ADL Parents as Partners Monthly Meeting Minutes - August 29, 2013

Facilitators: Kelley Charland, tkmac22(at)hotmail.com, and Paul McLaughlin, nospam(at)mclaughlinfamily.us

ADL Parents as Partners Links:

• Our page on the ADL website: http://www.ccsuvt.org/adl/parents-as-partners/
• Blog you can subscribe to: http://adlpap.blogspot.com (announcements and news)
• Knowledge base: https://sites.google.com/site/adlparentsaspartners/kb (how-to documents)
• School calendar in Google format: https://sites.google.com/site/adlparentsaspartners/calendar
• ADL Rideshare Request Form: http://tinyurl.com/adlrideshare

WELCOME

Attendees: Kelley Charland, Paul McLaughlin, Laurie Singer (principal), DeAnn Charron, Mindy Diebler, Nancy Bissonnette, Gabrielle Smith, Lorelei Rodgers, Leah Joly

PRINCIPAL’S ADDRESS:

We’ve had two days of school so far this year. We’ve grown by about 17 students since last year. (Anecdote about overflowing the bleachers this week.) One complexity is that the number of students with IEPs has jumped significantly (IEP=Individual Education Plan).

The kickoff assembly was great, and the students did a wonderful job. The peer leaders did a skit to introduce the social contract. The students are building their social contract for the year. When done, all the students will sign and commit for the year. In the past, the kids have signed a large sheet of paper. This year, however, each student will write a short statement on a slip of paper, and we’ll collect those papers for display. The statements will also be available at the student-led conferences.

Another part of the first assembly was a time to describe the activities you could get involved in, and they had a time where each student physically moved to a part of the gym to be next to a sign for some activity to be involved in. No one was allowed to just stay on the bleachers. Full-blown club sign-ups should start as early as next week.

One other note is that the sixth graders will be adding to the 1-to-1 device program, and they’ll be getting Chromebooks. This group won’t be carrying them around just yet, but we hope to grow in that direction.

FINANCIAL REPORT: As of August 22, 2013, we have a starting balance of $2516.84.

ROLLING CALENDAR:

September:

9/2: Labor Day - No School

9/11: School Photo Day

9/12: Open House 7pm

9/20: Dance 7-9pm

9/24: Ropes course for team Discovery

October:

10/8-10/10: Tentative NECAP testing dates

10/12: Ropes course for team Nova

10/14: Tentative 8^th Grade Writing NECAP test date

10/14: Audubon field trip for the 6^th graders (great trip to chaperone!)

10/16: Early release for students 12 pm, Student Led Conferences 1-8 pm

10/17: Student Led Conferences 8-3 pm

10/18: No School

10/18-10/19: “With Love from Vermont” volunteer group project that packages meals to distribute to needy. (This was a popular event last year.)

10/25: Dance 7-9 pm

10/26: ADL Beautification Morning (planting bulbs, cleaning out raised beds)

Dance dates: 9/20, 10/25, 11/15, 12/13, 1/24, 3/7(8th grade only with EMS, Westford at EMS), 4/4, 5/16

PaP dates: 10/3, 1/2, 2/6, 4/3, 6/5 with School Report Night

NEW BUSINESS:

• Team Reps:
• Team Nova: (open)
• Team Alchemy: Christine Giummo, and(open)
• Team Discovery: (open)
• Team Infinity: DeAnn Cheron and (open)
• Team NRG: Christine Giummo, and Leah Joly
• Teacher Reps:
• Team Nova: (coming soon)
• Team Alchemy: (coming soon)
• Team Discovery: (coming soon)
• Team Infinity: (coming soon)
• Team NRG: (coming soon)
• We currently have these coordinators in place:
• Box Tops coordinator - Elizabeth Skinner
• Sweatshirt sales coordinator - Renee Dezotelle
• Costco shoppers for dances and the Snack Cart - Melanie Tupaj and Elizabeth Logan, respectively (subs welcome)
• Book Fair coordinators - Christine Catterton, Tracey Williams and a parent rep for both Teams NRG and Alchemy-Christine Giummo.
• We are still in need of Team Parent Reps, Snack cart volunteers, concert refreshment coordinators.
• Coordinate someone to purchase mints for NECAP testing-need number of students total and number of 8th graders only.
• Would love new person to take our meeting minutes and someone to post them to the PaP link on the ADL webpage.

Follow Up Business:

• Lunch to be provided at Beautification Day? Yes, we’re going to do this.
• Dates for the Scholastic Book Fair are November 11-14, 2013-these dates been confirmed again
• We’re looking for ideas for parent information nights. What are people interested in hearing about? (examples: Media influences on 6-8th graders or Internet safety).
• We have someone doing Mindfulness Training with the ADL staff. Interested parents can also get in on this. (Contact principal Laurie Singer.)Please remember to continue to turn in Box Tops to the front office.

Once again, we are signed up in the Price Chopper Tools for Schools program. Please go onto to www.pricechopper.com to enroll your Advantedge card points to be assigned to ADL and we will receive enough points at the end of the school year to “purchase” some art supplies that the entire school gets to use. 

Our next meeting date is October 3, 2013, at 6:30 pm In the ADL Learning Center. Please join us! 

Hello ADL Parents and Guardians,

Next week we will embark on yet another school year at ADL full of activities and events that are fun-filled for our students!  These activities and events take a lot of planning and coordination.  Please join us at our first Parents as Partners meeting for this school year.  We will meet on Thursday, August 29th at 6:30 pm in the ADL Learning Center (Library).  Though we have a lot to discuss, we promise to only keep you for an hour, no more!  Look forward to seeing you there!

Kelley Charland and Paul McLaughlin, Coordinators
Parents as Partners, ADL