Monthly MPC Meetings 2014-2015

Mather Parent council Meeting Minutes 3/16/2017

3/23/2017

5:30 meeting begins

Speakers: Rochelle Nwosu, Jana Sunkle, Barbara Owens, Katie Lyons, and Karyn Stranberg

Topic: Vision for the Mather School

Instructional focus at the Mather: Teachers will facilitate student academic discourse to develop students’ skills in using evidence to support their arguments in discussion and in writing.

Vision of the Mather

Move towards becoming a level 1 school through:
- Shared leadership school with instructional coaches to help leverage the work
- Learning lab where all are learners including adults (learning walks where teachers visit each other classrooms to learn from one another, observations, retreats)
- Maintain diverse specialities and experiences; we have many excellent special classes here
- Support 75 minutes plus common planning times; times where teachers come together to plan their work once per week
- Strategically align partners with school goals; we have many partnerships here and we want to align them with the school so they help us advance our status
K-6 or K0-5 expansion: we will work to figure this out together; at some point it will come up through the district

Instructional Structures at the Mather

Development of instructional leadership team
- Every grade level representative has facilitated ILT with support of Teachers21 consultant; we think of the ILT as the instructional “bus driver” it moves us forward
- Every grade level has an ILT member who facilitates the common planning time; it’s going really well this year; team meets twice a month for 90 minutes; planned out all year’s professional development together
Math Instructional Coach: added this year
Restructuring of Literacy Collaborative Coaches for school year 17-18
- Grades k-2: literacy coach support with LC model, coaching, and professional development as well as common planning times; Ms. Owens will move out of the classroom next year to be a full time literacy coach
- Grades 3-5: literacy coach support with LC model; coaching, and professional development as well as district wide curriculum; katie will move out of the classroom next year to coach full time
- Having strong coaching is important as a strategy for improvement because the work with coaches is not an evaluation the way it can be when the administration observes teachers
Math Coaching at the Mather - Jana speaking
- Having coaches at the school is lucky; most Boston schools do not
- Work happens in three levels: whole school, grade level, and one-on-one
- Whole school: instructional leadership team, whole school end of unit assessment system, learning from student work; support technology in the classroom (next gen assessments will be all computer based); math interactive data wall (bulletin board by the main office); MATHer Buzz (form of communication with teachers); Problem of the Month; grade 5 math team (first math team at the school for kids; meet at lunch and solve problems together)
- Grade level: common planning time facilitate adult learning and unpack standards, read research and think about incorporating it, ANET assessments; Full Day Retreats to focus on unpacking study units, reflect on lessons, think of next steps
- One-on-One: meet weekly or biweekly with four teachers to plan lessons and make plans; Boston Teacher Residency Learning Site Visits where teachers from outside visited three Mather classrooms to observe lessons and reflect on what they saw
Literacy Coaching at the Mather - Ms. Owens and Ms. Lyons
- Mather is a Literacy Collaborative School - there are 12 in BPS district
- We started with K-2 and now are adding grades 3-5
- Wanted to do literacy collaborative to build culture at the school and created a vision for literacy learning with focus on listening, reading, speaking, and writing; we focused on creating a coherent approach that would be accessible to the school community
- We wanted to develop teachers’ capacity through coaching and learning the LC model
- Teachers elected to give additional hours of professional development (more than is required) to this model
- Literacy coaching follows the same approach with three focuses: whole school, grade level, and one-on-one
- All teachers at the Mather attend the training in LC model
- Focus on teaching kids to read like writers and write like readers
Role of MPC
- Continue to support Mather teachers
- Advocate for our budget to reflect our school needs (when appropriate)
- Continue to recruit diverse families to join our school community and MPC
- Engage and participate in site council
- Support instructional needs and focus of school
- Continue to fundraise for school needs
- Increase parent school climate survey participation to 30% (April 15th to June 28th); we would really like to achieve this so that our information from parents will appear on the Mather page in the BPS website and helps people learn about our school; ideas are to set up laptop stations, have paper copies available, use EdConnect to advertise

Question: will we get another gym teacher? A: no, but we are getting a dance teacher next year
Question: will we ever get AWC at the Mather? A: no, because the district is moving towards Excellence for All to replace AWC. There are many considerations about AWC that we can talk more about at another meeting, if MPC wants.

