Montgomery Blair High School PTSA

Minutes of PTSA Meeting --- January 16, 2007

January 16, 2007
PTSA Membership Meeting

Present: Melissa Yorks, Sam Stokes, Miriam Szapiro, Ray Scannell, Carol Smalls, Nancy Newton, Bonnie Malkin, Linda Simon, Jose Segura, Joseph Federman, Sally Taber, Eva Sullivan, Carol Muskin, Lise Wurzbacher, Barbara Shulman, Valma Fullerton, Lynn Grasso, Dave Ottalini, Deborah Stohl, Debra Reed-Gillette, Andrew Partan, Katya Partan, Diana Sayago, Maria Chung, Nancy Newton, Diana Vidutis, Charlie Garlow, George Slenkovich, Karen Powers

Facilitator: Dave Ottalini    
Time Keeper: Deborah Stohl 
Recorder: Debra Reed-Gillette

Dave called the meeting to order at 7:30 pm.

Guest Speaker: We welcomed Heath Morrison, Community Superintendent and Eric Davis, Director of School Performance.

      There are 3 areas of focus for schools in Dr. Morrison’s jurisdiction: eliminating the achievement gap, rigor for all students, and parent engagement. Dr. Morrison wants to ELIMINATE not just address the achievement gap and has been examining all student performance data within each school. He wants all students to experience rigor in their classes. He will not eliminate the achievement gap by lowering the expectations for high achievers. He will raise ALL students’ expectations and performance. Dr. Morrison also wants to involve and partner with parents in their student’s education, not just see parent involvement in the schools through volunteering.

      The goal is to support schools to achieve these goals. A premier focus is Algebra I in 8^th and 9^th grade. For students graduating in 2009 students must take and pass the HSA. There can be 4 possible outcomes:

1. Students can pass the course and pass the assessment – the goal/best outcome
2. Students pass the course and fail the assessment * what to do with these students? These are the most difficult to address with programming. There are approximately 50 students per school that pass the course and fail the assessment.
3. Students can fail the course and pass the assessment
4. Students can fail the course and fail the assessment – these students are the easiest to address in terms of programming

There are 5 schools in the Down County Consortium, and 3 of the 5 are in the top 8 of the county in terms of HSA pass rates for Algebra I: Blair, Kennedy, and Wheaton. A Math specialist has been added to address needs in the Down County Consortium. Approximately 95% of middle school students pass the Algebra I HSA. New math pathways in the middle schools should have more and more middle school students taking Algebra I and passing the HSA prior to high school.

What happens after the gap is eliminated? Increased rigor and enforced rigor for all students. The vision is that all students who want to go to college CAN go if they chose and they will not need to take remedial courses at the community college level.

Dr. Morrison was told that there is a critical need for a fulltime parent coordinator at Blair as they have the largest ESOL population in the county. Dr. Morrison said we need to be more vocal about our needs. He stressed that this year’s budget had no new programs, only cost of living increases.

Dr. Morrison was informed that it is impossible for the Down County Consortium schools to support the academy concept with out funds. It was not clear that Dr. Morrison and the other principal players understood what the academies in the Down County Consortium were for.

At the end of Mr Morrison’s allotted time, the business meeting was convened.

Membership minutes from December were approved. All members are reminded to CLEARLY print their name on the sign-in sheet for each meeting.

Treasurer: A summary treasurer’s report was provided. The only outstanding fundraising is the Silent Auction. It appears that Painless Fundraising will have brought in an additional $2000 from the Westfield promotion. January Finance Report

Media Center: Susan Madden announced that the Media Center will have extended hours open to the entire cluster from 4-6 pm Tuesday and Thursday from February to May. BENHelp will be available for Blair parents at that time as well. There will be no open access to computers for other schools. Susan Madden is the support for this activity. She is recruiting students (for SSL hours) and parents to help in this endeavor.

