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Prospective Parent Meeting, January 20, 2022

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Information meeting for people interested in learning more about Charter School Morgan Hill and it's enrollment process.

Show Transcript

a little message now that it's being recorded so as soon as we get started here we have some slides that we're going to we're going to walk through on I also just want to let you know that normally we have someone available to translate the presentation into Spanish that's a little bit trickier on a Zoom however I'm if you do need translation or if you have any questions please contact Ramona Vargas in our office you can call our front office or you can email Nelly Barragan and let's get back to Nelly's email here we're going to keep going I will give you that at the end or actually I'm going to ask Diana to shoot that into the chat box right now so I'm going to intro a few more people I'd like to start this this evening by introducing some key people at our school and those people make up our administrative team first we have our executive director Paige Cisewski and she was also one of the founders on school we have Nancy DePalma if you haven't spoken or gotten to know Nancy yet you will very soon she is the first face that you see in the office and we call her the absolutely knower of everything so as I said she's someone that you get to know very soon Vivianne Brager one of our Administrative Assistant Ramona Vargas another administrative assistant she is the one that I asked you to contact if you need some assistance in Spanish and Diana Gill she who is also on this presentation and she is our school engagement coordinator she really is a liaison between the school and the families and family involvement my screen it is not moving here I'm having technical difficulty here we go okay the goals of this evening first of all we'd like you to have a basic understanding of what a charter school is how charter schools play a role in the overall educational process in addition to for you to have a chance to get to know our mission and vision to get a little bit of a glimpse into our academic program and to understand a little bit about the culture of our school the governance and financial structure we want to clarify the lottery and important dates with you and then of course we want to give you time to ask any questions that you may have if you have questions along the way I'm going to ask you to just pop those right into the chat box and then we will have time at the end for for questions and answers and we will address any those that haven't been stressed in the presentation ok so what is a charter school charter schools are tuition-free public schools that's one question we get all the time are you a public school yes we are a public school and basically there are schools that are developed to allow them to have Innovation and flexibility and Charter School Morgan Hill really relies on strong partnership with parents and students and teachers and the whole idea of charter schools that they are able to create these Innovative environments and develop best practices that then can be shared with with larger districts and more mainstream educational facilities so charter schools are an environment where parents are highly encouraged to be involved teachers have the freedom to innovate and of course students have the opportunity to learn and all three are held accountable to improve student achievement so Charter School at California we're very fortunate that we have the highest number of charter schools of any state and this past year the count was over 1300 somewhere around 1323 schools serving over 660,000 students and there are seven all Charter districts in the state of California and in terms of our operating principles we are non-sectarian in our programs admission policies employment practices in operations we are tuition free public education non-discriminatory and we admit all people who wish to attend a subject to available space and we'll talk a little bit about that further down as far as our mission and vision we use project-based learning from family involvement and community interactions to develop lifelong learners prepared to be successful and innovative participants in the global community so we identified what we call our school outcomes and these outcomes are what we hope every student who attends Charter School of Morgan Hill will exhibit during their time with us and and especially by the time that they leave us and those outcomes are academic achievement effective communication critical thinking and then personal and social responsibility as I said these are developed throughout the time that students are with us and we have our 8th graders actually go through what we call an exit project and they do a presentation in front of a board of teachers and community members and they showcase how they actually have demonstrated each one of these school outcomes so now we're going to shift and talk a little bit about curriculum and we do teach the California Common Core State Standards as I said we are public school we do not have a set or what we call a scripted curriculum you'll find at some schools our teachers have the autonomy and the ability to pull from a variety of resources and create what they feel and we as a school feel is the optimal curriculum and as mentioned in our mission and vision we do use PBL or project-based learning that is our primary methodology and you and you also see some traditional methods because there are definitely traditional methods that are taught that are used to teach as well let's talk a little bit about PBL and as I mentioned it is our primary teaching methodology and basically it engages students in learning by asking them to investigate an interesting or complex problem or a challenge and then to create something in response all of the research and you know we have this has always been our mission and vision in the 21 years now that we've been open we know that PBL improves and leads to increased student motivation it builds