TPES PTA Meeting Minutes: May 2022
Takoma Park Elementary School(TPES)
Piney Branch Elementary School (PBES)
Parent & Teacher Meeting (PTA)
Tuesday, May 3, 2022 from 7-8pm on Zoom
Please mark your calendar for our next PTA meeting on June 7, 7-8pm
Agenda will include: (1) Voting on Executive Committee and bylaws; (2) break-out panels for rising TMPS and PBES families to discuss the process of transitioning to a new school; and (3) importantly, please join to share kudos and appreciation from this year, hopes and ideas for the next.
7:00 Welcome from Emma Cheuse, PBES PTA VP of Communications
Upcoming Dates and Announcements – Chris Campbell, TPES VP of Communications. Refer to Updated MCPS School Calendar 2021-2022
— TPES Outdoor Lunch Option: The outdoor lunch option is once again open for sign up. Please remember children will be given the option of eating outside only if parents have signed them up using the link below. You must sign your child up again even if you signed up in the past. When children eat outside, they must follow the directions of the adults supervising them. By signing your child up for the option to eat outside you recognize the increased hazards that are associated with rain or low temperatures. We will work diligently to make sure eating outside is safe, comfortable and accessible but during the spring months there may be mud and puddles. Children cannot run around, play in or throw things during outdoor lunch. This sign up will remain open until May 15, 2022, and the new roster of kids eating outside will go into effect on May 3, 2022. Once the sign up closes, there will not be another opportunity to opt into outdoor lunch. Sign Up for Cold Weather Outdoor Lunch
— May 2-6: Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week; TPES PTA is sponsoring a breakfast and ice cream social for teachers and staff. PBES PTA is sponsoring garden gifts, a snack break, lunch, and coffee hour– and asks that families please send art, cards, notes, emails, photos and thank you messages to your student’s teacher and to the school’s main office for all staff by this Thursday May 5, for delivery by Friday. Let’s help all staff feel appreciated for their hard work this year! Classroom parents, please remind your rooms to participate and please take this as a reminder to thank teachers on behalf of your whole classroom.
— May 4: Bike to School Day
– May 4-5: 3rd Grade State Testing (MCAP) at PBES (schedule link)
— May 12: NAACP Parent Council meeting for Takoma Park ES at 6:30 via Zoom. We will be joined by Dr. Gadsden and will have the opportunity to talk about end of year transitions and how to best support our students over the summer.
— May 18: early release day
— Sat May 21 4pm: MCPS Night out with DC United
— May 15-31: Reminder about PTAs and the Takoma Park Safe Routes to School program have organized the 2022 Virtual 5K and Fun Run! Register TODAY to get a free t-shirt and be eligible to win one of four raffled gift cards. Prizes will be raffled every few weeks in the lead-up to the race, so the earlier the registration, the more chances to win! Will include the registration link in the chat: https://runsignup.com/Race/MD/WhereEverYouLovetoRun/TakomaParkSafeRoutestoSchoolVIRTUALTKPK5K
- PTA Executive Committee Openings- there will be a vote for the TPES and PBES PTA Executive Committee positions for the 2022-2023 school year at the June 7th PTA meeting. The positions are open to all.
- TPES: the current President, Executive VP, Treasurer, Executive Secretary, MCCPTA Delegate, and NAACP Representative are willing to serve a second year and the following positions are available/open: VP of Communications, VP of Membership, VP of Fundraising and VP of Equity. Please contact members of our nominating committee: Joyce, Chris and Kelly.
| President | Margaret McDonnell |
| Executive Vice President | Joyce McDonough |
| Treasurer | Stephen Tippett |
| Executive Secretary | Diane Kirsch |
| Membership Secretary | vacant |
| Vice President Communications | vacant/TBD |
| Vice President Membership | vacant |
| Vice President Fundraising | vacant |
| Vice President Equity | vacant |
| MCCPTA Delegate | Rebecca Shaeffer |
| NAACP Representative | Sharon Gaskins |
- PBES PTA positions:
| PBES | 2022-2023 |
| President | vacant |
| Executive Vice President | vacant |
| Treasurer | Kate Bauer |
| Secretary | vacant |
| Vice President Communications | Emma Cheuse [may shift to a different spot] |
| Vice President Membership | vacant |
| Vice President Fundraising | vacant |
| Vice President Equity | vacant |
| MCCPTA Delegate | |
| Appointed, not elected: | |
| NAACP Rep | |
| Gifted and Talented Liaison | |
| Webmaster |
- TPMS: Greg Swaluk joining from TPMS PTA to highlight the need for PTA volunteers at the Middle school next year: 1 min.