Preparing for Ms. Nwosu’s leave of absence
- Starts on April 13
- Ms. Stranberg will be the school leader; there will be no additional supports because Ms. S didn’t want to bring in someone from the outside because we have such strong coaching staff here; she feels very comfortable with the staff
- MCAS testing will take place during the leave and the planning for it is already complete
- We will remain focused on instructional quality during the leave
- Big ticket items:
  - Hiring for open positions; want to fill as many as possible - K2, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, dance, art, technology, community field coordinator
  - Homework; will discuss homework at those and creating a more unified vision for homework at the Mather - won’t get resolved this year but will start the conversation to establish a homework policy for the school
- Do not expect any big changes to happen during the leave of absence

Parent Discussion: Survey rate focus

If 180 families completed the survey, we should advocate to get the results so we can see the results
The new vietnamese parent group could be a big help with getting survey results up (Duyen will email her group to encourage participation)
Booth at spring fling - make it a volunteer role (Abbie W. happy to volunteer)
How do we get paper copies here in all the languages needed? Call Family Engagement Office (Liz Angel will follow up)
Send flyers home in the backpacks to explain (rebecca to draft)
Create a “take the survey” banner at the entrance to the school (Lynn will ask Ms. Thames about putting up signs with the flyer)
Message the reason why to take the survey so parents know that it helps our school - the survey helps us get funding for the school

Future meeting ideas: Mather becoming a K-6 school in the future - can MPC have any impact on the plan for this change?

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december 2014 mpc meeting notes

12/18/2014

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Mather Parent Council Minute Notes
Thursday, December 18, 2014

Jana Linhart, Safe Routes Coordinator for Our Area

Safe Routes customizes plans for schools. Provide education, customized services re: walking safety and other ways to promote kids getting to school safely, including mitigating traffic near schools.
For safety training, we provide second graders with pedestrian safety and bike safety for fifth graders. We do events geared to biking for families.
I’ve been working with Kim Connolly on creating a walking school bus for the Mather. We have an anonymous list of family addresses, and we completed an analysis of where people live to create a route for walkers.
We will survey parents for feedback to get what we need to understand how kids are getting to the Mather. Many schools can’t tell us how many walkers they have. We are in the initial phase of understanding who are the walking kids. We’ve done some walk assessments around here.
Asked if anyone has seen anything that’s not working with new infrastructure?
Parents: traffic is crazy very close to the school with intersections that are large and open
Also Adams St is challenging with the bike lanes and too many cars.
Parents: Very difficult when there is a snow storm, sidewalks in our inner loop are not cleared in a timely way - cleared late in the morning after school has started, parking lots are not cleared and people back up
Parents: Even in no snow, people do unsafe things in car drop off in the circle because it takes so long to get around the loop. Since the buses go through our loop, we have cars and buses blocked. Plus the main bus depot is nearby which causes even more buses to be in the area blocking traffic.
Parents: we have petitioned the city for a three-way stop, and that’s great. But Adams Street is still a problem. Cars should not be allowed to park on it - it is too narrow. All the side streets are too narrow and impossible to pass when cars come in two directions. Linden should not be two way.
Jana said she would find out if the city tracks accidents in the area.
Parents reported that there are many pedestrians in the area. Mather students walk in groups for field trips and at other times.
Jana asked if parents would want their children to walk now to school. Parents reported that they would not, one parent said probably for the morning but not after dark.
Jana asked crossing guards. Parents reported that we have 3 guards for the school. One parent reported that the guard she sees is active and takes responsibility. We would like one at the three way intersection. One has a challenge with attendance. If she does not come, we have no substitutes and administration members step up.
Parents reported that they often find the guards instructions/motions unclear. We are unsure who trains them - maybe it is the police? Jana will find out who employs them and who trains them. Jana reported that with xing guards there is not set standard for training.
Jana said she heard that there is a school nearby that has many crossing guards. She asked us if we knew which school. No parents knew.
Jana reported that she is working with Kim Connolly to build walking school buses in a safe way. So we want to find out about all the issues first and then guage interest. Jana asked, would parents be interested in having a walking school bus? A walking school bus is a group of kids who are walking with a teacher, parents, volunteers, etc (supervised). The kids live a mile and half from the school. It helps to deal with congestion issues around the school and is environmentally friendly. The more kids that can participate, the fewer cars that are at the school at drop off and pick up. It’s not easy to set up; it requires many assessments and the involvement of the police, DPW, etc. We do a holistic approach.
Parents: I think the morning is a good option, but not after school because of the darkness.
Jana reported that in Holyoke they started with one route once per month, and now they have many regular routes. They found that the community could take back what had been a bad neighborhood. It’s a true community building effort.
Parent: How does this work for very young children? My son is very young and the distance is too far.
Jana said that we would not expect a 4 year old to walk long distances. In many areas parents meet at a park or another landmark in the area of the school, and then the group walks to the school together.
Jana will email the MPC email address with handouts and materials. The process to do this is a long one, but it’s doable. We’ve seen many success stories. Springfield, a very urban area, now has some sort of walking school bus for every school in the city. they have a task force for Safe Routes with everyone at the table. This is nothing that one person can do alone. It takes a whole team.
jana.linhart@dot.state.ma.us