students creative thinking skills and problem-solving skills collaboration skills and it increases understanding of Concepts and and really their ability to apply knowledge in real life real world situations and we also offer our students many first hand experiences including numerous field trips at each and every grade level and then we have a few overnight trips that we that our students are able to participate in in fourth grade they go to Coloma overnight and 6th grade they go to science camp and 8th grade they go to Washington DC for a week long trip at Charter School Morgan Hill we we believe in educating the whole child and so that extends beyond just the academic and so we feel that enrichment opportunities are especially important for our students with the onset of Covid and yeah the past two years have looked a little bit different we had to make some modifications in our in our schedules in our program so we do still put a really prioritize enrichment opportunities for the students at present K through sixth graders have ag science we have PE and Spanish all several times a week taught by specialized teachers in those areas they also have some opportunities for other enrichment classes K 4 K through 4th graders have rotating art classes music and drama opportunities and tech opportunities and then our 5th graders and 6th graders have actual technology classes taught by a specialized teacher moving on our middle school program we pride ourselves on a rigorous academic program and high behavior standards our middle schoolers are able to attend Spanish every day Spanish is of course that subject taught and they also have PE everyday and they have a selection of enrichment classes and elective classes that are also built into their schedule what are things that are special about our middle school we have an after school sports program and we have a variety of leadership opportunities we also have a couple special trips that are that are designed just for our middle schoolers our 7th graders have a day trip in San Francisco that falls into a particular unit that they that they study and as mentioned our 8th graders are able to attend Washington DC for a week long trip so as I mentioned back to our mission and vision parent participation is is a key pillar and we do pride ourselves on the student parent family agreement all three are important in the educational whole education process and so the partnership is based on the premise of mutual investment and we ask that parents support their children by demonstrating involvement in on a daily basis helping monitor homework and and different assignments and then also just being in communication with the teacher and updating the teacher if keeping the teachers updated of different needs or different things that are going on you know with individual students so those communication lines are very important and parents also support their child's teacher by helping in the classroom when possible helping with other responsibilities that enhance the program and we do conference our teachers we have two times a year we have conference at opportunities to conference with parents and that is an expectation that parents will participate in those conferences many people feel concerned when hearing it's a parent participation school saying you know I work I'm I'm not going to be able to help in the classroom I just want to assure you there are many many opportunities and ways to get involved and help other than just coming into the classroom that has been limited these past year and a half almost two years now with Covid trust me when I say there's so many other ways that parents are able to get involved and help just want to alleviate that concern there and here's a couple of other examples helping with committee work fundraising speaking well of the school in the community attending school sponsored events what you're seeing it in the pictures, a cumulation of a PBL project in one of our grade levels with parents were in a simulation where students were coming through Ellis Island in an immigration unit so charter school and back to that mission and vision the third piece or the third pillar if you will is community involvement and so our students are involved in service learning projects these projects are aligned with the standard and they are incorporated into different projects in the various classrooms and grade level they are based on an authentic need that arises in the community and they are student driven one of the pictures is a project the students did thanking the firefighters for their support and to the left are 3rd graders do a project every year where they raise money and they shop for meals for families in need during the Thanksgiving time and we partner with Community Solutions and give these baskets of food to help certain families something that that we really pride ourselves on and that I feel such a part is our school culture very important to us that every family and child is really known and that is something that you will find at Charter School a couple curricular things that support our support and kind of enhance our culture if you will we have adopted what we called second step curriculum it's an SEL or social emotional learning curriculum for our kindergarten through fourth grade and it really nurtures children's social and emotional confidence and foundational learning skills we have a program called fun visors and as I mentioned Diana Gill is on this call she runs our Fun Visors program that takes place at recess every day at recess she has an area set up outside with a variety of activities where students who where students can visit and it's it's by choice but sometimes students are having a hard day they're not they're not meshing with friends or they don't have anyone to play with or they may just really love arts and crafts or playing games so they gravitate over to Diana's tables and it just gives them a place to belong and connect that's our fun visors program and then we also have many events that Diana facilitates to to build our community things have been a little bit different