Notes from Parent Association Meeting -

    October 5, 2005

Welcome and Introductions

No introductions were needed, as just 5 parents plus Mary Nutt attended and everyone knew each other.

Announcements/News

Parade this Friday; students participating. Also SocorroFest on the Plaza Saturday.

Permanent facilities design session next Tuesday 3-6pm, in conjunction with Scholastic Book Fair (fundraiser, on all week) and potluck at 6pm. Design summary 6:45pm.

Fall break week of October 17 - new this year.

Jill is looking for help organizing and participating in the school Fall Festival Saturday November 5. Please contact her if you can contribute e.g. spending time at food table.

Mary Nutt leading: Personal Learning Plans

Despite the low attendance, we had a productive discussion about the function of PLPs and how they should work. The CVCS charter requires that PLPs be developed for all students who don't already have an IEP (Individual Education Plan, used for students in Special Education programs). Francie Deters stated that the founders who wrote the charter intended that the process would focus on the child, rather than on grades as report cards do. The original approach was inspired by those of other charter schools, mainly South Valley Academy in Albuquerque and Taos Charter. Mary Nutt distributed sample PLPs from other schools, including South Valley, for comparison.

It was clear that the purpose of PLPs has generally not been very well communicated, to teachers, students, or parents. Parents' experience with their children's PLPs varied greatly. Some had found that teachers helped to create reasonable goals, referring to them later in the year and in one case even specifying how to determine when the goals had been met. For others, getting a PLP written was very difficult (if it was written at all) and the results were largely ignored afterward.

Despite this, everyone agreed that if PLPs were taken seriously, they would be very valuable. Several key points were unanimously agreed upon:

• PLPs are complementary to report cards. (It was also noted that the written portion of report cards to date has generally been too sketchy.)
• Format: Should be revised to identify strategies for achieving the specified goals, and to assign related responsibilities to the student, the teacher, and the parent(s)/guardian(s). It is entirely appropriate for younger students to have a simpler form than older ones, but within those groups there should be consistency. Teachers and parents may wish to specify different types of goals, e.g. academic, behavioral, and/or community-oriented.
  
• Process: Needs several changes
  • We need broader buy-in from the teachers to recognize the purpose and importance of the PLPs, and to help parents understand that too. It may help to provide examples, or perhaps "menus" of commonly-seen goals, to give people something to build on, but choices should not be restricted to those.
    
  • The child must be directly involved in his/her own PLP development, particularly with goal-setting and, in the older grades, the responsibility for writing some portions of it.
  • Development should be done earlier in the school year, perhaps about a month after school starts. In addition, they should be reviewed no later than February, to evaluate progress and ensure that there is accountability for all involved.
  • The PLP, perhaps along with a brief end-of-year written report from the teacher, should be included in the student's file. (It is not clear what is currently being done with them at the end of each year!) This would provide something to help next year's teachers familiarize themselves with students.

Open Forum

No-one had additional items to discuss.

Next Parent Association Meeting

Wednesday, November 2, 6:30pm in the school multi-purpose room. Topic TBA.