Takoma Park Middle School (TPMS) PTSA General Membership Meeting

October 10, 2023, 7:30 – 8:30pm

TPMS PTSA Participants:

• Erin Martin, Principal
• Patterson Breeze,
• Ramata Diop, President
• Emily Modde, Treasurer
• Emily Pickren, Correspondence Secretary
• Jackie Quan, Recording Secretary

Participants TPMS community:

• Approximately 50 parents
• Approximately 25 children (ages 8 – 13+ years old)

Guest Speaker: Kaysi-Ann Webley, City of Takoma Park

1. Welcome – Opening Remarks
   • Ramata Diop, PTSA President
   • Erin Martin, Principal
   • Faye Navabian, MCPS Parent Community Coordinator. Advocate for parents at TPMS, can assist parents in setting up Parent Vue account.
     • Started kindness corner started at TPMS and Blair

Kaysi-Ann Webley, Advocate for Pedestrian Safety, City of Takoma Park

• Safe Routes to School Coordinator: provided education on safety for pedestrians and bicyclists to and from school.
• Educate and improvement of safety programming for walking and biking in the City of Takoma Park
• Hand-outs / cards available for programming
• “Walktober”  and “Walk to school day”
  • School and city put together program
    • Wednesday, Oct. 4 was Walk to School Day. Urged parents and kids to continue walking and have “Walking Wednesdays”
    • Overcoming barriers and encourage walking: feasibility for parents/students to walk to school
    • Walk to school bus: group of parents may rotate to walk a group of students and have an adult present
  • Walking: prepares students for more optimal focus and mindset before the start of the school day:
    • Helps students expend excess energy for students and better focus on school work
    • Improves brain function due to improved blood flow, which is linked to better academic performance
  • Fall 2023 Parent Survey:
    • 1 survey per household per school, takes 5 – 10 minutes
    • Survey asks: what could it more safe to walk to school?
    • Any safety issues encountered? Survey responses help the city to plan for improvements to promote walking or cycling throughout the city
  • Direct cash assistance program for families who qualify.  If household income is $50K or less can be eligible for direct cash assistance from City of Takoma Park.
  • 2 requirements: live in Takoma park and household income of $50K or less:  applications close Oct 31, 2023
  • Volunteer for safe routes to school program – participants needed for “walk to school day” and “bike to school day” and to make city safer to cycle and to walk!

• Erin Martin: System-wide Training – Professional learning for staff

1. School improvement planning

• TPMS addressing teacher/staff professional learning
  • Part of school improvement plans
• Student outcomes are predictable by typical historical factors : MCPS is re-envisioning a great need for school improvement plans in an effort to improve student outcomes and improve past trends
• TPMS improvement planning spans 3 years
• Digging into conditions to disrupt, dismantle and re-create
• Planning started spring 2023 via data collection from students, families, staff regarding how students feel about education at TPMS
• “School improvement” = facility / how human resource and focus improvement focusing on improvement staff practices to improve students / student outcomes
• “System” typical trends: kindergarten through 12^th grade and look at bench mark data points –students at grade level are more likely to graduate.
• MCAP = metric is a single data point.
• Question from parent: magnet program students?   Magnet metrics are factored in
• Parent and caregiver data:
  • “Talking points” : messaging platform
  • Identifying parents engaging with platform
  • Mechanism to view parent engagement and effectiveness and impact of “talking points”
  • Anti-racist audit survey
  • May 2023 PTSA meeting : rich feedback and lots time spent over Summer 2023
  • Academic data: MAP data:  math and reading
  • Intervention data: students enrolled with interventions.
• Anti-racist audit survey
• Listening circles: groups by affinity-based groupings – level of support staff needs.  Opportunity for decision-making for school operations
• Student listening sessions – students are truthful and speak from heart: valuable feedback for school improvements
• “Referrals” and suspension: “referrals” defined as requests from staff and administrators regarding student behavioral situations – chronic tardies, well-being issues, etc.  What causes students to be late to school?  Such students may need additional support.

TPMS is Top 3 in county in number of after school activities offered

 CARES tutoring: funding for tutoring

• • CARES funding running out
  • Volunteer tutoring to address CAREs funding gap
  • Tutoring to work through missing work from students
  • Some Saturday tutoring sessions to do work
  • Data determined who did outreach : multiple “D’s” and “E’s”
  • Engage in partnership with Univ of MD or Howard – volunteer bodies, numbers, etc.

 TPMS Leadership:

• • Data utilized for TPMS story
  • Staff engaged in root cause analysis to Identify underlying issues / conditions that are roadblocks / barriers to student success – leadership can then address such issues to overcome barriers and improve student outcomes and achieve success
  • Created goals in four focus areas below (see “E”)

• What dominant culture are serving as barriers: systemically, personally, interpersonally, etc.
• Deepen understanding processes, ways of being, etc.
• Create goals: align with county around focus areas

 

1. School improvement goals / focus areas which are closely interrelated :
   1. Culture and climate
   2. Student well-being : well-being matters, some students have trauma, trauma from COVID – how ensure students are well for learning
      1. Social-emotional needs must be met
   3. Literacy
   4. Math

 

• Next Steps:
• Goals to be posted end of October 2023
• Engage in staff bi-weekly check-ins with staff leadership
• Engage in quarterly school improvement reflections.
• Professional development focus
• Re-envisioning core values at student level: courtesy, safety and integrity (CSI)
• Parents goals : empathy was critical core value
  
• Students needs and goals: they felt less safe in physical education – sport education model revisited based on student feedback:
  • Structure enhanced in P.E. (physical education) curriculum
  • Addressed how to build empathy.
    • Now achieving higher levels of engagement – more teacher presence and feedback as well

• Parent question: MAP testing
  • Kids good grades but don’t test well : how to prep for MAP similar to SAT prep?
  • Practice assessments available : a lot of information out there – “ iEXCEL “ – personalized intervention and practice : students take pre-assessment and score gives them areas to work on and they also have access to learning modules.
  • Every 2 weeks they can take pre-assessment and they know which skills to work on
  • Not just computational – fact fluency, word problems in there also

• Emily Modde, Treasurer Update:
  • $22K needed for revenue 2023-2024 school year
  • $1K in this year so far
  • Donations welcome and needed
  • Expenses to date – $2K
  • $36,500 for 2023 – 2024 school year
  • Helped fund kindness corner in the counseling office
  • 6^th grade BBQ and a few other events upcoming this month
  • Dance performance for Hispanic Heritage month
  • Financial review: independent group reviewed finances from prior year and all OK and in good standing.  Submit to state PTA.
  • Need parent volunteers for international night!!