PTA Meeting Minutes 3.21.17
Campbell PTA Meeting
March 21, 2017
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Approximate
# of Attendees: 32
I. Welcome
and Introductions: Nathan Zee, President
- Nathan
welcomed everyone to the meeting and read a “Thank You” to the Wellness
Committee note from Ms. Sutherland, who expressed her deep appreciation
for the “Self-Care” hour staff event; Ms. Nesselrode commented that the
event was lovely and was very much appreciated by the staff (and
well-attended, as over 20 teachers participated); thank you especially to
Jessica Haney who conceived and brought the event to fruition - Nathan
reminded everyone of the call for nominations for next year’s PTA
Officers; only three more PTA meetings this year, so the slate of nominated
officers will be presented at the April meeting and the final vote will be
taken at the May meeting; if you are interested in nominating someone (or
are interested yourself) in any of the positions, please contact the Chair
of the Nominating Committee, Chandi Krohl, chandikrohl@hotmail.com ; all
positions are up for a vote every year, but each position is limited to a
term of two years; the current VP Fundraising and VP Programming are
ineligible to return as they have served two years, so at a minimum we
need individuals who would like to serve in these roles though all six
positions will be voted on at the May meeting - Nathan
thanked Kathy Evans for her hard work on the Penny Wars Fundraiser; we
raised over $800 in change; even though it wasn’t designed to be a large
fundraiser, it was fun and very successful and we received a lot of
positive feedback - Q:
Who won? A: There were two winners: the First Grade won with the highest
number of points, and the Fourth Grade won with the most money; those two
grade levels will get to buy items for their classrooms with the funds (like
games for Indoor Recess) - Comments:
the Arlington Community Federal Credit Union representative, Ashley, who presented
our school with the “Big Check” at Community Meeting, shared how
impressed she was with how we conduct Community Meeting, and that she’d
like the CEO of the ACFCU to visit our school; the community engagement
aspect of this fundraiser was really important; representatives of the
ACFCU would like to volunteer for the Garden Work Day; - Ms.
Nesselrode commented on our relationship with ACFCU: for those who don’t
recall, they have been a financial backer (the greenhouse); they are
enthusiastic supporters and have good follow-through, they are committed
to upholding community ties - Nathan
reminded the PTA that we moved our PTA bank account to the ACFCU earlier
this year when we had to open new accounts; we decided to strengthen our
growing bond and support a community-minded business in the process
- Nathan
reminded us that the Fun Run will be held this Friday and there will not
be a Community Meeting; Nathan announced that the students were successful
in meeting all three levels of fundraising incentives by raising over
$6,000; parents are invited to come watch and/or to run with their
children (there will be a DJ and it will be a very fun event); 195
t-shirts were sold - Kathy
Evans gave a quick update on the Wetlands Festival planning (next meeting
will be this Saturday, March 25th at 10 am at Nathan’s home) - Wetlands
Festival Donation basket letter will be coming home this Thursday;
donations bins will be in the entryway of the school beginning next
Monday; bins will be there to accept donations until 4/21 - Grade
level themes are: - Pre-K
– Arts & Crafts - K
– Gardner’s Delight - 1st
Grade – Build It - 2nd
Grade – Adventure and Action Stars - 3rd
Grade – I Discover - 4th
Grade – Outdoor Fun - 5th
Grade – Food, Glorious Food - Online
auction will start on 4/20 and end on 4/27 - Sign-up
Genius for Wetlands Festival volunteers will go out soon - Reminder
will go home about parent/staff auction donations (if you have something
interesting to give, i.e. handicrafts, behind-the-scenes tours, homemade
dinner, etc.) - Nathan
reminded everyone of the upcoming programming event this coming Monday,
3/27: DC United player is coming to Campbell to sign autographs and take
pictures from 6:30-8pm - Nathan
turned over the floor to Ms. Nesselrode
II. APS
Budget Update: Maureen Nesselrode, Principal
- Ms.
