were no opposing votes.
Chris Thornton presented the Treasurer's Report. The report covered expenses for December. There were no questions from the floor and the report was filed for audit. The "Direct Donations" reached its expected budget at the end of December. Cheri Orgel hopes the donations will continue to be contributed because we are still receiving requests for additional expenses.
Roshan Nozari, Parliamentarian, presented the Nominating Committee for the PTSA Officers for next year. The selected committee members are Gretchen Goetz, Kim Eyler, Deb Love, Amy Van Pelt and Karen Dickenson with Betsy Newell as an alternate. She asked if there were any other members who would like to serve on the nominating committee. Maryanne La Guardia motioned to elect the Nominating Committee as presented and Lorna Loopesko seconded the motion. All in attendance voted in agreement.
Co-President, Louise Jaffe announced that the 4th issue of the Viking Voice should be at the students' homes. Maria Rodriguez provided the Spanish translation. The next PTSA Association meeting will be February 10 and the discussion will be centered on sports and athletics at Samohi. Athletic Director, Mike Griswold is retiring at the end of the semester. David Tillipman, PTSA Sports Liaison, has been working with Dr. Straus on this issue. Parents can contact him with their thoughts and concerns at his phone number or e-mail address, which is available on the back of the agenda. Any PTSA member who would like to serve on the PTSA Board should contact Roshan Nozari.
On January 27th the City Council will have a meeting devoted to budget priorities. Louise requested that any parent who would like to support the school district should come to this City Council meeting and that we should all contact the members of the council and ask them to maintain their commitment to the school district. The address for the City Council is on the back of the agenda.
Cheri Orgel advised that the Gift Policy proposal could be found on the District Website under the Superintendent's comments. Samohi would benefit greatly if the Gift Policy is adopted and the PTSA Board has given official support of the policy's philosophy. The specific wording is in the latest issue of the Viking Voice. Cheri also reminded all that the important school dates could be found on the calendar on the school website. The evening "Coffeewith the Principals" will start at 6:30 PM immediately before the Association meetings and the morning sessions will be held on Thursdays at 8:30 AM. The prior evening there was a workshop to assist parents and students with completing FAFSA applications. There will be another workshop on February 21.
Nancy Gutierrez arrived to continue providing the simultaneous Spanish translation as she does at all PTSA meetings.
Janine Avner, representing Site Governance, reported that the Site Plan had just been passed and will be forwarded on to the District. They have been discussing professional development and continuing a discussion about security cameras. The next meeting will be Jan. 20 at 5 PM in E-113 when they will vote on security cameras. The Task Force will be working on the by-laws to reconfigure Site Governance to reflect Redesign.
The English Department representatives Ms. Franke, Ms. Marek, Mr. Thais and Department Chair Carol Jago were introduced. She is thankful for the passage of the parcel tax and the possible permanent funding from the City of Santa Monica because the state is not supportive of our schools. She continued by talking about Superintendent Deasy and Principal, Dr. Straus and the creation of the house system. The system of assessment used in the English Department is in line with the state standards. The standards set by California are used as an example in other states. "No Child Left Behind" means that we must be accountable for every child. The Pinnacle system makes the alignment with California standards more transparent. These standards were taken from a 1997 publication that stated what was expected for each grade for writing and what books should be read in each grade. The department rubric for grading is a work in progress. The 29 teachers in the department will have a 3-day workshop to take another look at the rubric and to have professional conversations to determine what is a good paper. Essay writing will be part of the SAT and ACT tests. The perfect score for the SAT will be raised to 2400 when the essay is included, however, the analogies and some of the multiple choice questions will be eliminated. As more tests include essay-writing, students will become better writers. The department is working on achieving greater consistency in teaching novels with standards based systems. The students will be proficient, but the hope is that they will achieve higher levels. It is very important for parents to get their children to school. If the student is absent, the teacher should be contacted and have the student write a message to the teacher. As parents, we must nag our children to do their homework. The homework may be reading, but we must continuously follow-up with them to keep them on target. Parents can check the student's progress on Pinnacle. An "X" indicates an excused absence and a "Z" indicates a missing assignment. Our children will thank us later for our involvement.
As parents, we must find a balance between letting our children learn to take their own responsibility and just providing support. Ms. Jago thanked parents for asking for the standards and for taking the SAT seriously. Students should always have vocabulary studies, because vocabulary is one of the critical issues for writing and thinking. People may be limited by the words they use. We must find an approach to have the students use more words.
In response to a parent's question about teaching creative writing in English classes, Mr. Thais explained there is a limit to the teaching time and teachers must set priorities. The first charge is to provide real world skills and the department focuses on that. Unfortunately, UC credit is not permitted for a creative writing class.
An unhappy parent expressed his concern about a particular 10th grade honors class. There had been no comments from the teacher on 2 or 3 papers the student had received back. Dr. Straus responded that individual concerns with a teacher should be addressed with the teacher and the House Principal, because the department chair is not the evaluator. If there is still concern over the issue then the parent can contact her and Dr. Straus will talk to the teacher. We must follow the process that has been set. The English Department may be the department that is most aligned with the state's standards, however, there are many new people in the department.
Ms. Franke commented that students should get comments on their essays. She gives essays for her final exams. Mr. Thias added that we cannot teach all students to write. To a beginning teacher, grading essays can be an overwhelming task. There are 150-170 students per teacher.
Another parent asked how we can help students who want to learn to write fiction. Ms. Jago responded that if a student takes chances with fictional flair, teachers should support these students. The teachers must work with those students who don't know how to write an essay. Ms. Franke, who teaches fictional writing, commented that students need to write really well and do essay writing for college prep. She agrees that students could use more creative writing.