Katie Hussey, a Third Grade Teacher and Representative from the Wellness Committee

The wellness council meets bi-monthly. Our goals are to promote wellness with all members of the mather community. Our big success last year was the Olympics - kids had fun, positive for everyone. We also had a wellness fair in september; we could have done more to advertise. Our partner will be back for Spring Fling. We made the policy about the sweets in school a reality here. I heard it’s going well. We may send out another letter about it. I am leading up an effort to get teachers to take “movement breaks” - time to get up and move around during academics. Our next meeting is Jan. 14 at 8:00 am. Everyone is welcome.
Parent: Raised an issue about the birthday policy to not allow sweets. Said it was difficult for her son to not have cupcakes for his birthday. Felt the letter was not supportive enough.
Discussed that the policy has been a BPS policy for about 10 years. MPC has been talking about it for years now. Acknowledged that it’s a culture change, and that we can all work together to continue to find ways to help everyone abide by the policy.
The letter about the policy could have been timed in a better way. It was supposed to go out with the welcome back packets in August, but that didn’t happen.
Parent: Recommend that Wellness send out the letter again. Katie said that they will send another letter soon.
Parent: Does Wellness think at all about winter recess and with holding recess as punishment?
Katie reported that recess is not allowed to be withheld. BPS used to subscribe to Adventures in Fitness to help with indoor recess. But we don’t have it anymore, so it is tougher to have activities for indoor recess. We are challenged at the Mather for space for indoor recess.
Parent: I know of a school where they come over the intercom to call for a “Jamming minute” and all students get up a move.
Katie, said that she is working on initiatives to get kids moving in the classroom.
Handout on the Environmental committee. Lynn Chevoya reported that there persists a problem with food on the floor in the boys bathroom. Feel challenged that it is taking so long to get this addressed.

Open Forum

More discussion about walking school bus. One parent asked Jana how she came to be at the table for the Mather. Jana reported that she works for Dept. of Transportation, and the Safe Routes initiative which is part of a larger cultural shift that DOT is focused on. Safe Routes can provide time and connections to get the right people at the table.
FIRST NIGHT- NEW YEARS EVE INVITE. Sierra announced that a flier is going home tomorrow to invite all of the Mather to First Night. We have a trolley that fits about 50 people and walk in the parade. We have access to 40 first night buttons, worth $10 each. We leave from Hynes Convention Center. Georgette in the main office is coordinating the buttons, as they will be delivered to the school after Xmas. Being on the trolley is lots of fun, and walking in the parade is great, too.
FREE TICKETS TO ENCHANTED VILLAGE. There are 45 spaces available for Mather Community to have a private viewing of the Enchanted Village for FREE. Put your name on the Enchanted Village list in the office with Georgette, email or call her. Tell her your name, how many people. We will meet at the Avon Jordan's Furniture on Dec 24th at 9:30am.
Ebony announced that there is a sign up for the next few meetings to bring food.