Nesselrode highlighted key aspects of the Superintendent’s Budget Proposal
o
Both the draft calendar: http://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2017-18-Superintendents-Draft-Calendar.pdf and proposed budget https://www.apsva.us/budget-finance/ are online on the APS
website for viewing, feedback, etc.;
o
The Superintendent proposed a needs-based
budget, not necessarily a balanced budget, with the hope being that the county
would come up with what’s needed to make it happen
o
The increasing needs are largely due to rising
enrollment and the associated costs
o
There is a new procedure in place that
requires the Superintendent to propose a step increase for teachers and staff,
and then the School Board will decide whether to accept the step increase as
part of the budget
o
There are some items that are listed in tiers,
that would become cuts if needed
o
One of the tiers, further down, includes an
increase in class size
o
New
initiatives are not driving costs, rather this proposal is to maintain what
we’re doing currently, just with more students
·
Unrelated to the budget, Ms.
Nesselrode highlighted some of the Spring expeditions that students are engaged
in:
o
Fourth Graders are immersed right now in an
expedition that came about and was designed around donated basil seed; the
students are making an organic salad dressing with basil, and other
ingredients, many of which are produced here at Campbell; they will bottle the
dressing; they visited a culinary school as part of the expedition; in order to
incorporate academics, they are incorporating a lot of writing in the curriculum,
including media (making advertisements), label, nutrition facts, recipes, etc.;
goal is to serve the Campbell salad dressing here at our school and also at
some other Arlington schools; some may be available at the upcoming auction for
interested parties; the children are very, very excited about their expedition!
o
Third Grade working on their
expedition related to simple machines; they’ll be going on a field trip to
three local playgrounds to compare and contrast the different simple machines
found on the playgrounds
o
Kindergarten/First Grade expeditions
have been revamped as well, so lots of new and exciting things happening in the
spring; the ducks are back and spring is in the air
·
Ms. Christy shared that the Kindergarten students are beginning
their water expedition this coming week; First Graders are looking at the
Outdoor Classroom “through the eyes of a scientist” for their expedition;
Spring-themed haiku student poems have been posted at the doors to the
courtyard; in Art, students have created clay kiln-fired Fairy Houses that have
been placed throughout the courtyard, and metal tooling that is hanging from
the trees was created to deter birds from the plants that are growing in the
courtyard, check out Facebook to see the many inspiring pictures; next week the
Fourth Graders will be Skyping with a Salt Farmer from North Carolina because
they’re using her sea salt in their vinaigrette recipe, and they’re
investigating their sources and learning the stories behind their ingredients;
Ms. Nesselrode commented that this is a great example of how Campbell is using
technology in a meaningful way
·
Ms. Nesselrode commented that some of the teams’ spring
expeditions are launching earlier in the school year to try to lessen the
number of showcases held in June, because it’s such a busy time of the school
year with many competing events; all the dates for the Showcases will be entered
into the Google calendar, and handouts will also go home with a list of all the
Showcase dates printed
- Ms.
Nesselrode turned the floor over to Nathan
III. Enrollment/Transfer Policy response:
Nathan Zee, President
- Nathan
gave brief summary/background of process and where we are now - The
School Board and APS Staff are embarking on rewriting the school Transfer
and Enrollment Policies; that’s impactful because it determines who can
go to what school, including neighborhood schools, choice schools
(henceforth being referred to as option schools), and programs like
Montessori, Immersion, and IB - New
map dividing the options and programs by East-West - Our
community needs to provide input to the enrollment and transfer process - Came
to a head last Wednesday night at the School Board work session on this
topic (a work session is an open meeting in which School Board members
can ask clarifying questions to APS staff; work sessions are recorded
and video is posted online, public allowed to attend these meetings, but
are not allowed to comment) - APS
staff presented a brief in which they discussed the future of options
and the new east-west division - Campbell
was listed in the category of neighborhood school with a STEAM focus,
rather than as an “Option” school - Becoming a neighborhood school could mean losing EL, we’d
have a set boundary, and many of the features that make Campbell unique
would be lost (like looping, alternate report cards, etc.) - Ms. Nesselrode: the neighborhood would likely be from 8th
and Greenbrier, so many current students would not be in the
boundary - This would dramatically change Campbell from the school
that exists today - That’s why I sent out the email via Announcements with
links to the survey asking everyone to provide feedback before the
survey closed, and to provide feedback to engage@apsva.us via email - You guys did an amazing job; we had a lot of people
sending feedback right away to notify APS that EL is unique within APS
and important to continue - Within just a few hours of the call-to-action and our
