Aloha!
This page is specifically for the parent interest group.
This site is a work in progress, and I would love to hear about any ideas you may have. The email address is sccmes@gmail.com .
Our representation on this council is very key to future school direction and policies.
Brief Notes
1/28/10 Aloha, This is a brief review of the SCC meeting this past Tuesday. Mr. Ginlack, our new and acting principal, outlined modifications to the AFP to include an extra counselor position (to bring us back to 2), as well as a proposed increase in GE students by 15-20 or so to help with funds. He does note that we have no more room to cut, and the next cuts that come will likely be in the form of staff positions. The group decided to start meeting at 3:30pm on the 2nd Wednesday of each month as this is easier for the staff and we are not having the parent attendance we had hoped. We also have a couple of issues that I would like your feedback on.... 1) School Community Meeting #2, was delayed but is technically required by our guidelines. The purpose is for the principal to review the academic and financial plan for all interested in the community. My thoughts are that most people who are interested have already come to the SCC meetings along the way. If anyone is interested in viewing the AFP, copies are available in the school office. I am recommending canceling our Community Meeting #2 unless I hear from you (the parents) that you would like us to have the meeting. (by 2/9/10). 2) A+ parents...an idea was brought up to try to have a quiet study area for students in grades 3-6 who would like to work on homework. I spoke with Karen Gushikuma who will look into the possibilities. If this is an idea you agree with, please let me hear from you and I can keep pushing..... Happy Furlough Friday! Ford Shippey SCC Chair/parent rep 1/14/10
Aloha all,
This is a brief update.....I am sorry that I do not have more details. The next SCC meeting will be scheduled for 1/26/10 at 5:30 in the F1 strings room. There have been several developments and I was hoping to meet sooner rather that later but the administration notes that they are too busy to meet next week.
Mr. Ginlack, our new principal, is making adjustments to the AFP that we voted on and passed in the SCC last December. You should have received a letter introducing him at the beginning of the year. He is going to increase the number of GE students, and increase class sizes, to help add funds to our school and add another counselor for next year. He discussed this with the teachers earlier this week. I have asked him to email me the details of the changes. Please let me here back from you if any of this is concerning to you as parents. In the absence of feedback, I will just accept this and move on. If there is significant parental concern I will push for meeting earlier and not sign the AFP as the SCC chair. I hope you all enjoy your four day weekend with the kids.
Ford Shippey
MES SCC Chair/parent rep
1/11/10
Aloha all,
I am sorry for the late notice, but we will be postponing the SCC meeting until after Mr. Ginlack has a chance to meet with the teachers. It will likely be Weds/Thurs, but I will let you know as soon as I know.
Ford Shippey Parent Rep/SCC Chair 1/10/10
Aloha MES Ohana,
There have been some changes at our school over the past month, including our principal Denisa Arai being put on administrative leave. We have a new interim principle, Mr. Robert Ginlack, who will be here until the investigation of how the school handled the counselor incident is resolved. This will likely take months, and as usual the DOE is not forthcoming on the details. The community meeting that was planned for 1/12 is being postponed, and our meeting this week is going to be a regular meeting (5:30, room F1). There are some concerns over the academic and financial plan, so we are going back to the drawing board. We have a deadline to submit a plan by the end of the month, however I have asked for an extension. I cannot tell at this point what changes we will make, but several issues being considered are increasing the number of GE students to increase funding (and thus class size as well), adding back a counselor position, removing a teacher position.
We did have a brief meeting with Mr. Ginlack who is interested in using/building an email list for parent contact. We also asked that he would give an overview of the TRIBES curriculum to help the parents/community understand the importance of the training (and why it could not be replaced to increase instructional time).
We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday! The website (www.messcc.com) has been updated with an agenda and the unapproved minutes from the last meeting.
Happy New Year!
