Beacon PTA Meeting Minutes – Apr. 2020

General PTA Meeting

April 22, 2020 from 6pm – 8pm (via Zoom)

MINUTES

Welcome – PTA Co-president Abi Fenelon welcomed parents for the business portion of the meeting. She stated that the College Office was holding a webinar on “College and the LD Student” to be held on April 30^th by a former Beacon parent. Info to be sent out in weekly newsletter. In addition, Samilia Ghartey-Sam, Beacon’s social worker, is available for any families who need help. She is planning a parent support group to meet twice a week. A survey will be sent out shortly to determine interest.

Approval of Minutes – Motion was made to approve February 2020 minutes. Motion was approved.

Treasury Report – Jacqueline Deval

Fundraising is in good shape, with year-to-date revenue of approximately $350,000. We are anticipating $355,000 in revenue for the full year, plus anything that may be generated by the online auction.

Committee Reports

• Senior Celebration Committee – Plans are being made for celebrations for the 360 seniors graduating from Beacon this year. The committee expects that the funds collected for graduation will be used. Prom is separate from graduation in terms of funding and options are being discussed for a celebration party. Refunds for prom payment will be made if someone does not want to or cannot attend once a decision has been made.
• BDAT – The kid are still happy to be making art. David B is still teacking. They are designing a kids animation and a TikTok video will be made for the Freshman Project.

6:15-8pm – Guest Speaker – Ben August, Program Coordinator, The Beacon School

Ben August kindly agreed to attend the PTA meeting and answer questions that parents had about online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions were taking from the chat section during the Zoom meeting. A summary of the questions and answers has been compiled and edited and is included below.

Meeting adjourned at 8pm.

SUMMARY OF Q&A WITH BEN AUGUST

GENERAL COMMENTS:

• Silver lining is accessibility and distribution; our sense of community & effort & adapting quickly
• Goal is to give students as stable an experience as possible. Our top priority is that all our students are not disadvantaged… difficult to expect them to master everything.
• Learning process that all of us are going through together and we need to be patient as we work through the issues
• This is a very complicated public health crisis, at every turn I try to remind myself that what I see or hear may not be a true reflection of what kids are going through
• Patience & kindness  > always the best way for this current situation
• Part of our being here is all part of a bigger puzzle – trying to make sure students have the most human, caring & supportive learning environment even though they can’t go to school… really overwhelming the amount of energy everyone is putting forward.
• Concerns that students will be behind next year – it will be addressed; what do we need to have a plan in place to make sure they don’t suffer as a result of this
• All this distanced learning shows how we can operate as a good community and what we need to put into place; brought it all into sharp relief; teachers going beyond the classroom 
• Our school is focused on delivering learning to our students; amazing efforts by teachers and administration- encourage you strongly, try to connect with people thru the PTA. Gratitude for our teachers who have gone beyond the classroom to keep kids engaged. The history department (Moscow & Jacobs) did a school wide ‘learning’ scavenger hunt. And other teachers have done with their classes.. (Van Pelt) 

CONTACT INFORMATION: 

Erdene Greene (parent coordinator):  egreene@beaconschool.org

Deb Heller (college counselor): dheller@beachonschool.org

Ben August (programming): baugust@beaconschool.org

GRADES: 

• Important that results we report relate to actual school work, evaluated on actual things they’re trying to learn. Pass/Fail direction. Risk polluting the grading process; waiting for guidance from the DOE; some suspect that DOE will want there to be a uniform grading policy. Pass – no credit – articulated exception or circumstance
• People are concerned that P/F grading punishes students who are doing well in a tough time. Shelters students but there are pitfalls in that it prevents students from their successes in their work. 
• P/F arrangement might dissuade students – it takes away any ability for students to perform and document high level of success
• Q3: can’t remain grade-driven? not possible, the rationale >> not all students are nec able to assemble at one specific time >> try to navigate that process; it would be impossible 
• Pass/fail: just because a grade > doesn’t mean that learning isn’t valuable, focus on learning… there is a way to see this as an opportunity
• Can we add qualitative comments to pass/fail grades so colleges can see the true capabilities of the students – the school has no capacity to edit transcripts; can’t control the format — we may be able to provide anecdotal comments on report cards but not transcripts
• The school is in touch with colleges to see their expectations. Their focus is being uniform across the school.