community’s response, APS came back and said they’d made a mistake and
it was just an oversight and updated their draft to include Campbell as
an “Option” school; told our community members to stay engaged - Tannia Talento, our School Board liaison, sent a note
apologizing for the oversight and stating that she would continue to
advocate for Campbell - So, that is all good news, but we may not be out of the
woods yet and we should not be complacent - We hope to send a PTA letter, that is approved by the PTA
members, stating what the PTA would like to have happen, as far as the
transfer/admission process is concerned - Six of us met over the weekend, hoping to have a draft
letter to share at this meeting, but we did not reach a consensus, so
we agreed to outline a letter and talk about the main points we want to
hit on and then make sure that, from a PTA perspective, we are mostly
aligned; since then the six of us have had some more dialogue and we’re
more aligned than we were initially - We want to be transparent about what we’re recommending
and make sure that we’re representing the community - Nathan
surveyed the members as to whether anyone wants Campbell to become a
neighborhood school; the consensus was “no” and there was broad support
for Campbell to remain an “Option” school - Q: Could we still be
Campbell w/an EL focus as a neighborhood school? A: (Ms. Nesselrode): I
think EL or not EL isn’t the only question; we could not maintain our
current school culture, decisions, and program as a neighborhood
school, with or without EL. For example: our alternate report cards
would not make sense in a neighborhood school; things would have to be
more standardized to become more like other neighborhood schools. As an
“Option” school we can be different and those who do not want those
differences have a choice about whether to enroll. In policy, there is
no reason EL could not be maintained in a neighborhood school, but families
would not be choosing our school, they’d be assigned here, so there
wouldn’t really be a reason to do EL, and many of our unique features,
that are not necessarily tied to EL, would be compromised and our
culture would change. - Ms.
Nesselrode asked whether everyone was familiar with the plan’s
schema; she explained that in the scenario presented by APS, there are only
three distinct types of schools: neighborhood schools with a defined
boundary, east/west “option” schools, or countywide “option” schools - Nathan: so out of those
options, which do we prefer? It’s clear that of those options, the PTA
does not support becoming a neighborhood school, so we need to determine
whether we want to advocate for becoming a countywide or east/west
option - To explain background, the admission/transfer policy
update has come out of a concern to make access to option schools more
equitable; for example, ATS has a countywide double-blind lottery,
anyone can apply and have a fair shot, whereas Campbell’s lottery is
limited to south Arlington overcrowded preference (so that could be
viewed as being inequitable) - We are 100% lottery school, but VPI students do not have
to reenter lottery for Kindergarten (they apply to a lottery for VPI,
and then are automatically enrolled at Campbell for Kindergarten) - What people are saying about Campbell is the number of
lottery slots available, after VPI and siblings are admitted, is only
about 20 or so available for new families, give or take, depending on
the number of siblings in any given year - Q:
Is the VPI lottery countywide? A: (Ms. Nesselrode): The VPI program is
countywide, but Campbell school’s VPI lottery is limited to students
living in South Arlington
- Nathan:
from what I can gather, the School Board wants the outcome of this
policy update to result in greater equity and simplicity - Q:
So the Montessori classroom that’s here, would that then move since
they’re moving the countywide Montessori school? A (Ms. Nesselrode):
That’s a possibility, but it would not happen for next year. - The
School Board will be making a decision about the transfer/admission
policy before the end of this school year, to go into effect in fall of
2018, but the decision as to whether Montessori satellite locations will
become centralized is not part of this immediate process, though you
could still provide feedback about that now - Q:
Campbell is not the only school that has limited lottery admittance; for
instance, isn’t Science Focus limited to north Arlington only? So is
this really being driven by budget? A (Ms. Nesselrode): No, I don’t
believe it’s budgetary. It’s being driven by capacity, and confusion (right
now there’s a complicated matrix of policies that are difficult to
navigate), and by planning, as new schools are built and programs are
moved, there’s a need for coordination and a master plan (a big-picture
idea). - Q:
Can you talk about why the Interlude program was moved to Campbell? A
(Ms. Nesselrode): Because it’s a countywide program and we’re a
countywide program, and because we have capacity, it makes sense from a
transportation and capacity perspective. Also, in the past when the
Interlude program was in a neighborhood school, it had to be moved
around as schools became overcrowded; the hope was that by placing it in
a countywide lottery school, it would become its permanent home. It’s now
tied to our school culture and something that we’d like to retain the
program as it makes the most sense in a countywide building. - Q (Nathan Zee): Is making Interlude a permanent part of
Campbell something we’d want to advocate for in our PTA letter, to make
another case to maintain our “Option” school status? A (Ms.
