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Adults Present:
Sylla Zarov
John Wallace
Tonya Rasmussen
Yeng Her
Brenda Hamel
Allison Gunn
Childcare: Lauren Frazier and Claire VanHandel (student teachers)
8 Adults from Bayview Community and lots of children and family members for pizza dinner
Mr. Wallace explained the district focus on Black Excellence. For some Asian or Hmong families, we sometimes have special help with language, and sometimes we try to explain experiences they have not had. Our Hmong children and other children do better all the time. For some reason our AA children don’t do as well, and we don’t know why. A big part of this year has been the teachers working to get to know the kids better. We know that with our AA children, as with all our children, we need to push them. Just like with your children, when they are close to their teachers, they are willing to work hard. Teachers are working with each other, and with the students to get to know them better This does not take away from what we do with our Hmong children. They still get all that we normally would give them, including the relationships. We want to be sure that you feel good about “Black Excellence”. Just like when we talk about Welcoming Schools, we want to be sure that we meet the needs of all people like we have. We are learning to do a better job and that helps everybody.
Q: Do A-A families have their own group, like the Hmong group?
SZ talked about AAPC getting started at Franklin. JW talked about survey and phone calls to AA parents at Randall, asking about meeting their needs and interest in group. Most said next year with Franklin group.
Thinking about next year, Franklin teachers talk to Randall about the second graders being ready to go to school.
Recapped principals swapping schools on Monday with their hair colored in others’ school colors. They enjoy seeing Randall students who used to be at Franklin, and Mr. Wallace gets to see students who will go to Randall. Passed around photo of SZ with red hair!
SZ: Read Your Heart Out: Celebrates national AA parent involvement in schools. Families will come in to read stories about AA history, or with a positive AA protagonist, or character. There has been a Hmong cultural celebration in the past; we should consider doing again. We will talk again in the Fall, perhaps hear Hmong New Year.
Our schools are also Welcoming Schools, Jennifer Herdina who came to talk to this group. Talked about I am Jazz national reading, also has Introducing Teddy as a book more for the younger students. This will happen next week at Franklin and Randall, and there are more readings at public libraries around Madison.
Friday is the 100th Day of School!
Starting Monday, the elementary students will get home 11 minutes later – don’t worry!
Randall Carnival, 3/2.
Egg Rolls! Discussion of who will shop, prepare, roll, attend carnival. Tonya and 2 parents will shop next Friday night. Many will meet at Randall school at 7:15 am on Saturday to roll and cook the eggrolls.
Brenda – The kids did a great job about bringing the homework back.
Tonya – If they get stuck on reading, there are steps the kids can take (bookmarks given as part of homework and a packet of word work):
- Write down unknown words, and ask teacher
- Main Idea, Why did author write this book?
- Compare books
- What kind of a book? Pretend/fiction? Real/non-fiction?
- Write things they learned.
- Beginning, Middle, End
- Predictions – what do I think is going to happen?
- What they specifically do is not important, but if they are reading and writing, that is fine.
Q: Parent talked about struggle with getting their student to do the homework especially
rewriting a story. She felt that teachers have stronger rule at school, but at home the student tries to get away with a little work as possible to be “done.”
Tonya’s advice – ask them to tell their ideas to you first, before they start writing. Also, as long as these conversations are happening then the parents are letting the students know that school is important.
TR: Movie night at Franklin, “Mulan” with popcorn and cider. Parents stay as well.
Saturday, 3/9: Super Science Saturday at Randall.
Randall Book Share – children will probably be bringing books home that they can keep.
5-2-1-0 Challenge for points, Brenda explained.
- 5 fruits and vegetables
- <2 hours of sreen
- 1 point/10 minutes physical activity
- 5 points if no sugar drinks
- 1 point for mindful activity
Fill out and bring to their teacher. Classes compete, and if an adult does it too, there
are bonus points if the adult participates as well.