LIVE VS. OFFLINE INSTRUCTION: 

• Sometimes teachers feel it’s better to approach the lesson in a way that students can learn at their own time & place.
• Some students are feeling resentment: don’t feel experience is responsive to their needs. 
• Class time is departmentally-based to minimize time conflicts.
• Alternate time schedule: each teacher gets specific blocks of time throughout the week; some of our teachers need a lot of contact time; unusual, but some kids have schedule conflicts; helpful to let us know what the conflicts are if they happen – contact Ms Greene.
• Can’t replicate the exact same schedule as when in school, level of blocked times for students — we’re giving them everything we think most students can be successful with. 
• Trying to balance so kids getting the right amount and not too much
• Real-time teaching is valuable, when possible; beyond educationally — I hope all students are getting opportunities getting opportunities to engage with that
• Hopefully every student is getting reasonable access to live instruction; probably not possible to give to all students all the time. 
• Sometimes being able to attend a class live is out of the teacher’s control. We need to respect the issues teachers are facing as well.
• Teachers are experimenting with what makes most sense; students are entitled to that work, teachers have pulled out all the stops to support these young people — a lot of people said that was impossible
• The goal is for r-t teaching is to have as much as teachers can deliver and students can take advantage of; hard to know what realistic expectations can be right now; it’s very difficult; the transparent answer is we tried to mandate r-t teaching but it’s not always possible.
• I hope that teachers are communicating their expectations; it is our goal to make sure that teachers are giving the clearest and most concise instruction as possible; if there are unclear instruction, reach out to the teacher, Advisor, Guidance Counselor 
• We have more than 68 teachers at Beacon, which is our strength … One drives 30 mins to teach to get better internet access… such variation in what people are going thru right now; the teachers are no different and need empathy too.

CLASS TIME/SCHOOL DAY:

• Made the decision to not start the day at 8am. There are other pressures on families besides school work and the school is trying to balance all of it.
• Hesitant to make the hours longer; we don’t want students to be in front of screens all day… it’s just a difficult one to navigate; all the demands on students have a cost; mediating the demands of students.
• DOE is not likely to extend the school year given budget cuts and other restrictions, though no official word on that.

SAT AND ACT REQUIREMENTS: 

• College Office has launched a brand new website
• Look at the College Office website, Naviance newsletters; some of the tests are online
• SAT/ACT: numerous accommodations and changes happening.

IF YOUR STUDENT IS STRUGGLING: 

• Overwhelmed with one particular class – reach out to that teacher; if overall, contact the Guidance Counselor, or Advisor; Ben happy to be included as well. Reach out to Ms. Greene if you don’t know your Guidance Counselor.
• Never wrong to provide feedback; if there are specific teachers you want to provide that feedback, reach out directly or to the Advisor or Guidance Counselor.

HOME/SCHOOL WORK:

• Students should establish regular routines of going thru Google classroom — good habits, check emails — don’t allow anxiety to creep up and ignore it
• Baseline expectation for DOE schools is 2 hours/day… some seeing more or less; more than 500 high schools in NYC, all of us going through this crazy transformation; we all come here in the spirit of working together; I am so grateful that our school is executing the way we are, some schools are really struggling to function
• Amount of HW differs from class to class: doesn’t mean there’s more productivity necessarily.
• Strict expectations are not reasonable to enforce and teacher’s may need to lower their expectations.

IEP/SETTs:

• SETTS providers available on a frequent basis
• IEP services being delivered; I trust you have a good point of contact. If not, reach out.

ELECTIVES/PE:

• 3rd quarter elective classes are continuing for Freshman through the end of the year. New curriculum and content coming soon; teachers know they need to close that gap with their students; big challenge to create a 2nd half curriculum at the last minute.
• Law still requires students to have PE each week. Implications for PSAL athletes that need to be figured out; reduced opportunities for them to get physical exercise. PE credits TBD; look on PupilPath and see which credits they’re enrolled right now and if they are getting credit.

ATTENDANCE/ENGAGEMENT:

• Ben will be sending the attendance email everyday at 11am.
• Trying to make sure that the rate of absence and level of engagement is consistent. 
• Will follow up with students that are repeatedly not engaged.
• School attendance does have to be reported so this is the best way to follow it.
• Daily “attendance” is very high.  65 was the highest number of students “absent” so far one day.

CLASSES FOR NEXT YEAR:

• We cannot run the same process as in prior years for testing into APs. Just wouldn’t be fair; looking for students to respond to a prompt, which combined with grades, will guide the placements.
• Student preferences survey for next year will be emailed Fri/Mon; multi step process; all part of a longer-term strategy 

APs:

• 2020 AP exams adjusted; 45 minutes, conducted online; scores should be returned faster;
• All of those details are on the college office website and the college board website. Understand the requirements
• Free AP streaming tutoring

PBAs:

• Graduating aspect of PBA – students not required to pass all 4 aspects of PBAs in order to graduate; all waived like the regents.
• Will still happen on the educational side

CLUBS/EXTRACURRICULARS:

• Connect with their peers; not any formal process — talk to student leaders of particular clubs; or ask advisor — talk to other members of the club
• They are working on additional volunteering opportunities.

Meeting adjourned.

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