Nesselrode): Yes. - Q:
Are we going to talk about the east/west divide? Do we want to comment
on that, or ask to become that instead of countywide, especially if
being an east/west will affect our Title 1 status? A (Ms. Nesselrode): In
this schema, there are only three types of schools: neighborhood,
countywide, or east/west options. I’m not sure that we have a choice per
se about whether we become countywide rather than east/west. Either one
will likely affected our Title 1 status; I think that is an
inevitability. - Nathan:
so to close the loop on the east/west model that was presented last
week, there will be an Immersion east/west, and an IB east/west, and
then Montessori and ATS would be countywide, and in the updated version,
they have Campbell as countywide rather than neighborhood - Q:
So what is the east/west dividing line? A: It’s kind of a zig zag and is
pretty far west, south of 50 it’s Four Mile Run; A (Ms. Nesselrode): I
believe that exact line isn’t set in stone, at this point it’s just a
schematic, lots of community discussion to come that will likely
influence the specifics of that line - Q:
Was there an option for an east/west EL school? A; No. The only thing
they showed was Campbell as a neighborhood school in the original draft,
and then they went back and updated the presentation after the feedback
they received to show Campbell as a countywide option. (Ms. Nesselrode):
to point out, if Campbell became east/west, it would geographically have
to be a west option, which would disenfranchise a number of our current
families who would be considered east under the new schema; but I don’t
think it’s up to us whether we’re classified as countywide or east/west;
staff has clarified that we will be countywide - Comment:
What we’ve encountered is a lack of knowledge about EL and Campbell as
an option school; it’s clear we need to do some education of the School
Board members, and broader community, about what we are and what EL is;
we can be the conduit for this education - Comment:
People don’t feel like the lotteries are honest - Nathan: that’s a good point. That is part of why this
policy revision has come about, so that all the school lotteries will
become managed in the same way, eventually (long-term) they may move to
a centralized “super-lottery” because of this perceived inequity - Ms. Nesselrode: A centralized “super lottery” is much
further off. Right now, this is how the VPI lottery is handled, and
it’s not without complications - Q:
As part of the community education/school advocacy we’re doing, do we
need to talk about why we stay small, because of our unique geologic
issues? Because we’ve heard comments about how it’s not fair that we’re
a small school on a large property, or confusion about how many students
we even have. A: (Ms. Nesselrode) Yes, those feelings about school size
inequity are out there. But we need to remind people that we have and
are continuing to grow. Building an addition here would be particularly
complicated. Our capacity will probably go up, but likely with
w/relocatables rather than an addition due to our unique geological circumstances. - How does our Title 1 status affect our size? A (Ms.
Nesselrode): Class sizes will remain smaller at all Title 1 schools,
but we’ll probably have more classrooms and grow beyond 430 students - Nathan:
so, as far as the PTA letter is concerned, nobody supported becoming a
neighborhood school vs. option; becoming a part of the east/west
division schema is not really something we can advocate for right now,
because it’s not what is being decided with the policy revisions that
are happening right now, rather that is a long-term vision; if there’s
discussion around whether we’d like to have a second EL school, I think
it falls outside of the scope of this letter, but I’d like to open
discussion on this topic and hear your thoughts - Q: How does the decision get made for there to be another
EL school? A (Ms. Nesselrode): Opportunity to advocate for a second EL
school is when a new choice school is opened. - Q: If the county were to create a new choice school, how
would we advocate for it to become EL? A: We’d have to demonstrate
demand@ the current EL school (Campbell), through a long waitlist for
instance, and there could be a chance to get a second EL school and
become east-west option in the future - Comment: It’s unfortunate that the community survey did
not offer EL as an option on the same level as IB or Immersion, not
able to demonstrate demand for the EL instructional model if the
question isn’t asked; survey results can’t provide data to show community
demand for EL; also, we can’t demonstrate potential demand across the
county because our lottery has been geographically weighted and people
from outside the preferred areas may not have been applying for that
reason; becoming a countywide option may allow us to provide this data
and make a case for a second EL school - Comment: the changes to the PIP and policy were not clear,
the survey was poorly designed; such a large change deserves more
public commentary - Comment: we could point out that EL was left off the
community survey; we could ask that School Board members visit our
school to become educated about EL - Comment: there’s no reason why our School Board members
should not be educated about our schools; the information is online, we
have amazing documentation about the things we’re doing at Campbell, we’re
prolific on Twitter, etc. - Comment: we can put together a communications toolkit with
all the information we have, so that we speak with one voice across all
the various platforms and for all the various audiences - Does
the PTA want to take a position on VPI guaranteed admission? - VPI students have already undergone a lottery process to
even enter Campbell as Pre-K students; should they have to reapply at
