We started January's meeting off with FOOD! Tres Leches cake and cookies and clementines and coffee. And we each shared something we like to cook or bake or have someone else cook for us.
The main focus of the meeting was clarifying who we are as a group and why we meet. Rachael and Sandra put the group's mission up on the board, which is To build community and support
the staff and one another, for the good of our children (construir una
comunidad y apoyar el personal apoyarnos los unos a los otros, por el
bien de nuestros hijos). Rachael shared a concern about the Family to Family Holiday Help initiative from December. She thought that at the November meeting, where many parents were present, they had decided as a group to try and support other families in the school through the Holiday Help initiative, where families could submit a form either asking for help or offering help. The result of this initiative was that 15 families asked for help and only 2 families offered to help (and one of the families had never even come to a parent group meeting). So, SWDCS staff and an outside church (Courage Church) picked up the slack and almost covered all of the families who asked for help. Rachael wanted to understand why this had happened...why it seemed they had agreed on the initiative but then no one helped with it. Responses: the word didn't get out, the amount to be donated wasn't clear (although the form was in the December calendar packet that was sent out), it was too late to get outside donations (but we had decided to do it in house, family to family, without the help of outside donations), money is tight in December (then we shouldn't have agreed to do this), there were only three people at the December parent group meeting (there were actually 9 or 10 of us), so it wasn't enough to decide (we had decided in the November meeting, and there were 20-25 parents in attendance).
I (Rachael) think what we learned from the discussion is that communication/knowing what is going on can sometimes be a problem, but, if a parent really wants to know, he or she can find the desired information...in a child's backpack, on the office bulletin board, in a text, by calling the office, in the parent group blog, on the school website, etc. The other thing is that we aren't really an established group. Attendance fluctuates. Communication hasn't been great between us. A parent said she gets notifications from the school Facebook group (SWD Community School Group) but doesn't ever look at the blog. It seems we should just pull back as a group and focus on eating together :), getting to know each other, figuring out how to best get information to one another and share resources with one another.
We talked about the difference between a parent run group and a school run group. A parent run group is about parents supporting the school and one another. A school run group is about the school supporting the parents. Mr. Donner was in attendance for most of the meeting and plans to continue coming to parent group meetings to inform and discuss and answer questions. But he does not run the meeting. He will address concerns, but the point of meeting together as parents is not to talk to Mr. Donner about our concerns. It is to talk with one another about how we can make things better for one another, the staff, our kids. And then to act! For example, Rachael's younger son was disturbed by something that happened on the bus the week before. So, Rachael talked to Mr. Donner about it in a private meeting. If she wanted the parent group to help her with this problem, she could bring up bus safety at a parent meeting. The group could brainstorm about how to make the buses safer for kids and then decide together on an action plan (such as taking turns riding the bus and giving each other rides, talking to their children, making posters, talking to their students' classes, etc.)
Mr. Donner shared about count day, parent teacher conferences, President's Day and the upcoming teacher appreciation day in May .
Next Meeting: Friday, February 24
