Open Forum

No visitors or correspondence.

Student Council

Pennies for Patients will run from Feb. 15 to early March. Student Council will try to hold Hope for Hearts during March. Funding for some clubs but not all. They need to enforce the membership numbers for each club so that funding will not go to clubs with only one or two members this year due to lack of funding. It is currently ten people per club and they are considering raising it higher.

Principal’s Report

A big thank you was given to Nancy Panayides and the technology fund donors she solicited $37,000 from this past month. The first new laptop cart has already arrived and we only need $6,000 more to have an entire second laptop cart replacement.

Nancy Smith has been working with the conflict resolution helpers. There is a Door Decoration contest to amplify the social norm’s survey results.

The Teacher Retreat will be held on February 17^th and will be focused on “writing across the curriculum.”

Preparations for awards ceremonies by teams are underway for all students in seventh and eighth grades to receive awards during the daytime via team assemblies during the last week of school.

Reading programs have been re-established for sixth and seventh graders after school twice a week in the Reading Academy. Bus schedules are adjusted so that participants in these programs may still get their bus rides home.

The John Collins Writing Program, which is aligned with the State’s writing program standards, will teach 3-4 classes a day at Jordan before the retreat and debrief after with the teachers for their hands on experience with it to discuss at the retreat. Department Heads will come to those classes to observe as well and the other two middle schools are invited to send a teacher representative to the retreat to learn more about the program.

PTA Report

The PTA had not yet met at the time of this Council meeting however it was reported that the nominating committee is in place for next year’s board.

The Joint Funds Committee is coming up soon and a reminder will be made to the staff for a representative from the teaching staff to be chosen.

Parent Survey

The Survey needed to be revised for this year’s submission to the Jordan parents so groups were created and issued sections of the survey for discussion and revising.

Each section group had a spokes person assigned and is to submit the group’s suggested changes or enhancements to Kirsten.

GATE Program

Jeanie Forte spoke on the GATE Program. Jordan has the same philosophy as 98% of the rest of the State’s districts have. In middle schools, mainstream classes have differentiated students. In general, all the students in those classes with GATE students \ get additional activities provided to them but no special program or activity is isolated for the GATE students. Sometimes the parents do not understand this and wonder why their child is not getting some unique treatment since they are indicated as GATE students.

There is no formal ID process for PAUSD elementary students for GATE.

Professional development is the ongoing challenge because it takes money and time away from the classroom to train teachers in differentiation in the classroom. Some teachers have been doing this for many years anyway and many new teachers are being trained in their teacher training before beginning a teaching job nowdays.

Meeting was adjourned. The next Site Council meeting will be February 14^th.