the Kindergarten level? Should they have guaranteed entrance to
Kindergarten? - Comment (Ms. Nesselrode): It would be nice, from a
procedural standpoint, for VPI students to have to indicate, within a
certain timeframe, whether they plan to return for the following year
so that we could offer open spots to other interested students - Q: How much do current VPI students participate in the “Campbell
Way?” A: In all aspects. - Comment: I feel like this is the child-friendly policy,
it’s the developmentally right thing to do. Those students are already
integrated into the school community and they’re part of the school
community. They’re already doing EL, they’re at the Community
Meetings. It seems just inappropriate to tell a student you can come
here for a year and then good luck in the lottery. - Q: Do VPI students at APS get automatic priority at ATS?
A: Yes, but that might be on the table to change with the policy
revision. - Nathan: Before we close the loop, let me just present the
other side of the argument so that we can decide whether we’d like to
take a position. If you have a great program that everyone is
interested in across the county, but many of the available spots are
reserved for VPI students, is the lottery equitable? Thoughts on that
counterargument: - Comment: I would argue that if it’s a matter of equity,
then staff could decide to locate VPI classrooms more equitably, if
that’s the primary goal. I just think that, on its face, it’s wrong to
move children around, for educators to disrupt learning; from an
educational policy standpoint, this is wrong - Comment: If the Montessori
program is centralized, that could free up more space at Campbell - Okay, to paraphrase what I’m hearing, we’re not going to
talk about specific numbers, but we’re going to advocate for kids who
are here to be able to continue - Ms. Nesselrode: I think we
have to be specific, because there are other programs here; if we’re
talking about VPI, then we have to be explicit - Comment: For instance, per
current policy, Interlude students aren’t allowed to remain after
they “graduate” from the program, they must return to their
neighborhood school - Ms. Nesselrode: One of the
goals is to create consistency, so that programs in different
buildings have the same admissions procedures. So I think you’d be
right to advocate that countywide programs treat students similarly.
Go with the broad ideas that reflect your values are and don’t get
into the weeds, or subtleties of procedures. - Nathan: Okay, to paraphrase what I’m hearing, from a
values perspective we’re going to advocate to be a countywide option,
we’re going to explain a little bit about EL (we might do a separate
fact sheet about EL), we are going to advocate for the VPI students who
are already here to remain, in alignment with other countywide option school
admission policies - Comment: we could advocate specifically to copy ATS’s
policy, which is “Students will be chosen through a random
double-blind lottery. The following students are guaranteed admission at
the Kindergarten level: students who have completed the VPI class at
Campbell, siblings of older students who will be concurrently
attending, and everybody else is admitted on a space-available basis.” - Comment: So most importantly, we don’t want to lose the
fact that we’re an EL school, it seems to me that we are more than
likely going to be forced to be a countywide school where the
preference for surrounding neighborhoods goes away. Which is not a bad
thing, necessarily, if it means we get to keep EL, our small size, and
who we are and what we’re all about. So it seems like that’s where we
need to go with our advocacy. - Nathan: Does anyone disagree
with this, because I think this a great articulation of what we need
to write? - Comment: I don’t disagree,
but I do feel a little concerned, along with what others have
expressed, that when the School Board omits EL from the survey, and
it seems that many decisions have already been made about the
“vision,” I would not underestimate the uniqueness of the EL program,
I would highlight it and wouldn’t make it a separate side sheet,
because that’s a key point of what we hope to maintain and it worries
me that in the interest of simplification, EL has already been eliminated
- Comment: Whether that
omission was intentional or not, I think it’s clear we have educate
and advocate for our model, and I think there’s a group of us who are
committed to doing that on an ongoing basis - Comment: EL is still thought
of as an exemplary project and not a distinct instructional model,
because of how our program sort of grew out of the push for every
school to have an exemplary project; not a clear recognition that our
program is based on an educational model
- Nathan:
Okay, in the interest of time, we’re going to have to wrap up this
discussion. We can continue this discussion informally and unofficially,
but we have to end on time to relieve the babysitters. So I think we
have our message. The next steps are: - I’m going to work with folks, draft something up, and send
it out to everyone and get any last minute comments and then send it in - I do want to add, that just because something isn’t
included in this letter, for instance, we had some good discussions
about a biased survey, extensive curriculum challenges not being
addressed; we’re not going to hit on all of those topics in this
letter, but everyone has valuable feedback and opportunities to share
that through the Engage APS email, by responding to the online forum, and
by attending meetings on March 30th and April 4th
- If I can get the letter and some talking points ready,
we’ll be encouraging folks to sign up to speak at the School Board
meeting this Thursday night (and I’ll send out information about how to
do that) - Ms.