the past year past year-and-a-half with Covid but we're slowly but surely kind of working back into those into those events that are special to us we also have something called Project Cornerstone and the developmental assets and this program trains parents and our community volunteers in what are called the developmental assets and this is a model for to help our youth just develop different skills and characteristics for problem-solving and volunteers visit the classrooms each month and they read a story and lead a discussion and a special activity that helps our students involve these assets another thing that we really pride ourselves on is conflict resolution and and class meetings that happen schoolwide and this is built into the classroom structure teachers do it a little bit differently from each other but we really value and see the power in we also have cross grade level buddies where say a first grade classroom will partner with a fourth grade classroom they will get together once a month and do an activity and gives the students an ability to an opportunity to build a special relationship with an older buddy or a younger buddy we do have Support Services on campus we have counselors and counseling interns we also have a we have our own special ed services on campus as well we are our own LEA and offer offer those services as well ok in terms of background and general information as I mentioned we're in our 21st year back in November of 2000 Charter was approved by Morgan Hill Unified School District and the Charter School began back in 2001/2002 with an enrollment of 164 students in 2006 so every five years a charter needs to be renewed and so in 2006 it was renewed renewed again in 2010 a couple amazing things that happened along the way we became California distinguished school we became WASC accredited back in 2012 went through a couple additional renewals again became a California distinguished school and earned that award in 2019 and then the last time that we renewed our Charter was back in Fall 2020 and this is a picture of Paige and myself our executive director this is the last Charter that that we have written as you can see it's a big lengthy document takes quite a bit of time and we are sure happy when that gets passed off we just got another five years so class size and configuration we have three classes at each grade level in k through 6th grade of 24 students so it's a 24 to 1 ratio then in 7th and 8th our class sizes vary the classes are no more than 24 to 1 but sometimes with an enrichment and elective classes the class sizes end up being a little bit smaller ok a little bit about our teachers so our teachers are credentialed California credentialed teachers they also are at-will employees and that means that we are in a regular public school district teachers are tenured we are not tenured we are all at will and we are performance based performance base pay our compensation salary program is based on performance rather than tenured status and we feel and believe that this empowers them to be decision makers in the areas of instruction and curriculum and it from a teamwork and collaboration and all of our teachers consistently receive and have opportunities for professional development on going and in terms of accountability they we do participate in the CAASPP the smarter balanced testing we also implement something called MAP testing with another benchmark that we started implementing last year and that's done schoolwide so we're all speaking the same language from grade to grade and our results are reported to the public each year talking a little bit about our government structure we do have a board of directors the CSMH board of directors meets monthly and there is an annual audit that's done by an independent auditor we do have District oversight so our Charter is granted through Morgan Hill unified so they are our overseers and we also have it a myriad of other reports filed annually with the state that pertain to variety of things but financials and attendance for sure I just passed Diana how can I go back ok sorry sorry sorry okay so the open enrollment process so do I need to go back one more no alright so we are committed to doing school tours this year we were not able to do them last year because of Covid we're really hoping to make them happen we push them back a little bit to give ourselves some extra time for hopefully to kind of hit the peak of this latest surge of the omicron variant but we are planning on moving ahead with tours and we'll be taking lots of safety precautions too open enrollment is starting January 24th and so if you're interested in being part of the lottery you need to complete and submit an application during open enrollment and that goes from January 24th to March 4th at 4 p.m. please note that it does have a cut off on that day and Nancy always tries to counsel don't wait until the last day and then it will be a virtual Lottery held and for those grades that have more applicants than there are places to offer now will take place March 23rd at 3:30 p.m. the results will be posted on our website March 31st ok then a little bit of the same information in Spanish again as I mentioned at the beginning Ramona you want to call the office and ask for Ramona or you can email Nelly at the email address and she both of them are able to answer any questions and Nelly is also able to help with applications we are going to have time for questions and answers well Susan I'm going to go through and read some of the questions that have come up and you can answer or I can hop in and answer as well can you expand a little bit on the ways that your Kinder and first grade teachers teach reading what curriculum teaching methods do they use okay so they use you know a variety of teaching methods there is some our phonics programs in all of our primary or primary classrooms they do guided reading and feel free to jump in as well Paige yeah I mean I would say that's primarily the biggest things is the guided reading and the phonics they obviously do some you know whole class reads as well but that is the primary primary