Three parents attended the meeting.
Survey about school Web site.
Lunchtime pizza sale tomorrow to raise funds for Student Council.
Governing Council meeting Wednesday next week (Dec. 14).
School holiday performance Tuesday, December 20, 7:00 p.m. at Macey Center. Everyone welcome!
Winter break starts with an early-release day Wed. Dec. 21. School resumes Wed. Jan. 4.
A draft mission statement for the PA was handed out; please send comments to Ruth
Milner.
Ms. Gutierrez gave us a very enjoyable presentation describing the Spanish program she teaches at CVCS. Every grade has class with her three times per week for 45 minutes. She rarely assigns homework as she found that it's hard to keep track of between lessons and parents can't provide help if they don't know Spanish themselves.
In the early grades, she focuses on simple concepts and chooses vocabulary to match their interests, e.g. animals, colors, food, and body parts, as well as frequently-used words like numbers and basic infinitives. She uses art projects to make lessons more enjoyable and help them remember the words by applying them. She introduces simple conjugation in second grade, and by fourth grade has added lots of adjectives plus dictionary use. Fifth grade put on a pretend TV show in class to use their verbs and growing vocabulary.
By middle school, students are writing short essays in Spanish and using tenses. As in the earlier grades, she uses fun activities to engage students' interest and reinforce grammar and vocabulary. For example, she incorporates technology by having them do surveys (in Spanish) on such subjects as students' favorite seasons/food/games and then graphing the results in Excel and/or making simple PowerPoint presentations (again in Spanish). Although new CVCS students in early grades catch up quickly, it is harder at this level, and she works with these students to overcome a lack of confidence that can cause resistance to learning.
She asked us what we thought of using computers as part of the program, and we all encouraged her to continue. Not only is it good experience generally, but it offers a fun way to apply what the students have learned, and also teaches them that computer applications are not limited to English. Given that the emphasis is on using Spanish, not solely learning how to use the computers, we felt this was quite appropriate.
Parents also commented that their children enjoy Spanish class and that it appears to be working, as they noticeably expand their use of Spanish in assignments over time and sometimes spontaneously use Spanish words at home. A few of the children were at this meeting, and helped Ms. Gutierrez give a demonstration of a PowerPoint project that a middle school student had created to help younger grades learn infinitives such as bailar (to dance) and cantar (to sing). All the parents were very positive about the Spanish program and the techniques Ms. Gutierrez uses to hold their interest.
Because there were so few parents attending, we had some discussion
about why that might be, and ways to encourage more people to come (a
few of the people who usually come could not attend tonight due to
illness). Everyone who has provided their contact information to the PA
(about 40 families) received either an email message or a phone call to
remind them about tonight's meeting. It is hard to justify asking
speakers to spend time preparing a presentation that only a few people
will hear. Ruth plans to have the mission statement and some new
handouts ready for the holiday performance on December 20, to help
publicize it. Some topics for the future include the other special
subjects taught at CVCS (PE, art, music, and drama) and the school
safety policy, which is currently being revised due to recent
changes issued by the state.
No meeting in January (would be the night before school resumes), so the next meeting will be Tuesday, February 7, 2006, at 6:30 p.m.