Ford Shippey
Parent Rep/SCC Chair
12/9/09
Aloha MES Ohana, This is a brief summary of the meeting last night, for those of you who were unable to attend. On a positive note, we seem to have an acceptable AFP for next year. Our school was one of several to receive recognition for making the AYP (adequate yearly progress?) for 2008-09. Also, the robotics Team Burnout gave an excellent presentation at the beginning of the meeting. We will try to get the minutes up on the website (www.messcc.com) in the next few weeks. Regarding the November 10th incident, Dr. Ushijima (complex area superintendent) was present with a behavioral health specialist from the DOE. She explained that both the incident and the handling of the incident are under investigation, and therefore none of the details were to be discussed. There were several parent concerns voiced, as follows: 1) Why is this investigation taking so long? Why did it take so long (and news involvement) for the parents to find out what happened to their kids? (no clear answer given, other than there is a process) 2) Can we have a debrief meeting after the investigation is complete to learn what we can about the incident as well as any changes to how the school will handle future incidents? (administration to consider this) 3) What assurance do we have that this was an isolated incident 4) How are the traumatized children getting support? (DOE behavioral health support to meet with children in groups to screen for PTSD/trauma, and then individualize treatment) 5) Parents would like to hear an apology from the school on their perceived mishandling of this incident 6) A question of parent notification policy in the event of a child being involved in bullying/incidents...Dr. Ushijima notes that parents should be notified. 7) A suggestion was made to send out US mail letters for secure delivery in the future for important matters, as going home with the children is not reliable. For critical incidents, phone calls may be appropriate. There are a lot of concerns that are not mentioned here. We have to continue to work together as a community to get through this. Please remember that the SCC is a voice, but as a council we have very little power to effect any kind of change. Continue to let your legislators and the administration hear about your concerns. We will be meeting again for Community Meeting #2 on January 12th at 5:30. Merry Christmas, Ford Shippey Parent rep/SCC chair 12/3/09 Aloha, The website for the MES SCC meeting next Tuesday is updated. It will be in room F1 at 6pm on Tuesday Dec 8th. Our school has been in the news lately, and I suspect many of you have questions/concerns. The agenda is fixed 7 days prior to the meeting, but anyone can bring a new issue up in the new business part of the meeting. Also, attached is the current DRAFT of the academic and financial plan for 2010-2011. Please take a look at the plan, and come with questions for next week. Have a safe 3 day weekend, and please keep our school in your thoughts and prayers as we deal with some of the difficult issues at hand. Sincerely, Ford Shippey MES SCC Chair/parent rep 11/25/09
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
We had a long discussion about the Academic and Financial Plan (AFP) for 2010-11 at the SCC meeting on Tuesday night. We were able to review the 5th draft at the meeting, but Denisa Arai wants to wait until the 6th revision/draft before making it available to the parents via email or the web (www.messcc.com). The plan is available to be reviewed in the school office if anyone is interested.
The big changes (compared to last year) are as follows:
1) the weighted student formula (WSF) per child is down to 3500.00 (from 4808.00 last year).
2) there will not be a cut in any teacher position, but we will be losing one counselor position
3) Mrs. Gushi's position will be now to support other teachers in IT education, not teaching students directly
4) Our total school budget is 2.7 million, down from 3.6 (or so) last year
5) Money for supplies (paper) and text books were cut from about 20,000 to 5,400.00 (rough numbers)
6) We will get an extra clerk position in the school office (2.5 FTE vs. 1.5 last year)
For those of you who don't know, the WSF is a mathematical weighted formula to give schools that are not performing well more money than the schools that are meeting the academic standards. I am trying to not make any editorial comments......
Mr. Nakasone (school counselor) had some concerns regarding a cut in the number of counselors. The school total budget last year included employee benefits, so it is hard to discern how much less absolute money we have. However, the drop in the WSF gives you an idea.
Please remember this is a draft and is subject to change due to teacher/staff/parent input. We will be looking at this again at our next SCC meeting on 12/8 in room F1 at 6pm. The final plan will be announced to the public on Jan 12th, 2010 at our Community Meeting #2, time and location TBA.
Another date to save on the horizon is the Feb 19th MES Fun Run as well as the School Assembly Dec 17th at 12:30pm (no advertisement but parents are welcome to attend to see their students perform).
Have a great holiday season, and please do not hesitate to email us at sccmes@gmail.com with any questions/concerns/comments.
Sincerely,
Ford Shippey Parent Rep/SCC chair
11/23/09
Aloha MES Parents,
This is a reminder of the SCC meeting this Tuesday at 5:30pm in F1, please see the website for further details (www.messcc.com). There are several important issues to be discussed.
First of all, despite what we hear in the news, Furlough Fridays appear to be with us for the duration. Even if the government wants to revisit funding, they will have to discuss this further with the teachers (and their unions). We did ask the teachers informally about the grade level plans for adjusting to the lack of instructional time. There will be more on this tomorrow night, but the word on the street is that if you have concerns ask you teacher for their plan. They are hesitant to give out this information in a blanket statement, and not many parents seem to be voicing concerns making this a "non-issue."
Second, there seems to be interest in looking at having a website for each classroom via a learning management system. I have spoken to both the teachers and Mrs. Arai regarding this (briefly), and in order go forward with this we would have to get buy in by both the teachers and the administration. This system could be used for daily homework, classroom activities, classroom curriculum for the week, etc. If you like this idea please send an email to sccmes@gmail.com. Otherwise this will likely not become a hot issue. There are no plans to formally discuss this tomorrow night.