ways do all grades have recess each day all grades have recess each day and we have structured our schedule so that there are only two grade levels out there at a time so we have as I said said it it several recesses that go on it provides the kids a smaller how about the recording which we will have this available afterwards on our website so anybody can go to that and look at that or download whatever they like what sort of counseling is provided so as mentioned we have a full-time counselor on campus as well as several counseling interns and so there's individual counseling that happens on campus and we also have group counseling sometimes if you're depending on depending on the circumstance and there might be a group for children dealing with with divorce or dealing with grief those are the main types of counseling that we have on campus and I would say that the counselor sometimes go help as well if kids are struggling academically and also works hand in hand with do you have aids helping teachers during class particularly K first grade do you breakout students into smaller groups for small group learning we absolutely have students broken up into small groups for small group learning I would say that that is a best practice that's used across most if not all grade levels in terms of aides there are there are aides on campus that support some of our students with special needs and so at times there are aides in certain classrooms it's not an across-the-board thing where every classroom has an aide at all times and I would say in our K 1st classrooms especially when we're in normal time we have a lot of parent volunteers in there as well and so they're you'll often see them helping students enrollment application is done online or does it need to be submitted in person online if a student continues on to the middle school is there another lottery for that No once you're once you're in you're in what stage of precautions are currently being taken I'm guessing this is in regards to Covid many let's say many we actually were a school that came back onto campus very early in the whole scheme of things we applied for a waiver and so we actually brought students back on to campus last not last fall but the fall before so the fall right after we were closed down in March and with that we developed a very comprehensive safety plan with many mitigation strategies that we have we have just prioritized and been very diligent about so course that includes masking our students are masked on campus right now 100 percent of the time and we prioritize you know hand washing sanitizing upon coming into the school we have increased ventilation in the classrooms there are special filters and the doors remain open so we prioritize that we also have students eat snacks and lunch outdoors and when they are outdoors lunch time they see they have a specific seating assignment that we know know who has interacted with whom and they are seated a certain amount of feet apart trying to think of what else you know we we have had the benefit of having many rapid tests that we that come from the state that we have been able to utilize to to monitor kids that come in that aren't feeling well to prevent to prevent spread so like I said we are very very diligent and dedicated to our students all right do you know how many Kindergarten spots you anticipate having so as I mentioned there are three classes at each grade level so there's a total of 72 spots the tricky thing about this question is that the number of open spots will be dependent upon siblings and we do not have that information yet so I do not have an exact number and it tends to fluctuate a little bit every year so not an exact not an exact answer to that question how long are wait list currently another another gray answer every grade level is different and yes some are quite lengthy with that said I want to say there has past two years have changed a lot in our world and in our school and so we more than ever before we have families moving out of the area and spots open up so it's a good time to be applying all right does submitting your application earlier in the open enrollment give you any priority or higher chance No so with that said you do you not have to do it on day one it doesn't matter how early you do it just do not wait until after 4 on that day that it closes is after school care available after school care is available through the YMCA they run a great program and they are open till 6 o clock or 6:15 I think I think it's 6, six o clock is a student diagnosed with aspergers, ASD or autism or something like that or let's just say a student with the disability do they get any weight weight in the in the lottery No has any consideration ever been given to requiring uniform attire for the students I would say in 21 years we have pretty much had every possible debate out there so it is definitely something that has been considered and debated but it has not been the direction that we have decided to go are special education services offered onsite absolutely as we have mentioned we are our own LEA which means we manage and oversee we have currently what's called our TLC the learning center and CAC so we have moderate a mild to moderate and moderate to severe we also have an OT on campus a speech pathologist and a school psychologist am I leaving anything out I don't think so can you please clarify more on the carpool and how it works yes so carpool we are we are blessed to be in the location that we are because we're a little bit remote in this rural area and it's it's beautiful we're surrounded by fields and hills with that said we're not a school your neighborhood school where you can walk your kids to school so and we do not have an abundance of parking so we have this carpool procedure that seems a little bit intimidating to people at the start but I promise you that once you get in and get going it it runs efficiently and it presented a few challenge for us this year as with Covid and we used to have a lot more people that carpooled and drove multiple families every day and that got kind of tricky and people were