CHPSPO Meeting Notes – March 20, 2012

Dear Capitol Hill Public School Parent Organization members,

 

Middle Schools

At our CHPSPO meeting on Tuesday, we had very informative presentations from Principals Tynika Young, Dawn Clemens and Natalie Gordon. After our discussion, we decided to form two “thinking groups” to further explore how we can support our neighborhood middle schools. The two thinking groups are:

1. Outreach – the scope of this thinking group is to look at things like:

a. spreading the word about the good things going on at our neighborhood middle schools;

b. bringing together parents from the different elementary feeder schools, e.g., living room chats, etc.;

c. helping people understand what the IB teaching approach is and the progress Jefferson, Eliot-Hine and Eastern are making in becoming IB certified;

d. creating opportunities for families to visit the neighborhood middle schools, e.g., art festivals, Spring baseball games, etc.

Outreach thinking group members are: Joe Weedon (chair), Andrea Ryan, Isabella Harris, and Barbara Riehle

2. Out-of-school time/Partnerships – the scope of this thinking group is to look at things like:

a. what existing out-of-school time activities do the middle schools currently have such as clubs and sports;

b. what partnerships currently exist at the schools to support out-of-time activities;

c. what are the desires of the principals, teachers and students for after-school activities;

d. identify opportunities for establishing partnerships to support out-of-school activities.

Out-of-school time/Partnerships thinking group members are: Suzanne Wells (chair), Sandra Moscoso-Mills, Principal Dawn Clemens, and Julie Scofield

The thinking groups will report at the April CHPSPO meeting on their progress. If others would like to join the thinking groups, please contact the chairs of the thinking groups (Joe Weedon, joeweedon@verizon.net for the Outreach thinking group and Suzanne Wells, m.godec@att.net for the Out-of-school time/Partnerships thinking group).

 

DCPS Libraries

At our meeting, we also agreed CHPSPO would submit testimony at the March 28 DCPS budget hearing and/or write a letter to Chancellor Henderson regarding the FY13 budget changes that move librarians into a flexible funding category, and that eliminate librarians from schools with enrollments less than 299. A draft of the testimony/letter will be circulated in the next couple of days.

 

Smithsonian Education Lab

Finally, we had a very informative presentation by Jeff Meade with the Smithsonian Education Lab. There are great opportunities for free teacher training through the Smithsonian Education Lab. If your school is interested in exploring partnering opportunities with the Smithsonian Education Lab, contact Jeff at meadej@si.edu.

Suzanne Wells