Vote to Change MPC Name to Mather Family Council

Sierra announced that we will take a vote on a name change from Mather Parent Council to Mather Family Council. Stated that we would use both names in the new year and then next academic year change over to the new name. Parents reported worry that using the word family may be closely connected to anti-gay movements.
Rather than changing the name, parents talked about doing more to educate people about what the MPC is. Discussed that instead we should work to change our meeting structures to hold many meetings that focus on a topic that matters to families and are broad-based. And hold separate meetings/sessions to get “work” done.
The group decided that we would not change the name - no motion was made to have the vote.

EBONY IS THE NEW CO-CHAIR

Sierra announced that we need to elect a co-chair. She nominated Ebony Arvin to be the co-chair. Sierra made a motion, Marie seconded the motion. All attendees voted aye to elect Ebony Avin as co-chair to the Mather Parent Council.

SITE COUNCIL ELECTIONS

Sierra announced that we have to have site council elections tonight. We can only have 6 parents on site council. Alicia explained that site council is the governing body for the school. We must have an equal number of parents and teachers on the council and that the diversity on the council reflect the school body. We can have 3 parents on the council as alternates who will vote if a voting member is not present.
Sierra reported that the budget for 15/16 currently shows that we have surplus, with enough to bring back Play Works. And hire a support positions for community connections, math coaching, or a behavioral support specialist for high risk kids. Ms. Cox will write up descriptions of the options for site council to vote on it Jan 5th. One parent asked about the prospect for adding AWC at the Mather - could the surplus be used to get started on that? Another parent clarified that the money must go to a new staff person, and you cannot use the dollars to add a new program.
Marie moved to install the following as Site Council members:
Sierra Rothberg
Alicia Wederburn
Jennifer Smith
Jenny Miller
Ebony Arvin
Zemler Wus
Alternates:
Gaitree Srinarain-Powell
Krystal
All attendees voted aye to elect all of the above.

IMPORTANT DATES
**EVERY FRIDAY: FAIR FOODS entrance on Parish St door FIRST PARISH CHURCH At PICKUP after school.

Mon. Dec 22: 1:30pm Winter Assembly in Auditorium
Tues. Dec 23: Last Full day of school
Wed. Dec 24: Enchanted Village Private Showing. (sign up)
Wed. Dec 31: Mather School in Boston’s First Night Parade! (see flier)
Mon. Jan 5: First day back to school
Thur. Jan 8: Site Council 5:30pm library food and childcare available
Wed. Jan 14: Environmental/Health and Wellness Committee Meeting 8-9am
Thu. Jan 15: MPC/MFC meeting 5:30 in library. Food and childcare provided.

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November 2014 mpc meeting notes

11/20/2014

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Mather Parent Council Minute Notes
Thursday, November 20, 2014

Ms. Stranberg: After School Partnerships Report

Girl Scouts on Fridays for Daisies K2 / 1st grade 3:30-5. $25/year (scholarships available)
Boy Scouts run by Mr. Robert Cline on Fridays as well as school vacations and summer programs grades 1-5 3:30-4:30. Boys work on badges and STEM programs.
Wednesday nights 6-8pm The Hive with Ms. Thames and Ms. King with dinner and childcare. Families are welcome. Grades 2 and older. Registration will open again in January.
Boston Skating Club grades 4 and 5. Wednesday 3:30-6 on Frog Pond. Bus will take children. Up to 25 children accepted. December 3 until ice melts. Free.
Sportsman Tennis Club grades 1-5. Van picks children up. Homework help, soccer, lacrosse and tennis. Space for 5 more children. Summer program from 9-5. Free.
Viet Aid program for Vietnamese families from 3:30-5:45 children learning English. Sliding scale.
City Sprouts teaches gardening and outdoor skills for 5th graders. Will resume in the spring. Free.
Catholic Memorial on Tuesdays. Children play basketball with high school boys.
St. John’s Prep students mentor children play board games, soccer and basketball.
Brookline Literacy Mondays 3:30-5 tutor children 1-1.
January Vietnamese Heritage Program. Will be open to all.
Saturday Program arts crafts, enrichment, character building. Grades 1-5. From 9-12. Will resume in spring. Free.
Boston Celtics Program teaches basketball skills. Compete on Sundays at UMass.
Monday Dance Program for grades 4 and 5. Teach dance, team building and leadership. DEA and Drug Unit funding.
Wednesdays Windsor School tutor reading 1-1 grades 1-5.
Fridays Dance with Books. Children K1-2nd grade. Learn how to dance and read books about different cultures. Performances.
Technology Goes Home grades 3-5. Take classes to earn a computer. Fall and spring sessions. $50.
SCORES for grades 3-5. Soccer, poetry, performance at Strand Theater Poetry Jam. Fall and Spring.
BRYE College Students come on Fridays to work with ESL students.
City Singers voice lessons on Wednesdays. Applications with Ms. Stranberg. All ages. Program will be moving to All Saints Church in January. Mather students will be free.
BOKs Before School funded by Reebok. 3 days a week exercise 45 minutes-1 hour.