Last, but not least, the season of the academic and financial plan is upon us (AFP). We do not have all the numbers available to us, but our school budget for 09-10 was roughly 3.6 million dollars, and the money allocated for 2010-11 is around 2.7 million dollars. In true government fashion, the formula for this calculation is not the same as last year due to the "benefits" of teachers not being included in this year's budget so we cannot really compare the two numbers. Also, we don't have a statement on how much money our school will get per child yet. The administration and the teachers have been working together to formulate a rough draft that will be presented tomorrow night. We will then decide on Community Meeting #2 to work out the details of the plan. Now is the time to start thinking about what programs you like, what we can live without, what programs that we need but don't have, etc. Let us try to remember that we will need to work together as a community on this, trying not to create animosity or fears.
On a lighter note, there was a question of who pays for the house on school grounds....not our school. It does not affect our budget at all.
If you have any concerns/questions please do not hesitate to email sccmes@gmail.com or place a letter in the School Community Council box in the office.
Sincerely,
Ford Shippey
SCC Chair/Parent Rep
11/7/09
Aloha MES Parents,
We are preparing for the next SCC meeting this Thursday at 5:30pm. There will be an informal gathering of parents at 4:45pm on Monday 11/9 at the cafeteria (we may just sit at the benches outside if the weather is nice). This will be a time to discuss concerns w/ Furlough Fridays, the academic financial plan priorities or any other issues. The agenda for the meeting is not officially available (as I am waiting on it from Denise Arai, but the website is as updated as possible with both the minutes from the last meeting and the tentative agenda (as I know it). You can find it at www.messcc.com.
I have heard concerns from teachers that their individual comments are being perceived by some parents as representing the entire role group (ie all teachers), and this is making it onto the PTO blog site. Please remember that comments from teachers/parents/staff in the meetings are usually individual ideas and not representing the entire group unless the question has been sent out to the entire group prior to being answered. Let us hope and pray that the state government will reflect on the sacrifice they are asking our children to make and come to the conclusion that they should remove Furlough Fridays.
If you are unable to make the meeting, please email sccmes@gmail.com at least 48hours prior to the meeting with any concerns/comments.
Sincerely,
Ford Shippey
SCC Parent Rep
10/26/09
Aloha MES Parents, Will the Budget cuts and Furloughs affect your child‘s education? Our next SCC (Student Community Council)meeting is scheduled for 11/12/09 5:30pm in Room F-1. We are approaching the deadline for the Academic Financial Plan for 2010. Unfortunately, many Academic Programs will be cut due to the slouching economy. Please help MES cut the budget without cutting teachers and classrooms. How does MES achieve a High Quality Producing School? Will Reading, Writing, and Mathematics be the focus for MES? Let’s find out what is MES’s priority. We strongly urge you to talk to Ms. Arai and review these issues. We appreciate any ideas or suggestions before the December Academic Financial Plan Deadline. Please visit our website http://www.messcc.com or email us at sccmes@gmail.com or drop a letter at the office SCC mailbox. Let’s make our voices heard and our votes count. Can MES count on you to get involved in your child’s educational future? A Hui Hou, Shelly Ann Casupang SCC Parent Rep Parent of 6th and 3rd Graders Visit HAWAIIDOE.org for additional information, answers to frequently asked question, questions about Furloughs, and the 2009-2010 School Calendar. 9/25/09 I am sure you are hearing about school furtloughs in the news. This is a serious setback for both our teachers/staff and students as we will be losing 17 days of instructional time due to budget constraints. We will be having a school communityh meeting next week on the 29th to review testing results as well as to hear an update from our principal on what the school furloughs mean for our school. Furthermore, we can expect further budget cuts/curriculum changes in the 2010-2011 school year as we begin to discuss the next years Academic and Financial Plan. Please feel free to email your thoughts/concerns/ideas on these topics to the scc email address.
8/17/09 There was an anonymous letter sent earlier this year regarding a concern with a certain teacher. The person writing the letter had valid concerns, but any concerns should be addressed to the administration. Any action taken will be private information. If someone would like to speak to a parent rep unofficially this could be kept confidential. However, the administration will have a hard time acting on an isolated anonymous letter for obvious reasons.
8/09- There was a parent request for the possibility of school uniforms, if you have an interest in this issue, please email sccmes@gmail.com.
The 2009-2010 Parent Reps are 1) Shelly Casupang 2) Ford Shippey 3) Teresa Curet (alternate)
Date of next meeting: Weds March 10th at 3:30pm in F1
Important issues for next meeting:
Important Events:
March 15-19 Spring Break March 25 Family Movie Night March 26 Kuhio Day Holiday March 29 HSA testing begins April 2 Good Friday, no school If you have any other concerns please email me at least 48 hours prior to the meeting, and I can bring them up during the parent report at the beginning of the meeting. |