School Community Relations Committee

City of Coral Gables 405 Biltmore Way Coral Gables, FL 33134 www.coralgables.com Meeting Minutes Friday, September 18, 2020 8:30 AM Virtual Meeting via Zoom School Community Relations Committee Chairperson Ariel Fernandez Vice Chairperson Sam Joseph Board Member Erin Anding Board Member Winnie Chang Board Member Sandy Dimitris Board Member Carmen Manrara Cartaya Board Member Cecilia D. Slesnick Board Member Mary Snow Board Member Sharon Watson School Community Relations Meeting Minutes September 18, 2020 Committee In accordance with City of Coral Gables Code Section 2-30, Chapter 286.011 Florida Statutes, Governor DeSantis’ Executive Order 20-69, as extended by Executive Orders 20-112, 20-123, 20139 and 150, 20-179, 20-193, the School Community Relations Committee will be holding its Meeting on Friday, September 18, 2020 VIRTUALLY, commencing 8:30 a.m., wherein all interested persons may be heard via the Zoom platform used by the City for live remote comments. Members of the public may join the meeting via Zoom at (https://zoom.us/j/99296816508). In addition, a dedicated phone line will be available so that any individual who does not wish (or is unable) to use Zoom may listen to and participate in the meeting by dialing: (929) 205-6099 Meeting ID: 992 9681 6508. To speak on an Agenda Item, please "Raise your Hand" or send a message to one of the meeting hosts using the Zoom Platform. If you joined the meeting via telephone you can "Raise your Hand" by pressing *9. City of Coral Gables Page 1 School Community Relations Meeting Minutes September 18, 2020 Committee CALL TO ORDER Meeting called to order at 8:34 a.m. ROLL/QUORUM CALL Present: 9 - Chairperson Fernandez,Vice Chairperson Joseph,Board Member Anding,Board Member Chang,Board Member Dimitris,Board Member Manrara Cartaya,Board Member Slesnick,Board Member Snow and Board Member Watson Additional Attendees: - Naomi Levi Garcia, City Staff - Solanch Lopez, City Staff - Iraida Mendez-Cartaya, MDCPS - Suzet Cleary - Sonia Diaz - Karla Hernandez-Mats - Rebecca Carter A. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES A-1 School Community Relations Committee Meeting of August 28, 2020. Attachments: Cover Memo.docx SCRC Aug. 28 Minutes.pdf A motion was made by Vice Chairperson Joseph, seconded by Board Member Slesnick, that this matter be approved. The motion passed by the following vote. Yeas: 8- Vice Chairperson Joseph,Board Member Anding,Board Member Chang,Board Member Dimitris,Board Member Manrara Cartaya,Board Member Slesnick,Board Member Watson and Chairperson Fernandez Absent: 1- Board Member Snow B. PUBLIC HEARING C. NEW BUSINESS C-1 Approval of the School Community Relations Committee Annual Report 2019-2020 Attachments: Draft SCRC Annual Report 2019-2020.docx A motion was made by Vice Chairperson Joseph, seconded by Board Member Anding, that this matter be approved. The motion passed by the following vote. Yeas: 8- Board Member Anding,Board Member Chang,Board Member Dimitris,Board Member Manrara Cartaya,Board Member Slesnick,Board Member Watson,Vice Chairperson Joseph and Chairperson Fernandez Absent: 1- Board Member Snow City of Coral Gables Page 2 School Community Relations Meeting Minutes September 18, 2020 Committee C-2 Update from Miami-Dade County Public Schools on Reopening Plan (Facilitated by Iraida Mendez-Cartaya) •Medical professionals have given the ‘green light’ for face-to-face opening. •Schools are currently in stage 2. •Staging children’s return in phases. •Planning to open on October 5th (may open a few days before- needs to be determined by the board)- Can find more information on their website. •Miami Dade County is providing funding for thermometer, nurses, contact tracing etc. •New app possibly being implemented to assist in contact tracing- (partnership with the County for this app). •Sports will start in some format when school starts. •K-12 software contract terminated by school board. •No data was compromised from cyber-attacks on K-12 system. •Teachers have transitioned to Zoom, Microsoft TEAMS, etc. C-3 School House Reopening Plan Review & Discussion (Facilitated by Iraida Mendez-Cartaya) •Parents can communicate with their child’s teacher through "Gradebook". •For attendance- kids have to show their faces and have their cameras on. Parents will receive a call if student is absent but must set up the parent portal on "Gradebook". •Textbooks are online as CDC has recommended that students do not share textbooks. •When students return, it’s going to be for those parents who selected the face-to-face option on their summer survey. •Stage 2 in-person – Where can a parent get a report of the school’s readiness to reopen? What happens if the parents changes their mind on format? -The School District depends on principals to prepare school sites. -Schools via principals will assess and try to accommodate request for in-person vs. online school option changes while keeping social distancing protocols in mind. •District is trying to hire nurses at every school. The nurses will be part-time (5 hours/day). •Device shortage – MDPCS has ordered 25,000 laptops. District is trying to get their hands on as many as possible. Priority – parents that have requested them as well as free and reduced lunch students. There are Promethean Boards, in the classrooms. •What is District going to do if teachers take early retirement? 80% + teachers didn’t have an issue returning to classrooms when surveyed in June. No exact numbers to report on early retirement. •Questions were asked about Youth Center Cohort Program offerings. Staff will give assessment at next meeting. •Temperatures will not be taken from students in order to enter school •Students will be reassessed regarding learning losses once they are back in the class. District will focus $11 million from the CARES grant to address and mitigate learning losses. Summer remote sessions were offered. Beginning of assessments started week of September 14. •Take the assessment and address the consequences of the learning losses. Additional targeting with online learning. This current year will be the benchmark. City of Coral Gables Page 3 School Community Relations Meeting Minutes September 18, 2020 Committee C-4 Introduction of PTA Presidents (Facilitated by Iraida Mendez-Cartaya) •Involvement of PTAs – Reach out to PTAs as in the past to see if there are any updates they want to provide to the Board. •Coral Gables Senior High principal confirmed for October SCRC meeting. C-5 Discussion on Future SCRC Meeting Presentations (Facilitated by Ariel Fernandez, Chair) •Should offer presentation guidelines – Community component; •Need a procedure to have a speaker address the committee: Current format – items for the agenda are sent to Solanch and Naomi. Committee Chair reviews and then agenda is formulated. Committee wants topics that are specific to Gables schools that are served and would include a 15-minute time limit per topic. •SCRC has a new email address that the community can use to contact the committee. •Group is calendaring the idea of creating a committee newsletter. •Look at having standard statement about what the purpose of the committee is and what we can do as part of the agenda. C-6 UTD President Presentation (Facilitated by Karla Hernandez-Mats) D. OLD BUSINESS D-1 SIP Committee Member Assignments Review (Facilitated by Ariel Fernandez, Chair) Item deferred to October meeting. Attachments: SIP Descriptions D-2 Update on Summer Family Literacy Festival Planning Meeting (Facilitated by Sam Joseph, Vice Chair) Item deferred to October meeting. E. ANNOUNCEMENTS E-1 Next SCRC Meeting - Friday, October 16, 2020 Questions/Comments: scrc@coralgables.com ADJOURNMENT NOTE City of Coral Gables Page 4