Ms. Marshall: Before and After School Programs Report

Before school 7:30-9am in the gym. Three days a week in basement doing board games, etc. Breakfast is included.
After school program has meal snacks such as tuna salad beginning at 3:30.
Monday Brookline High Literacy
Tuesdays Catholic Memorial
Wednesdays Winsor High; Tae Kwon Do on Wednesdays. Children learn how to break boards.
Thursdays Drumming and Dance with Hilary.
Fridays Reading with Therapy dog named Lila. Children read books to the specially trained dog.
Yoga on Fridays from 4-5:15 starting in December.
No children are forced to do any activity. Homework help is available so children should have their homework packets with them.
Children have to be registered in After School Program to do many of these programs.
Cost for after school is $40/week. 1-3 days is $30/week. After school is currently full but there may be 5-6 openings in the next month or so. Ms. Georgette in the main office has the waiting list.

Jenny Miller and Ms.Stranberg will print after school calendars and put in parent folders. Calendars will also be posted on school website.
All Before and After School forms are outside of the main office and Georgette can help with applications.
Ms. Marshall received one Donor’s Choose grant in August and posted an additional grant for technology so children can learn typing and other skills on ipad minis.
There are vouchers for Before and After School through Childcare Choices.
Alicia is looking into staffing for a language and art program.

In January the city paper Summer Stuff comes out. Boston has a phenomenal amount of resources in the summer and Ms. Stranberg suggests that MPC devote a meeting to these opportunities at a January or February meeting.

Ms. Stranberg: Grant Proposals and Partnerships

Meredith Vieira Show donated $10,000 last month for technology. Children’s Hospital saw this and called to say that they have chosen Mather as their charity for this year. Ms. Stranberg asked for hats, gloves and board games. Doug Flutie’s wife is running the charity and will bring the donations to the school in December.
Recognition upcoming for Mayor Menino who was a generous friend of the Mather through the years. For example, a friend of Mayor Menino gave Mather $15,000 for Literacy; the School Yard Initiative cost $350,000; City Sprouts’ funding was secure because of Menino as well and Susan Menino has been an active supporter. Tomorrow, 11/21 will be dress down day to raise money for Tom Menino Foundation. Brown Foundation Grant will fund a bronze statue in front of the school. One possibility is to have statue of Mayor Menino in front of of the school. $25,000 for initial phase of planning to hire an artist.
Grant proposal submitted for outdoor stationary music.
Urban Outreach will deliver 150-200 new coats from Macy’s for children who need coats.
Boston Ballet is coming to audition 25 third graders who will be selected to learn ballet.
Old North Church of Boston and Principal for the Day will come to teach 3, 4th and 5th graders about Boston history and chocolate making in colonial days.