7:10-30: Principals Presentations & Q&A re learning disruption and recovery
Ms. Oberdorf-
School Improvement plan
Literacy and mathematics instructional focus
Assessment OF and FOR learning
Acceleration of learning
Tutoring and intervention support
Professional learning
Example of MAP data 3rd grade- Fall 2021- Wnter 2022- increasing the percent of students on grade level
Comparing cohorts of grade level students to see how they are doing
Do data analysis at each level to get big picture
Math Recovery:
Focus on Major Content
3 year plan focused on Eureka math
Continue with curriculum
Focus on foundational principals- catching up building foundational content
Tutoring and summer program
Equip- preassessment tool to allow teachers to preassess before module
Started Jan
Allows for targeted instruction of foundational skills within grade level instruction
Planning for engagement
Hands on opportunities
School wide focus on supporting student discourse
Reading- intentional big picture then focus on smaller picture- seeing where kids are 3rd graders
Left out year of virtual testing
Reading recovery:
consistent instruction at grade level
Move forward into grade level content with supports
Increased direct instruction of foundational skills and word study skills in small reading groups
Tutoring/summer programs
Prioritizing level skills and content
Coteaching
Ongoing progress monitoring to drive planning and instruction
Outside: Doing a lot to increase student wellbeing
Counselor allocation increased to 2.0
School wide kindness initiative- highlight acts of kindness as reported to PB Jelly
To report each other for kindness
Student wellbeing committee
Review student attendance and references from teachers
To give students/ families help that they need
Dr. Gadsden:
Same thing that Mrs. Oberdorf
Data: March 2022
Current KG- toddlers when pandemic start; 1st graders most affected- because virtual pandemic year; 2nd graders- ¾ of KG was in person, so reading less affected.
Reading at target in March 22-
KG: 80%
First: 62%
2nd: 81%
What this data does not show is what the growth that kids made- many kids, although still behind, have grown tremendously this year.
Math:
KG: 91%
1st: 86%
2nd: 77%
Second graders not doing as well in math due to change in curriculum. 2nd graders least amount of exposure to Eureka
Working with teachers to help them adapt to new curriculum and formats.
Data by Categories: 1st grade- reading- reading level, Math- Formative assessment March
Only 4 Asian students- all 4 are meeting benchmarks-
African American 62% Reading 89% math
White: 71 reading/85% math
Hispanics- 25% reading 55 Math
English Language Learners 31/ 63;
FARMS 39/70%
Special Ed/IEP 44/78%
Didn’t take MAP in January
1st grade most impacted and largest group
2nd: challenge- kids came in at Kindergarten reading level, grew 1 year in ¾ of a year, but still not at grade level
Reading/math
AA 84/63
Asian 100/75
W: 82/93
H 33/40
M 76/92
ELL 32/55
Special ED
FARMS
Kindergarten- doing Fantastic!
Generally representative of how students do
Reading/math
AA 80/98
Asian 80/100
W 100/100
H 44/86
ELL 55/ 90
FARMS 64/93
Sp ed 100/100
Summer school
Create ARTS- target kids 2nd language learners
Tutoring
Other programs for recovery
Student wellbeing team working biweekly on attendance
Biggest challenge Attendance- lots of children kept home kids because they were scared would miss school. Can’t teach if kids don’t come to school
After school tutoring in person and bus transportation- for PBES
After school tutoring at TPES 5 days a week
Summer school at middle school for TPES and PBES with KA giving before and aftercare
PBES: Summer school invitations went out for students not on grade level
For TP- tutoring- reached out to specific kids who are behind
MCPS says no one will be turned away even if they were not invited
8 teachers teaching- 200 invitations sent out
Looking to see what response- to see if can open up to more students at a later point
If interested don’t hesitate to reach out to teacher or school
If worried about students losing knowledge/skills over summer, sign them up for summer school even if meeting targets
Summer school will have reading, math and specials
7:30: Emma Cheuse (PBES PTA and volunteer with the Joint PTA Panthers & Dolphins Rainbow Club) will introduce Mark Eckstein to talk about inclusion, support, and affirmation for LGBTQ kids and allies in our schools. Mark is Chair of the MCCPTA LGBTQ Subcommittee and Member of the MCPS PrideAlliance and he will speak to and address questions on resources available for our local schools such as policies and guidelines for LGBTQ+ and gender identity inclusion, anti-bullying, curriculum and family support across the rainbow spectrum. Please get your questions and comments ready in the chat.