Another parent wanted to know how Mr. Thais grades papers and how many drafts he requires. He responded that he asks for only one draft, because if there are two or more drafts the teacher is taking over. There is a rubric for each assignment that combines the department rubric and his own, that is specific to the assignment. He uses the "Sweet Sixteen" which is 16 things to good writing. He uses a 4-point scale that identifies special strengths and weaknesses. He also thinks teachers must write comments on papers. Ms. Franke uses scaffolding, the student prepares the first draft, then the students use brainstorming then the second draft is peer editing. This is the first presentable draft, but it shows how the paper can be improved. The students meet in groups of 3-4 for the peer editing. She asks the students to hand in all copies and checklists and that the student read the paper out loud to themselves. Ms. Franke grades the papers and adds comments. There is a final draft when the paper is revised sentence by sentence to make the paper concise and graceful. Ms. Jago added that "On-demand" writing is what is done in the real world and what students actually do in college.
A parent asked about teaching sentence structure and basic grammar and feels it should be asked for more often. Another comment requested that Poetry should be focused on and that students should be asked to read and understand poetry.
Ms. Jago commented that there should be a student/parent collaborative effort across all subjects and she is hoping that the House structure will help. The students' progress in honors English classes determines if the student should go on to AP English. A parent asked if there is an alternative if a student is not good enough to go on to 11 AP English. The response is that regular 11th grade English should be challenging to those students.
A parent commented about plagiarism at Santa Monica College. Cheathouse.com is a commonly used website. The internet challenges academic integrity, however, there is a school-wide policy about copying from the internet. We teach the students how to paraphrase. The easy way out can get you thrown out of college. Students must determine the audience they are writing to. Ms. Jago noted there are Sparknotes for almost every book to a comment to a parent, who noted that some students don't read books. Mr. Thais compared using Sparknotes to reading a pamphlet instead of visiting Paris. His students take a daily quiz that references three details that cannot be taken from Sparknotes. Ms. Franke gives random quizzes to keep the students on their toes. She also checks their books for markings or notes that she has asked them to make as they read the book. She gives unusual prompts as a way around plagiarism.
Dr. Straus talked about mentoring for teachers and tutorials for AP students and others. Teachers can insist that students go to tutoring. Co-President Cheri Orgel mentioned the monthly scheduled time for teachers to talk together.
Drs. Straus and Kelly provided the Principal's report. There have been many staff changes, in part because there have been several new babies. Dr. Straus has been involved with recruiting and hiring. Final exams are being given next week. Dr. Kelly noted there have been more than the usual number of staffing adjustments this year and this is making it difficult to keep continuity in the classes. There will be leadership changes and two English teachers will be replaced next semester. One of the Language teachers will be going on maternity leave and there is an opening for a Spanish teacher for native speakers. There will be shifts among the Language teachers but no changes in the History Department. In Math, students must build on learned skills and some may have to start over if they must repeat a class. This results in the collapse of some classes and the re-opening of others, as students are reassigned. There have been good replacement teachers. The administration is continuing the work on the house design to provide better integrity in the houses, which improves the number of students who take a class in their own house. They are looking to next fall to further refine the numbers.
Dr. Straus announced that two weeks from the meeting date would be the day that the new schedules are handed out. Students will not receive their new schedule if they owe something. They must pay their bills and return their books. There will be a dialer message to home phones if there are obligations. If a student owes a detention, the office will hold back their lunch pass until the detention is completed. It may be a little crazy on the first Tuesday of the new semester. The Exit Exam testing event will take place in March in English and Math. The CAT6 and AP exams are given in May. The school needs full participation in taking the Exit Exam to meet the annual yearly progress. 95% of the eligible student must participate or all the scores are discarded. The achievement goals are not met if we don't have good participation. We need the maximum number of students to pass the first time. We must do better than just passing, but the school did very poorly in participation on the CAT6 tests. If the annual yearly progress is not met for two years, the state can impose consequences on the school. Last year we were at just 70%. While we are looking for ways to set an incentive to take the tests, other high schools are also experiencing this problem. We must provide the continuity, meet the standards and then follow with the assessments. Students must go to school on the dates that final exams are scheduled. The schedule will run as published. A teacher did a survey on tardiness in the L.A. area. The administration would like to have a sub-committee on tardiness. It is so important to get the students to classes. Some are tardy to the same class and this needs to improve.
There is special AP tutoring in English, History, Math and Calculus. The students must be recommended to this tutoring by their teacher. Students pass the AP exam with a grade of 3 or above. They receive university credit with a grade of 4 or 5. The AP classes provide growth and development and readies the students for college. One must be a really good teacher to teach an AP class. The universities are always looking at students who take challenges and do well in the AP classes.
The regular open house will be held the end of March. There will be one week off between the end of the regular school year and the beginning of summer school. The school received a one-half million-dollar grant from the Federal Government for professional development and intervention. Because the grant was received late in the year, it will be extended to a fourth year. We will continue to build a sense of community with our students. We need to look at the next step in the Houses.
Athletics at our school covers 950 students. There are many issues to discuss and new policies to form. We cannot transform everything in the athletic department. The discussion at the next association meeting will be "What is the Athletic Program?" The meeting will break up into smaller groups. Although we cannot fix everything right away, the first step will come with choosing the new Athletic Director.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 PM.
Respectfully submitted by,
Helene Phipps
Co-recording Secretary