The Children’s School
School Leadership Team (SLT) Minutes: March 2, 2022
Meeting called to order at 6:45 pm
Agenda
- Approval of Minutes from January SLT meeting
- Agenda Items
- Welcome new SLT Member
- New staff SLT Member needed
- Substitute secretary needed
- Reminder: Rescheduled Feb SLT meeting is on Wed March 9
- Subcommittee reports
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- CEP/Math and Science
- Social Emotional
- Principal’s Report
- Changing mask guidance
- PTA’s Report
- Create Agenda for Next Meeting
Housekeeping:
Welcome new SLT member Tony Allesandrini!
Need to locate January meeting minutes.
Feb SLT meeting need to be rescheduled since we need to have 10 meetings per year
according to the bylaws. It cannot be scheduled next week due to Parent-Teacher
Conferences.
Luisa and Tony will be alternating to take notes during SLT meetings. Luisa will take
notes for tonight’s meeting.
Skip rescheduled meeting in April due to Spring Break. There will be two meetings in
May: 5/4 and 5/18. Extra meeting can discuss initiatives and priorities for next school
year.
Subcommittee Reports
DEI Subcommittee (Melanie G): Committee met on January 18 th . Tony will need to choose a
committee. Teacher grants are available and they selected books for their class. It was
suggested to have teachers to look at the library to see if the books are culturally responsive.
Teachers are already doing this. Mosaic books are from DOE and guided reading books are also
available. The school partnered with Lee and Low to ensure that books are culturally-
responsive and there is a focus on written by not just written for.
Is there a need to do outreach to ensure all students especially students with special needs are
represented across D15 neighborhoods? There should be a committee focused on doing parent
outreach. School is located in D15 but under D75 office. There are 51 seats in kindergarten
and there’s a new D15 school.
How do we ensure that parents with special needs know the school? Special Ed seats are more
publicized with word of mouth. Folks can attend CEC meetings.
TCS had a Black Lives Matter week. Students from 6:1:1 and ICT site read books out loud.
CEP Subcommittee (AP Frank): SRRS has been extended to June 2 nd . 40% of families
participated. The musical is losing students. Additional staff is needed for literacy supports.
See notes from Frank. There is a 3 rd grade pilot for Reflex Math and we will see if it can be
expanded. TCS is supporting students to do word problems on their own. Thinking about
having a word problem of the week and have incentives.
TCS can have a grade competition. We can have a Math Day and also play Jeopardy. Kahoot
can be used to create the game for teachers. The school is exploring a NY Times subscription to
access games. Need to ensure 6:1:1 site also has access.
SE Subcommittee (Barbara): We met on Jan 27 th . Due to the police shootings at that time, we
discussed the possibility of organizing a Blue Lives Matter event to show support for police
officers. Some schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island hosted this event. We also discussed if
parents would be interested in SEL workshops.
It was suggested to broaden the event to include all first responders (firefighters, hospital
workers, etc.) since the anniversary of school shut down was happening in a couple of weeks.
The committee will explore the possibility of reaching out to TCS families and having an event
outside or have speakers in classrooms.
Principal’s Report: Guidance has not changed on mask mandates. On March 4, there will be an
announcement on the policy for March 7 th . It is now ok to not have mask outside DOE
buildings. TCS will promote choice. The school will update signage around the building with
mask off and mask on signs.
PTA Report: Four classes at Adelphi St. participated in the Readathon. The top reader read
7,000 mins and the event raised $27,000. The PTA Started to talk to science teachers
regarding the garden to get ready for the spring.
Submitted March/ April 2022 Notes from Subcommittees
CEP Subcommittee
Present: Frank Ammirata, Jenine Joslin, Matthew Miller
4/4/22, 4:16PM-4:47PM
Virtual
Next Meeting May 2@ 4PM
Updates:
See Math Word Problem Meeting Minutes 3/15/22
Word Problem of the week has restarted and are posted around the building. We have
seen/heard students engage with the problems. Will create an interactive problem
board at Adelphi Street.
Continuing to plan for May Math Madness when the answers to problems will spell out
the answer to a riddle or share a message
Jenine reported on Reflex Math. Teachers felt a dip in engagement but then students
showed excitement again. Positive progress is being reported as evidenced by the
data.
IEP reviews are starting again. Ms. Barbara conducted the first round. Now that these
are occurring again we can start to look at our IEP CEP goal – although data will be
sparse.
At Adelphi we are looking at Essentials for Living as a curriculum change for our Middle
School Students in 6:1:1 classrooms. The program is driven by ABA methodologies
and would provide great guidance in supporting transition skills.
(forgot to share that our next One School, One Book reading will take place on
Wednesday. Lailah’s Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story will be read by 372K Community members.)
Socio-Emotional Subcommittee
Present: Barbara, Kathy and Luisa
April 4, 2022, 8:00-8:30 pm
Barbara dressed up as Spot, the school mascot during St Patrick’s Day and visited
classrooms.
There was not enough time and capacity to organize the First Responders event in
March. We are recommending that First Responders Day to change to a Community
Helpers (and include more community roles such as sanitation workers, etc.) event to
happen in the fall and to have adequate planning time.
The committee will recommend a list of Spirit Days after the math assessment
happening end of April for May and June.
Discussed capacity issues for members of this committee. Happy to support but difficult
to lead and organize big events.
Is there a possibility for the PTA to sponsor a family/community event with a carnival or
outdoor dance party in the spring to bring families back in the school community?
DEI Subcommittee
Present: Ellen, Melanie, Alice, Anthony
3/17/22
Updates/Follow Up since last meeting:
Roots and Community– probably in person, we will connect with committee to see how
we can help. Liza and Tatum are leading the committee.
o Tentatively scheduled for April. Ramadan ends on May 3rd (Eid). Could the event
start after that?
o Possibly outside in yard
Lee and Low books are in classroom libraries
K needs Scholastic books for libraries
Agenda:
Welcome Tony!
Ideas about how to raise awareness about school across District 15/enrollment
o transportation/bussing issues (ie no busses currently for after school) hinder
families living farther away
o Increase outreach to Gowanus neighborhood preschools, 3Ks, 4Ks
o School videos for both sites are now on website so families can see what TCS is
like inside
Is it possible to make a video in Spanish/other languages?
how to widen access to/awareness of videos– social media? Show at
neighborhood events?
Ex from middle school videos:
Charles O Dewey (MS 136) Middle School Open House video
https://ms88.org/welcome/
o Invite people who worked on raising awareness in past years to next SLT DEI
Committee meeting to learn from their work
Discussion of Integrate NYC Data
o http://www.integrateny.org/district/
o Comparison of D75/D15 across variables
o TCS goals
Next meeting date: Thursday, April 14th 6:45pm
Follow up before next meeting:
Melanie to reach out to parent who helped with awareness raising
Alice to check in with Roots and Community committee
Submitted January 2022 Notes from DEI Subcommittees
1/18/22
Present: Ellen, Melanie, Alice
Agenda:
review teacher grants for books
Committee parent members are available to provide additional support in reviewing
books, physical labor of moving books, putting together purchase orders (data entry)
o Would teachers want to work on libraries per session/could this be part of the
Equity Curriculum Team?
Feedback on Mosaic books: positive experience
Could look for more books with Spanish speaking characters, Asian-American
characters, Arabic-speaking characters, characters with a range of physical
characteristics
Dance teacher is working with a puppet performance for PreK/K to explore range of
abilities– classrooms have options to
Committee can research grants to buy books
K is submitting lists for more inclusive books, other grades
BLM in NYC Schools plans “The Day We Begin” plus other activities.
Check in on district-wide recruitment