Nesselrode: I’d encourage you, in your talking points, to highlight both
Campbell’s unique philosophy and instructional model
IV. Call
for Teacher Support Ideas: Nathan Zee , President
- Our
teacher liaison, Ms. Hill, has approached teachers to submit their
requests and has gotten an initial set of ideas - I’d
also encourage all of our PTA members to submit potential ideas; talk with
your teachers so that your ideas are ones that align with what the
teachers hope to accomplish - The
plan is to vote on as many as we can come up with, no later than May,
possibly April; in past years, we’ve done it at the June meeting and had a
mad scramble at the end of the year to execute funding the ideas before
the end of our fiscal year (June 30th), so we’re trying to get
ahead of that - We’re
building a list of ideas now and we’ll run them by Ms. Nesselrode before
finalizing because she sometimes knows of different ways that these items
can be funded - Also
begin thinking about bigger-picture items that we may need to save/plan
for (2-3 year timeframe), akin to the scope of the pond revamp we did last
year
V. Treasurer’s
Report: Jenny Morris , Treasurer
- Not
too much happened in February; everyone has a copy of the budget at your
tables, so does anyone have any questions? No questions. - We
do have two funding requests: - Funding
to pay for chaperones, including three First Grade teachers, to attend EL
Field trip to the National Geographic Museum, in the amount of $150,
submitted by Ms. Sim. Any questions or comments? No questions. - Motion
to approve funding. Motion seconded. Motion approved unanimously.
- Request
for two Core brand wobble chairs for Ms. Sim’s First Grade class to help
with sensory needs, in the amount of $140 - Motion
to approve funding. Motion seconded. Motion approved unanimously.
- Nathan:
we do have another request that isn’t fully fleshed out, but I’d like to
discuss. The Kindergarten expedition is starting soon and they’d like to
have lab coats. They’d like to make their lab coats out of t-shirts. A
request went home to families to donate t-shirts, but so far, none have come
in. They need about 60 of them, at an estimated cost of $200. Request to authorize
up to $200 to purchase 60 t-shirts for the Kindergarten expedition - Motion
to approve funding. Motion seconded. Motion approved unanimously.
VI. New Business:
Nathan Zee opened the floor to new business
·
Request from Ms. Christy:
o
If you shop at Costco, please consider
buying a bag (or more) of Whitney brand organic soil (costs $8.99/bag) before
the upcoming spring Garden Work Day; we can reimburse you for the cost; please
stack it by the Colonial Garden if you don’t have time to bring it into the
courtyard
·
Tammy Bewitz called attention to the
county’s budget proposal that would reduce Glen Carlyn Library’s hours from six
days to 1 ½ days; brought a petition from the library to maintain current hours
for anyone interested in signing
o
Q: Is there an electronic version of
the petition that can be forwarded? A: Not currently; only paper copies of the
Library petition available
VII. Closing:
Nathan Zee, President
- We
were going to talk about Field Trips, but we’ll delay that until next
month’s meeting (April 18th) - Next
Wetlands Festival planning meeting will be at my house this Saturday, just
let me know if you’re able to make it - Look
for information about Square One Art that will be coming home this week