Mark Eckstein MCCPTA
MetroDC has Pride Alliance
LGBTQ at MCPS:
Curriculum:
MCPS will begin an initiative this fall will be doing LGBTQ inclusive curriculum K-12-
Imbedding it into Benchmark curriculum
Has been working on this for 5 years
1 LGBTQ inclusive lesson per grade offering content 2-3 days
Data: if represented in curriculum and seen, bias incidences/bullying will go down
Bias and Bullying-important to use MCPS forms- has spent a lot of time in making them LGBTQ inclusive in terms of language
With reporting get data and funding- so very important for form to be used
Federal Title IX mandates now includes gender identity/expression and sexual orientation
By and large the MCPS LGBTQ doing well and thriving
Lots of affirming initiatives:
MoCo Pride Students
LGBTQ studies class
Restrooms- trying to revamp- refocus bathrooms to improve experience for all students including trans/gender nonconforming
Minimum; at least 1 all gender single stall restroom in each school
Authentic identification- lot of data about virtual learning through the pandemic and hardships for our students because of naming/pronouns
Really try to support students with names and pronouns
In elementary schools big things students using gender neutral pronouns-
Don’t want to out people- can be traumatic
Resources:
List of LGBTQ resources for elementary schools
Annual PRIDE townhall Sat May 21 8:30-12:30 WJ high school
MCPS has new LGBTQ webpage
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/lgbtq/
Netflix series: heartstopper
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/LGBTQ/Metro-DC-PFLAG-Gen-Res.pdf
Closing comments by Jon Frederick (TPES Parent) and volunteer with the Joint PTA Panthers and Dolphins Rainbow Club. Jon will also highlight the Rainbow Club’s next event – Drag Queen Story Hourcohosted by the Takoma Park MD Library on Sunday June 5, 1pm in the Takoma Community Center auditorium, with a meet-and-greet outside afterward.
https://engagedpatrons.org/EventsExtended.cfm?SiteID=3728&EventID=461479&PK=
7:55 Treasurer’s Reports
Stephen Tippett, TPES Treasurer and Kate Bauer, PBES Treasurer
Kate Bauer:
17,000 earmarked grants
Spent 11,000
Need executive committee members next year- will have significant carryover, will need to have more activities next year to do the programing and support the school
Stephen Tippet:
Raised 35,000 (thought it would be less)
Tommy’s pantry separating this month
Spending less than raised. Continuing to spend some money on events through rest of year and into the summer.
Notes from the Principals’ presentation:
Please contact your student’s teacher if you would like to sign up for after-school tutoring and bus transportation.
More info on summer school — Last week some of our students received an invitation to attend summer school. The goal of this year’s program is to support students who need additional or repeated instruction of the previous grade level and/or are currently achieving below grade level in reading and/or math. If you received an email about summer school, please use the directions at the link in the message to register in ParentVUE by May 3rd. If you have any questions please contact Robert Bledsoe, our Reading Specialist at Robert_Bledsoe@mcpsmd.org.
Summer school will have reading, math, and specials. If you think your child would benefit from summer school and did not receive an invitation by email, please contact your child’s teacher or the principal for information on how to join.
Links from tonight’s meeting with resources.
Mark Eckstein’s presentation on LGBTQ+ Resources at MCPS
For county-wide information and resources, please feel free to contact Mark Eckstein at markeckstein@hotmail.com or reach out to the Rainbow Club at PBES/TPES at: rainbowclubtkpk@gmail.com
Slides link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FLMLawDpPyB3jjgwT-Vs9JrH2jZHWTPEGMUkkArd4ng/edit#slide=id.g127b1693411_0_124
Here is the Bullying Form to use to report LGBTQ+ or any other bullying incidents, please include specifics to help ensure all incidents are tracked and coded –https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/compliance/
MCCPTA Leaders
– https://www.mccpta.org/mccpta-leaders.html
Free State Justice
https://freestate-justice.org/
Student Leadership at MCPS – Pride:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/student-leadership/pride.aspx
LGBTQ Resources for Elementary Schools — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yYQe87ancNwD6s5xBveRmidW8HXlBNmg_eqm4kNM79Y/edit
New MCPS LGBTQ Webpage for staff, students and families — https://news.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/staff-bulletin/new-lgbtq-webpage-includes-resources-for-staff-students-and-parents/?fbclid=IwAR0-5ryIe4TGAAVMFI0mqYKb8MDKEGa0Zjm3aiCUxb7JspdZmeNkpQxC5CI
Here is a resource for any attendees who have middle school or older students – GSA Network – Devising Freedom: https://gsanetwork.org/campaigns/devising-freedom/ They are hosting a youth movement assembly on June 21st
Become a PTA member:
Takoma Park Elementary https://www.tpespta.net
Piney Branch Elementary https://pineybranchpta.membershiptoolkit.com