Meeting Notes: January 19, 2021

Hello LPAS Families and Friends! Below are my notes from the January 19th 2021 LPAS SBDM meeting.

Note: I’m one of two parent reprensentatives, so my notes are slanted towards parent/family topics. As far as notes go, they are probably incomplete, and are definitely not “official”. Official agendas and approved minutes are posted on the JCPS SBDM Council and Standing Committee Minutes site.

Summary

My first “normal” meeting since joining the SBDM back in November! Every other meeting I’ve attended was focused Principal Selection or… the fallout from the Principal Selection. So, it was genuinely nice to be able to finally welcome to Ms. Case, speak with her directly, get down to “standard” business, and hear some great news about LPAS as we move into this next chapter of LPAS.

We also discussed putting a bow on Principal Selection, with two items: 1) posting the items the Council stated in December that we’d post and 2) reviewing the Principal Selection Policy in the February 2020 meeting.

Quick highlights:

• It’s LPAS’ turn to get vaccines! About two weeks earlier than expected!
• New playground equipment coming soon.
• LPAS is getting a new roof over the summer … which means no summer programs.
• The school’s participation rate is at 98% - well above JCPS average right now.

Details

Overall, a good, brisk, productive meeting.

COVID Update! Vaccines for JCPS employees are ahead of schedule and proceeding alphabetically. Lincoln staff should be up Tuesday or Wednesday at Broadbent Arena. Sooner than February 1st as previously expected. Sounds like in-person school might be a possibility? Hard to say… I heard a (non-LPAS) teacher at the donut shop last week declare (eclair?) “We won’t be going back this school year. The union is too strong” … so who knows. But things are moving ahead, plans being made.

A couple of LPAS building updates: New playground equipment coming soon. New roof for LPAS this summer! But… that also means no summer programs in the school. More details around that soon, I’m sure.

The annual Comprehensive School Survey will be coming around soon - it’s open to the public and is a great way to have your voice heard. You can see past results (2012-2020) here.

5th Grade backpack defenses coming up (April 26th-29th) - which will be during Derby Week. Not sure what Derby will look like this year, but it’ll be a busy time. Ms. Case working on quality and quantity of backpack items.

Racial Equity training is continuing with staff. Teachers are starting reading “So You Want to Talk about Race”.

The Attendance Clerk position created due to Ms. Arethia’s passing closed last week. Interviews starting soon.

Ms. Arethia was also featured on CBS This Morning in a beautiful rememberance of her life and impact on the LPAS community. They also call out the Arethia Tilford Sunshine Award at the end! Please watch and share.

Student Achievement:

• 98% participation rate (how many kids are attending NTI) - this is REAL high for JCPS, and an improvement from December (95%). The staff and counselors were credited with their direct family engagement here.
• 100% ECE participation rate (Ms. St John! Woo!)
• No updates regarding KPREP yet - Ms. Roth asked if and when they go back to school, will they go into testing. Ms. Case said likely not, but they may do MAP testing to get some data.

Access testing, language proficiency (ESL qualification) is ongoing.

Reading: 309 books read last week!

Budgets are pretty static at the moment. However in February we will have our proposed school budget, so get ready for that. This is an annual “big thing” for SBDM, so if you are interested - start paying attention.

Wrapping up Principal Selection from December: Earlier this month, I had contacted the other members of the council to see where we were with the actions we said we’d take in our “Council Statement on Principal Selection”. Specifically, we said we would publish on the LPAS SBDM page a number of documents relative to Principal Selection - including the results of the public principal selection criteria survey. For a number of reasons - the holidays, the change in administration, etc - this had not yet been done.

I’ll save you the back-and-forth, but ultimately I suggested (and the Council agreed with a “yay”) that we would publish those documents attached to the minutes from the December 15th meeting, including a link to the video recording. (As of Jan 24th this hasn’t been updated yet. Will advise!)

With that effectively wrapping that process, I would like to offer a thankful coda: This change, in this moment in time, has been an emotional one. I think everyone in the LPAS Community has come to realize through this change just how invested we are in our school. You spoke out publicly, privately, to this Council, to the District and you made your voices heard. It was a little messy, but your comments and concerns informed this Council’s actions. And those actions I believe led to a realization of the needs of this uniquely invested community. Keep it up.

Note: You can read the Council Statement here. You can also read the “Reflections on LPAS Community Reaction to Principal Selection” statement I read during our December meeting. The Survey Results will be linked in the official December 15th SBDM Minutes on the JCPS SBDM Council and Standing Committee Minutes

Principal Selection Policy Review: February! But wait! There’s more! (sigh)

We are going to be reviewing the Principal Selection policy next month at our regular meeting. If you have feedback or thoughts, please email the Council OR sign up to speak at the next meeting.

Policy reviews take two meetings - one for an initial review and reading, and the second to confirm any changes madee during the initial review.

SBDM Page Updates Coming Soon The transparency and communication nerd in me was very happy to hear that Ms. Case wants to make the SBDM page much more useful - reorganizing it, ensuring that the upcoming dates and schedule are updated, contact info up to date and making the School Policies not one long, unsearchable PDF. Yay!

All small things - but I’m here for anything that makes this sort of critical (but often ignored) information more accessible.

Policy Reviews We had a second reading of both the Wellness policy and Discipline policies. We also reviewed the Exit from Magnet Program policy (which discusses removing a student from the school for various infractions) - and it was noted that this will likely be removed from individual school policies as JCPS will be mandating policy, similar to admissions policies. They haven’t approved yet, though.

Speaking of Writing Ms. Jones has agreed to be our permanent Secretary! Yay for Ms. Jones!

As always if you have feedback, feelings, thoughts or questions regarding SBDM stuff - feel free to contact me. If you have specific questions - please contact the school!

See you in February!