Urban Montessori Charter School
Minutes
Academic Oversight Committee Regular Meeting
Date and Time
Thursday May 12, 2022 at 11:30 AM
Location
4551 Steele Street, Oakland, CA 94619. Signage on campus will direct you to the correct room, generally the Sun Room.
The public may comment and participate via Zoom if they prefer. The public may also email comments to janf@urbanmontessori.org to be shared during the meeting. Please make that intention clear in your email.
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Meeting ID: 825 9285 5160
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Members: Jan Faraguna (chair), Kara Fortuna, Donald Williams
Urban Montessori Charter School welcomes your participation at Board meetings. The purpose of a public meeting of the Board of Directors (“Board”) is to conduct the affairs of the organization in public. Your participation assures us of continuing community interest in our school and assists the Board in making the best decisions for our school. To assist you in the ease of speaking/participating in our meetings, guidelines are provided at the bottom of this agenda. All materials for all board and committee meetings, including audio recordings of Regular Board Meetings, are available via http://www.urbanmontessori.org/board_of_directors.
Committee Members Present
J. Faraguna, K. Fortuna
Committee Members Absent
D. Williams
Guests Present
D. Bissonnette
I. Opening Items
A.
Call the Meeting to Order
B.
Record Attendance
C.
Review of Action/Discussion Items
D.
Presentations from the Floor
E.
Approve Minutes from Prior Meeting
F.
Vote on updated Committee Calendar and Meeting Time
II. Academic Oversight
A.
Instructional Updates
Middle of SBAC testing - going smoothly. Haven't need makeup days so far.
Coaching - not focus at this point in the year with state testing. Starting to look at student portfolios and what will go into them starting next year. Aiming to share with families next year at first conferences.
Health/sex ed curriculum - Upper El teams starting this week.
Attendance - staff attendance has gone up. Uptick in covid cases in students; not in staff. Student attendance - low 90%, high 80% for a couple days.
Middle school - plans to continue using amplify. Sent up updated intent to return to determine staffing for middle school. Changes to SIS to separate out middle school to do separate attendance for each class. Possiblity to get bells. Parents are meeting with students to plan graduation - looking at last day of school for ceremony.
Looking at how to support and align curriculum across classrooms further - teachers meeting over summer to design lesson plans for the upcoming year. includes things like when teachers will look at NWEA data to see where additional support is needed.
Transition placements for k and 3rd graders will be announced on May 13th, Families meetings around transitions will be on May 26
B.
2021-2022 LCAP Review to inform 2022-2023 LCAP Development
Added comments and questions to the gdoc.
Questions around parent education nights - who can do anti-racism trainings for parents next year? Are there any workshops offered by any of the national public Montessori organizations that our parents can attend?
C.
School Academic Policies
Homeless Education Policy - updated the liaison. Different version around; be sure all the same after approved.
Child Study process identifies students and identifies any wraparound services needed.
Needs to be put on full board agenda to approve.
Grading Promotion policies
Data issue - TK students showing as being retained, but not accurate
No retention in the last four years. Given mixed age classrooms and range of levels of materials, work and SEL options, retention or acceleration is extremely rare and leadership does not recommend. Only consider recommending during bridging of developmental planes.
Consider flags as universal preschool is implemented and we have younger students (toddlers).
Update to policy: add statement around parents not being able to observe in person (1.1) - online options available.
Acceleration - should we have a statement about it? Daniel has the same rational for not acceleration as for not retaining. Add language similar to Retention policy 3.1 but focused on acceleration.
III. Closing Items
A.
Topics for next meeting
Updates on MS numbers; returning 6th graders and staffing
SBAC participation numbers; preliminary results
staffing update for next school year
Move academic updates above LCAP/policy review