just driving their own kids so we had to completely revamp some of our processes this year to allow for a lot more cars we built some new lanes developed some new systems that basically you need to drive-in drive-in the big long driveway in the morning you entered down the frontage road drop the kids off at the curb there's lots of us out there waiting to greet you and open doors in the morning the same thing happens in the afternoon the kids stay in their classrooms until until their names are called we have a process for if their names go on a screen and they come up and help them into cars and we send them on their way you know we have 650 students there's a lot of us there's a lot of cars passing through that driveway you know each morning and each afternoon but as I said we we have it down to a pretty good science what are the hours for kinder kinders follow a regular day which is 8 to 2:45 with that said we we know that it's a big transition year so we start the year with a modified schedule they get to come a little bit later they leave a little bit earlier and then we slowly over a few months lengthen their day to the regular school day in short what are the main differences between Charter and public other than heavy parent involvement main differences between public and Charter well I think I think one thing that you need to consider is what you know what the charter is based on and that's key and our Charter is based on project-based learning as you mentioned in the question parent involvement and also community involvement but I want to say that project based learning is really really sets us apart kids are immersed in real world real life projects they're able to develop higher-level critical thinking skills they learn to collaborate you know beginning in kindergarten they're working in teams they're collaborating on these problems they learn communication skills they learn presentation skills they learn just real world skills and I I want to say I want to stay that's what sets us apart I've been at the school going on sixteen years I also want to say that I've been where you're sitting as well I have three daughters who have gone through the school and now are either finished or in college and I feel that just the skills that they that they gained through the project based learning methodology have been invaluable to their success what after school options are there which we already talked about with the Y and then what time can students be dropped off in the morning so we open the gates at 7:35 in the morning we kind of say this every year that the Y has considered having a morning program and has offered a morning program but they have to have a certain amount of students interested to be able to do that and we we've never quite made it so the official drop-off time is 7:35 how many recesses and how long are they so it is obviously varies a little bit by grade level so K 4 6 has two recesses in the morning and then they have a lunch recess so everybody gets two some of the younger grades go out for a little stretch break or a little what they call secret recess in the afternoon so it varies a little bit what is the homework approach the homework approach that is another one of those hot questions if you will there is is homework at Charter School Morgan Hill I'm going to say we're not the research a research does not support or support lengthy amounts of homework in the younger grades and there's not a direct correlation to increased learning so I want to say as a rule of thumb our teachers really prioritize reading at night many of them do reading logs and as a rule of thumb they go with the approximate 10 minute rule per grade level so if you're a second grader you could potentially you could expect 20 minutes of homework again reading is really prioritized the amount of homework increases as they go up to the grade levels so our middle schoolers definitely have homework load every night so I hope I hope that's answers the question honestly the teachers really have a lot of autonomy in deciding their their homework policies and practices and it's one of those things that that's can be debated and some people are huge proponents and some people are not so that's kind of where we stand are the same household stepchildren on the same Lottery status as biological siblings who are currently attending CSMH you might need to repeat that I think stepchildren versus biological children are they on the same sibling status and that would be that would be yep I would say yes I mean as long as they're in the same household and they are siblings even though their step-siblings they'd still be considered a sibling how do I register for school tours register for a tour you should call the front office and speak to Nancy DePalma and she will schedule you for a tour what are some examples of offered electives offered electives are we talking middle school don't know I think we must be talking Middle School so as I mentioned things things have changed a bit over the past two years we used to structure things a little bit differently where kids had we had a variety of elective classes and kids choose and took a few different ones per year we modified that since with Covid and you know with all the restrictions and rules bringing kids back on campus and working in groups and so now we have some enrichment that all 7th and 8th graders get and then we currently have an elective an elective Math course that students are able to opt into which is kind of an accelerated math class for students that are wanting to pursue a higher track in high school versus a language arts enrichment elective Susan there's a lot of questions I think about just Lottery like what are our chances of getting in what is applications versus accepted kind of percentages are there spots at the middle grades and so forth you know obviously the biggest opening we have is in kindergarten with the 72 spots open obviously siblings will get those first spots and we don't know how many siblings there are as of yet I would say we average from year to year around 35 25 siblings sometimes we've had more