Sierra: Open Forum

Randal asked if MPC meeting notes can be translated. Sherman is looking into getting translation equipment from PBS for meetings. Jenny will ask translators to attend who speak French Creole and Vietnamese.
Meeting notes will be uploaded onto school website; possibly in multiple languages. Annette requested that grant proposals and other happenings be posted online as well.
Anyone who wants to contact MPC can call 857-220-7177; phone is answered by Sierra, MPC Chair.
Kim Connolly , Director of Partnerships and Development has organized a 5 meeting series on race that will be on Mondays at 5pm. There are approximately 17 people currently registered.
MPC sign up and calendar paperwork available. All families are encouraged to sign up for announcements via email and possibly text messages.
Jenny suggested a MPC social that is not all-business. Parent retreats have been good for long-term planning as well as potluck dinners. It might also be nice to have open forums at the school such as town hall meetings. Winter carnival is for the children but it’s also for families to get together and socialize.
School Site Council (next meeting is December 11th and all families are welcome to attend…usually second Thursday of the month at 5:30). Group votes on budget issues. Childcare and dinner are provided.
Proposal to change MPC name to Mather Family Council or Mather Family Village or Mather Students’ Families.
Mather Parent Council did not fund a food truck as part of Mather375 birthday celebrations. Teachers requested a laminator instead which costs over $2000. All present voted in favor of this being a gift from MPC and Mather375. MPC financial report from treasurer was attached to agenda for this meeting.
BPS gets money from Healthy Families grant. The $2,000 is available but no one volunteered to prepare the healthy food so we will spend this money at another community event. MPC decided to keep the $ for the Bingo night and/or the Spring Fling

Katie Lee (co-chair with Lynn Chevoya): Wellness Council Report

Rodent problem has been resolved thanks to Bunker Hill Day clean out and Ms. Stranberg’s volunteers cleaning; Carpenter’s Union also built shelving. Teachers now have bins for snacks and supplies. New carpets in K1-2nd grade classrooms. BPS is working on unresolved facilities issues. Teachers say that students and teachers seem to be healthier this year. Teachers are encouraged to use green cleaning products that are scent-free. BPS now provides greener products. All are welcome to join this committee which meets every other month.
Wellness Committee also wants families to send in healthier options for holidays and birthdays. They did not like the tone of the first letter that was sent home. Teachers say that children are positive about these changes (fruit cups, etc.) and this initiative will continue.

Marie Zemler Wu: Mather375 Update

Fundraising efforts have raised $35,000 (after expenses) so far this year. Site council will make determinations about using the funds to improve the school this year!

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october 2014 mpc meeting notes

10/20/2014

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Mather Parent Council Minute Notes
Thursday, October 16, 2014

Sierra: MPC Norms

Be present and engaged
Assume best intentions
Be open and willing to change your mind
Be solution-oriented
Be mindful that everyone's experiences are different, yet similar in some ways
One person speaks at a time

Topic of the Month: BPS support for MPC bylaws and elections

Rosa Inez - BPS/Parent liaison. 5 years in BPS. Previously in Countdown to Kindergarten. Now working with 15 schools to strengthen school/family relations, etc. Working to strengthen Parent Councils and Site Councils. She is available to advise and support MPC.
BPS is now emphasizing more organized/formal PCs and SCs. Effort to ensure that elections occur.
Rosa has template for ByLaws that MPC can edit and adopt as needed. She can send template to Sierra.
PCs are separate entities from the school. Safe space for parents to discuss issues. PC funding is entirely within control of the PC.
Required: 1) Must have agenda for every meeting. MA Sunshine Mtg laws apply (meeting must be announced at least 48 hours before the meeting - various announcement venues). 2) Must have meeting minutes and transparency applies.
VOTING: One vote per family present at any particular meeting (no matter if more than one parent attends, or if a family has more than one child at school).
Not clear instruction when/how long minutes must be posted. Possibly address that in MPC ByLaws?
Note: As for election timing, some schools run elections in the spring, but run risk of people moving during the summer and newly-elected officers not part of the school community.
Note: Some PCs structure meetings to have business items for one part of meeting, and community building activity for another (e.g. yoga, knitting, etc)
Question: How to balance PC tending to business matters (i.e. activities that require volunteers) and tending to school matters (e.g. curriculum discussion, etc)? Discussion: Some PCs use Facebook/social media to help announce activities and to recruit volunteers. Also, getting parent feedback as to what day of the week is best for meetings might help in choosing meeting dates that are more inclusive. Or, maybe separate meetings for the community building meetings?
Note: Ebony has agreed to be meeting coordinator.