Principal’s Report:  Mr. Gainous wanted to point out that the flags of nations, now flying along Blair Blvd was in the original plan for Blair, but never happened. It was through Susan Madden’s help that this finally was realized. Mr. Gainous said that the teachers REALLY appreciate the mini-grants and they have made a tremendous impact on both the staff and students. At 12:30 tomorrow (January 17), Intel will be doing a presentation at Blair to announce the semi-finalists. The tardiness crackdown has had an overwhelmingly positive impact. Students are being responsive and coming to class on time, resulting in fewer students being in danger of LOC (Loss of Credit). The SGA is working with the Assistant Principals to offer attendance at Academic Support in lieu of detention. 

Pedestrian Safety: Sam Stokes announced that the director of transportation approved the drop-off plan created by Mr. Funk. It will be tried, and if successful, it will become permanent. Nancy Floreen was sent pictures of the Route 29 “non”entrance to Blair in hopes that she will be able to get signage for Blair.

Graduation Venue: Weast provided a 9-page rejection of our appeal to use Jericho City of Praise. It was sent to the BOE which will decide to hear it (or not) by January 29 so that we can meet the Jostens’s printing deadline.

Beautiful Blair: Input is needed for a landscaping plan for Blair. Provide you input to Charlie Garlow at 301.593.9823 garlow.charlie@epa.gov.

Painless Fundraising:  The Westfield Shop to Care competition has just ended, and Blair will probably be receiving money from both malls. Parents and students are reminded to get in any 2006 Snider's receipts before the end of January. We are continuing to earn money from the Giant and eScrip programs. You can still enroll in both of these programs.

Staff Appreciation:  We will have a staff appreciation luncheon for the Lunar New Year. We will need 15 people to setup/serve/cleanup and to donate items.

Artificial Turf: Blair is approved to be a site for artificial turf contingent on reaching an acceptable agreement with Parks and MCPS. There needs to be a clearer delineation of responsibilities and rights and a new MOU. Mr. Funk will be organizing the meeting and the plan. It is anticipated that Blair will lose at least one season and the fields will be torn up in the summer of 2008.

Silent Auction: The PTSA Silent Auction will be held during Blair Fair on April 20, 2007. They will be accepting new items for donation as well as services – no white elephants or used items will be accepted.

BSA: (via email) There have been two meetings with Recreation, Mr.Gainous and Mr. Short since the last PTSA meeting.  Recreation has committed $20,000 toward the HSA prep classes, which goes with $10,000 that Mr.Gainous has for MSA prep and still leaves us $11,000 behind last year's budget for the same with many more classes to teach this year. Can the PTSA consider providing $5000 from this year's budget toward this endeavor? (Money would probably have to be sent to BSA and distributed by them).

      Jennifer Craft is the newly appointed academic coordinator for the Blair BSA, stipend to be provided by Recreation.  She'll be responsible for organizing Blair staff to work in the academic part of program, as well serving as liaison between the program and the faculty.  Everyone is pleased that she was willing to do this. 

      Marc Grossman is trying to arrange a meeting between Mr. Gainous and Valerie Ervin and a PTSA representative sometime soon.  The PTSA is interested in seeing that Blair get as much as other schools with similar programs for the academic support side.  This spring there will be five such programs running using 3 different models. Next year's county budget should have more than $1.6 million devoted to such programming, all managed by Recreation.

Athletic Policy: (via email) Regarding the athletic related rules on alcohol and drug use, Mr. Short held a school wide meeting in October for Blair athletes to describe the policy.  A number of them attended but no one knows how many.  We have not heard about any further discussion or education related to this policy. 

Announcements: Blair now has an on-line store for Blair Merchandise. Visit the PTSA website to see our new CafePress link. The PTSA will be working with the Entrepreneurship Academy for recommendations on merchandize and help in managing and advertising the site.

The Directories are coming! Look in your child’s back pack for the school directory. We are in problem solving mode to try and get this out sooner. We don’t get the data until midway into second quarter. Printing has been done by the Gazette for free, but this may be curtailed. 

Dates to remember:

2/5 – Executive Board Meeting in the Staff Dining Room

2/9 – Magnet Arts Night

2/20 – PTSA Membership Meeting 7:30 pm in the Media Center. 

4/20 – Blair Fair/Silent Auction

5/27 – AfterProm