sometimes a little less but 25-30 siblings is usually what there is so that would still leave 42 spots it varies from year to year obviously but we've had up to 250 280 applicants for those kinder spots if you don't get in and you're put on the waitlist my I think the thing I want to tell you to really think about is remembering to reapply that following year because anybody who doesn't reapply gets crossed off the waitlist and you continue to move up so you know if CSMH is a place that you want your children to attend that is something that would really help over time is to keep applying and having them continue to move up on those waitlists in the other grades obviously it's more there's not as many spots open because all the kids that are in kindergarten obviously go to first grade first graders go to second grade and they move up and there are years that we don't have any openings in a particular grade and then there's years that we will go through the first you know 10 or 15 people either people won't take up a spot and we'll go down to the next person or we just had people move as Susan said we have probably seen the most transition in the last couple years with Covid and everything going on and I'm sure we all know people who have have left California for various reasons so we have definitely seen a lot more spaces this year and last year than we've had in the past so Nancy any other advice on the lottery that you want to give people no but I would say you know hanging in there it's it seems discouraging if you're you know have a high number but from year to year and I hate to tell people but you know maybe if you didn't even get in until 6th grade you might still be happy to have the choice so it doesn't cost you anything and just a little time so I would just keep at it if that's where you want to be does the school have established safety emergency protocol we definitely have a safety plan in place that's reviewed every year as a staff actually we have our entire staff every year go through the CPR and first aid training or actually every other year so every other year we are all trained we have lots of all the different safety plans in place for all the different possible scenarios that can happen and hopefully never happen expanding on the Covid policies around masks volunteers in the classroom do volunteers need to be vaccinated is there a nurse right now on the school premises how often are people tested we do not have a full-time school nurse we have somebody who works in the health office and as I said we're all first aid trained but we do not have an RN on site right now we are masking inside and Charter School Morgan Hill right now is actually wearing masks outside at least for a little bit until we can see some decrease in the Omicron infection rates our volunteers do not have to be vaccinated but they do have to be tested prior to going into the rooms right now so if you aren't vaccinated you need to take a rapid test right here at school and how frequently are teachers and students tested it all depends as to what's happening with that particular classroom or that teacher right now household contacts are being tested every day some of our teachers just test every day out of abundance of caution if parents want a child tested for some reason we test them we have become Covid testers I can't tell you how much time we spend testing Covid I can't tell you how many times my nose has been swabbed cleanest nose in town so Covid is hopefully by this time next year when all of everybody on this call is in we won't have to worry about this anymore that's my hope but I thought that last year we also have we also have PCR testing on our campus every other week we have a company that comes in and does that we implemented that about a year ago and just have stuck with that so we have that available to all of our families what type of technology is utilized by teachers inside and outside the classroom Susan so we are fortunate that that all of our students have one to one Chromebooks and so there's lots of software and programs that the teachers are able to utilize the other Chromebooks in addition we mentioned that 5th graders and 6th graders have a tech enrichment they do coding and some robotics things that are totally Greek to me they have some very amazing opportunities then teachers use different different programs depending on the the grade level different programs for reading or research or or math skills trying to think of what else I'm leaving out Google Classroom we use Google classroom schoolwide can you talk a little bit about how diversity and inclusion is brought into the school and our practice and just how we in and then another question was can you speak a bit about how charter achieves diversity among students and families within the school that you know that continues to be an ongoing priority for us I think of some of the ways and Paige and Diana you guys can feel free to jump in here as well we have we have a person who actually kind of spearheads a diversity committee that has been going on for a few years to try to do outreach and make sure that people are aware of our application process especially non-English speakers what else Paige well actually outreach is one thing and then I think within the school both in the classroom and as a community there's a lot of celebrations around diversity Diana actually every year there's probably every month we have some kind of different event that's happening to recognize some kind of diversity or inclusion and then a lot of the school projects as well so I think there's just there's a lot of different ways just within the classroom itself and within the school that we're celebrating inclusion and diversity and then also through the outreach for making sure people know that the school is open to to everyone so it's almost two different things our outreach just to make sure people know that everybody is welcome here and then there's the outreach or the diversity inclusion that happen within our school and our teaching and also I think it's important to mention with our special ed program our students