Alicia: School site council update

ByLaw updates were discussed
Change election date to January to allow more families to get involved before elections are held.
Parent Voting membership on Site Council is 2 years. Parents who attend all of the Year 1 meetings continue with full voting rights for Year 2. If parent does not attend all meetings in Year 1, they lose vote during Year 2.
Vote to accept these ByLaw updates. Moved by Marie ZW. 2nd by Rebecca S. Unanimous vote to approve (Parent Council needs to vote on those parents who will sit as Voting Members on Site Council).

Mather 375 Countdown

Rebecca S: Still need some volunteers for Sunday.
Marie ZW: Discussion regarding some of the events of 375 Week.

Review of important upcoming dates at MPC

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September 2014 MPC MEETING NOTEs

9/19/2014

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Mather Parent Council Minute Notes
Thursday, September 18, 2014

Sherman: Stand if you...

What do we have in common? What Do we share?

Sierra (co-chair MPC): Welcome

375th birthday year: everyone needs to pull together for the October celebration,

Sign Petition to create a square in Marie Connolly’s name at corner of Parish/Winter Streets (part of 375 celebration)
Transition year: need to elect new parent committee heads, MPC positions
Ways to connect with the MPC: emails, fill out your parent info form,connect with your child’s teacher, closed facebook page(?), MPC blog on Mather website, other ways?
Choose themes you want to know more about (top 5) for future meeting topics
Moto: “Together for our children”
Zahra: Family liaison, free developmental screening for 3 and 4 yr-olds, other family resources through BPS.

Marie: Mather 375: What is it?

Poster by Corey and Peter
Sun. Oct 19th Opening convocation, in 1st Parish: Pastor, dignitaries, children’s performance, everyone welcome, 5pm community dinner, birthday entertainers, kids activities w/ (City sprouts, etc.), ½ price dinner for all Mather families and K. Stranberg has complimentary tix
Mon. Oct. 20th: Statehouse ceremony to declare Mather Day
Weds: Oct. 22: commemoration in auditorium, children performing, Mayor Walsh and VIPs, open to public but ticketed. Begins at 9. Cake and tea reception in tent on Meeting House Hill following the ceremony
Thursday: Mather birthday field day (teachers will run this)
Friday Oct. 24: Benefit fundraiser at Phillips House

How do people get involved?

Attend!
Tickets online
Facebook, Twitter
Donate: items from your business, any items for raffles/auction
Solicit donations from other businesses, community, etc.
Volunteer at any of the birthday week events: set up, serving food, etc.
Need help figuring out parking, get quotes for printing, find a DJ for Phillips House event, share listings w/ community calendars, data entry
Need to translate poster into Vietnamese, Spanish, Creole

Fundraising

Looked outside of Dorchester (so as to not exhaust local funding), 5 out of 100 donated.
Fundraising letter to solicit donations from local business: looking for gift cards (375 gift cards?), bigger items for auction
Sign up on the poster to solicit specific businesses (to avoiding repetition)
Need to translate solicitation letter into Vietnamese, Spanish, Creole
Translation issues: Vietnamese parents in attendance are not able to understand. Should be a topic for a future MPC meeting on communication

Alicia (Site Council Co-chair)

We need more parent representation on the Site Council
Meetings every 2nd Thursday/month, 5:30, daycare and pizza
Need for diversity of membership
Site council advocates for school budget (specialists, etc.), hiring decisions, school resources
Next site council meeting will focus on beginning of school transition issues

Katie Lee (Chair of Environmental Committee)

Wellness day on Saturday at Mather, 10-2

Break up into Committees (find out more about the Main MPC groups)

Executive
Appreciation/Support
Environmental/Wellness
Social/Event
Programming
Outreach/Communications
Fundraising
Classroom Volunteers

Chat, ask questions and mingle.

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Mather Parent council Meeting Minutes 3/16/2017

december 2014 mpc meeting notes

November 2014 mpc meeting notes

october 2014 mpc meeting notes

September 2014 MPC MEETING NOTEs

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