08-23-17 Regular
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MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR MEETING August 23, 2017 – 7:07 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School Presiding: *Comm. Christopher Irving, President Comm. Chrystal Cleaves, Vice President Present: Ms. Eileen Shafer, Acting State District Superintendent Ms. Susana Peron, Acting Deputy Superintendent Robert Murray, Esq., General Counsel Comm. Emanuel Capers Comm. Lilisa Mimms Comm. Oshin Castillo Comm. Nakima Redmon Comm. Jonathan Hodges Comm. Flavio Rivera Comm. Manuel Martinez The Salute to the Flag was led by Comm. Cleaves. Comm. Redmon read the Open Public Meetings Act: The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to insure the right of the public to have advance notice of, and to attend the meetings of the Paterson Public School District, as well as other public bodies at which any business affecting the interest of the public is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this law, the Paterson Public School District has caused notice of this meeting: Regular Meeting August 23, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School 61-127 Preakness Avenue Paterson, New Jersey to be published by having the date, time and place posted in the office of the City Clerk of the City of Paterson, at the entrance of the Paterson Public School offices, on the district’s website, and by sending notice of the meeting to the Arab Voice, El Diario, the Italian Voice, the North Jersey Herald & News, and The Record. Comm. Cleaves: Welcome, Superintendent Shafer. This is your first meeting overseeing with us. We would like to say congratulations and welcome to your new role. I don’t know about everyone else, but I'm excited about the journey that you're about to take us on. It's all yours. PRESENTATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS Page 1 08/23/17 Chronic Absenteeism Implementation Ms. Shafer: Thank you. At this time, I'd like to call upon Ms. Sandra Diodonet, Assistant Superintendent, to give us her report on chronic absenteeism. Ms. Sandra Diodonet: Good evening, Madam Vice President, Board Commissioners, Madam Superintendent and Madam Deputy. Today, I present to you our Paterson Public Schools chronic absenteeism task force that’s sitting behind me with our shirts on that says #showup. It's important for all of our students in the Paterson Public Schools to show up to school in order for them to learn. Our brilliant communication person told us that it should be #ppsshowup. Thank you, Terry. That is the hashtag that will be trending now on Facebook and throughout the school year. Together we can improve attendance and decrease chronic absenteeism. This is our update. We gave our initial report in June. We're back because we promised we'd be back in August and then we will continue to give you updates throughout the year. What is chronic absenteeism? It is defined by the ESSA state plan as the percentage of students who are not present for 10% or more of the days that they were in membership. Basically, if kids miss 19 or more days of school they would be considered chronically absent. But the importance that needs to be brought to light is that missing as little as two days a month can add up to chronic absenteeism. Two times ten equals twenty. Many parents think that it's only two days, a day here and there, but they add up. We're looking at our data from 2016- 2017. It's the snapshot data that the NJDOE takes for us. In our elementary schools chronic absenteeism ranges from 2.4%, which is very low. That’s outstanding. That’s like nine kids in a school that are chronically absent. It's as high as 35.64%. At the secondary level, it's much higher. In 2016, it was as low as 19.30% and as high as 97%. That’s almost the whole school being chronically absent. Our latest data from June 23 shows that our chronic absenteeism rates are as low as 5.71% in elementary schools, but as high in one school as 45.44%. At the high school, 24.91% low and at the high end 94.64%. From this data you can yield that at the high school we had improvement, but at the elementary school it went up. Here is the districtwide data. Unfortunately, 25% of our kids are chronically absent. If you break it down with elementary schools, 90% of them are chronically absent and at the high school 46%. 50% of our children, more or less, are chronically absent and this needs to stop. We need to put an end to this and really promote coming to school. What are we doing about it? We have our task force here very committed. It is not a task force that will go away. It's a task force that will meet throughout the year. We're planning on visiting schools, analyzing data, and continuously working. Madam Superintendent took the pledge from Attendance Works. It's a challenge on improving attendance and she declared September as Attendance Awareness Month. I think that deserves a hand clap, please. Thank you. It takes a lot of guts for a Superintendent to say let's do this. Let's curb chronic absenteeism. It's easy just to say we have a problem. It's hard to say let's fix it. If you know Ms. Shafer, she's about fixing problems and finding solutions. That's what the task force and the principals will do and we need parent and community support in this endeavor. Attendance letters went out in June to our chronically absent students and they will be going out again in August. They're letting parents know and communicating with parents the dangers of chronic absenteeism and that we need students to show up. In addition, we have Power School that’s being launched. It's an easy system to navigate and will help us more with tracking our data and identifying our students. We can help provide intervention. Sorry, Rosie Grant. I stole it right off your Facebook account because I know that you posted the attendance task force. This is us on June 19 when we came up with the hashtag. But if you read the bottom, it's #ppsshowup. We are asking parents and the community when you send your kids to school on the first day, take a picture of them, hashtag it #ppsshowup, and tag us on Facebook so that we can see it. If your kid gets 186, there’s improvement on their test Page 2 08/23/17 throughout the year. We're asking that you take pictures and put that hashtag on it. If you show up to school, children, your scores will go up and you will understand the material that needs to be learned for your grade level. The task force has subcommittees. We have a parent focus group, impactful strategies for parents, strategies for elementary school principals and teachers, strategies for early childhood principals and teachers, strategies for high school principals and teachers, and districtwide attendance processes and procedures beginning September 21. This is what we were charged to do. There is a binder in front of you. I think Comm. Martinez has it. It's showing the surveys that have been conducted thus far. There are about 48 surveys and counting that parents from the district have answered. We're asking that you go to our website and you can take that survey there as well. We had three focus groups so far and Mr. McDowell and Mr. Choudhury will continue to do those focus groups to see how we can help improve attendance and to see what support parents need from us. The districtwide attendance processes and procedures have been put in place already and we rolled it out to principals in order for us to have accurate attendance. Will the chairs for these committees please stand up? I want to recognize you. Mr. McDowell is back there somewhere. Rosie Grant and Annette Romanello, who did our parental impactful strategies for parents, Mr. Vancheri, high school strategies, Mr. Sanducci, early childhood, Mr. Kemper, focus groups, T.J, districtwide procedures. Thank you for your work and don’t rest on your laurels. This here you will see around the entire City of Paterson in different wards. It's our Attendance Matters #ppsshowup with the message “Together We Can – Missing Five School Days Equals Missing Twenty-Eight Instructional Hours.” That's a lot of hours. This is the brainchild of Madam Superintendent who said she wanted these signs all over the place and she made it happen. So we're putting the hashtag on there as well so that kids and parents can see it. You see it. Take a picture next to it. We really want you to come to school. We really want you to learn. You will see these all around. We also need you to know that improving attendance is our priority. Again, it's required for ESSA. It's part of our funding, so it's important for you to show up so that we can get the funds we need to educate you. In addition, the rumor mill says that this will be part of NJQSAC scoring. That's another important reason for us to have good attendance because we want to keep our local control once we get it. Again, chronic absenteeism predicts lower third grade reading proficiencies, course failures, and eventual dropout. If you're chronically absent, chances are by third grade you will not be reading on level.