are mainstreamed and fully included in many cases in the regular Ed classrooms another way I feel I feel that we prioritize prioritize inclusion and acceptance are ABA therapist welcome in the classroom with their students we have had ABA therapist in the classroom usually that's something we we work through the IEP on but we have had that how do teachers perform conflict resolutions with students in their classroom we talked a little bit about the class meeting practice and and again this is something that is prioritized school-wide it is an excellent venue for for problem solving and empowering kids to take responsibility for their own actions and also learn to use I messages and communicate on different issues with children with other children they might be having problems with so that's that's one of our primary ways we use class meetings and I messages we just implemented a new program called the School Ambassador's program where we trained some 6th graders and 7th graders to be school ambassadors on campus but like I said we just kind of started down this road but we're looking forward to learning and implementing some of those strategies schoolwide I am going to try to get through a few of these last questions and let you guys go cuz it's a little after 6 is there a transitional kindergarten program we do not have t k at this time may in the future but not right now yes we enroll from the waitlist if during the year a spot opens up as soon as a spot opens up we enroll the next student if we know a spots opening up we will call ahead of time and give those families a little bit of a chance to think about it and know that it's coming what information and documents are needed right now to complete the application right now all you need to do is the registration online we don't ask for for Kinder physicals or dental things yet that is things we will ask once students are accepted through the lottery are teachers vaccinated about the probably 98% of our staff is vaccinated how are field trips funded we have a foundation so all field trips are paid through the foundation with the exception of Washington DC that is out of state field trip that we do fundraising for and parents help fund we do have after school sports for middle kids we do have I just had a question about enrichment opportunities and intra school events so we do have after school sports where we do do it with the some other schools within this district and other districts we are our funding all comes from the state but we do have a foundation we do not use our foundation money though to run pay for anything in our general budget we do use our foundation money to pay for things that would be above and beyond we are doing some pretty large construction projects coming up here on the school and doing a big facility improvement so that will be happening very soon here and so a lot of our foundation money will be used to support a ton of the rebuilding of the school along with in state funding we're receiving for that so we will be having about a 15 million-dollar remodel project happening which is super exciting how long do you have to decide when it's your turn to kindergarten applications and lottery spots you'll have about a week to decide and then during the rest of the year usually we will give you a call and talk to you and find out how much time you need but it's usually a pretty short timeline and I think that is most of them if I didn't answer one of your questions or I missed it I'm really really sorry please don't be afraid don't hesitate to email Susan or myself and we'll be more than happy to talk about that to try to answer any other questions you have thank you all for coming well I had one other question here Susan and I think it came up twice you've mentioned project-based learning with real life skills is one of the main differences between charter and public schools can you give an example of some presentation communication etc. I'm sorry can you I think can you just maybe just give a quick example of a pbl project that somebody what group might do just to give people an idea what pbl is okay an example so as I mentioned each of our students is able to participate in ag science we have gardens and and a small farm and so when you I want to say it was a second grade class was going out to the gardens and they were finding that that some animal they didn't know what kept eating their plants they would plant and go out and find the plants all eaten so the teacher the ag teacher wrote the driving question around trying to solve the problem and figure out what to do about these plants in the garden being eaten and they are the students work together in teams and they develop different solutions and different contraptions and finally realized that it was turkeys that were eating the plants then again kind of worked toward this product of what they could do to try to solve the problem that's a really simplest explanation they put up CDs and tried to scare them away that way they made scarecrows but none of that worked until eventually built screens over the gardens and so they came up with the problem finally figured out what the problem was and the solution but that's a great example all right any last comments Susan no just please we sure appreciate you coming of course we wish that it had been in person and that we were able to interact face-to-face but hopefully you've gained a little bit of an understanding about our school and you know what sets us apart my email is on the website do not hesitate to shoot me an email if we didn't answer your question your question this evening and thank you to Ms. Nancy and Mrs. Gill who were both on here as I said you know both instrumental in our school and interfacing with with parents and and family members and so these are faces that you definitely will get to know thank you for coming we appreciate the opportunity to tell you about our school Susan you may want to stop the recording as well

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Prospective Parent Meeting, January 20, 2022

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