CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE KEVIN INGRAM, CHAIR Joyce Mallory, Vice-Chair Ruben Burgos, Melinda Scott Krei, Monique Liston, Desiree Pointer-Mace, and Glenn Steinbrecher Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, (414) 286-2231 Fax: 286-3456, lelmer@milwaukee.gov Gayle Peay, 288-1540 Thursday, November 10, 2016 5:30 PM City Hall, Room 301-B Amended 11/1/16 -- added language for all the 3 files relating to a vote being taken. Amended 11/9/16 to move DLH College Prep. as the last item and add file 160959. 1. Roll call. Meeting convened: 5:30 All members present, with Mr. Burgos arriving at 5:37 P.M. 2. Review and approval of the minutes of the September 29th meeting. Ms. Scott Krei moved, seconded by Ms. Pointer-Mace, for approval of the minutes. There were no objections. 3. 150705 Communication relating to the 2015/16 activities of the Downtown Montessori Academy. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Susan Gramling, Children's Research Center, said the school is located in the Bayview neighborhood and was one of the first of the two schools chartered by the city in 1998/1999. The school serves K3-8th grade and there were 266 students enrolled in 2015/16, with 12.8% being African American and 64.7% are caucasian or white; 4.9% of the population is special education. Almost 22% of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch. The school has met all of its contract provisions and interviews were done this year with teachers and board members, and they also did electronic surveys with parents and 7th and 8th grade students. SIxty percent of the families participated in the parent survey. One of the common comments was the need for more diverse after-school activities. Ms. Gramling said the survey results are referred to throughout the report as appropriate. In the scorecard, Appendix D2, a correction will be made and a new page sent for the file. The school trend is very high and has been high for several years. Downtown Montessori addressed all the recommendations from last year and will work on this year's recommendations involving math and writing and communicating consistently with board members. It is recommended that the regular annual academic monitoring and reporting continue. Ms. Pointer-Mace said this school is the one with the lowest percentage of students getting free or reduced lunch and wondered if that provided them with more stability City of Milwaukee Page 1 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes November 10, 2016 COMMITTEE in the middle schools. Virginia Flynn - Downtown Montessori present. She said they are working hard on trying to create more after-school activities, but it's difficult as the parents need to be involved and it's hard to find time with both select teachers and parents to do these activities. They have hired a math teacher to support the other teachers to raise the math scores. They are also going to re-start using Carnegie math online since that does monitor students' progress and can be very personalized. The board president has committed to meeting with teachers after every board meeting to tell them what occurred at the meeting. If teachers have concerns, the board president meets with Ms. Flynn and the Executive Director to pass along those concerns. Ms. Mallory asked about how they are recruiting minority teachers. Ms. Flynn said that this is difficult, but they were able to encourage one woman to move up from sub to teacher. Mr. Steinbrecher asked for an example of disicpline without punishment. Future scorecards will be used to track growth of individual students so the value of the school can be calculated. For those parents who didn't do the online survey, two phone call attempts were made to contact them and parents were encouraged to participate in the weekly memo as well as during parent/teacher conferences. Mr. Ingram asked how teachers are supported by the administration. Ms. Flynn estimated that the average age of her teachers was 40-45. Ms. Flynn said the individual who was set to replace her in her succession plan went back to school, so all teachers at the school were asked if they were interested in advancing. One teacher was, who has been teaching for 20 years, so she is being groomed to replace Ms. Flynn. Ms. Mallory moved, seconded by Scott Krei, to accept the recommendations. There were no objections. 4. 150630 Communication relating to the 2015/16 activities of Milwaukee Math and Science Academy. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Ms. Susan Gramling, Children's Research Center, said the school is located at 1st and Burleigh and is in its 5th year of operation. It serves students in K4-8th grade with 304 students, with 95.7% of those students being African American; 12.8% of the students are in special education and all of the students receive free or reduced lunch. MMSA met or substantially met all of the recommendations from last year. Almost 56% of the families completed the survey and the results were generally positive, with the weaknesses being in the area of how discipline is handled and the lack of communication about discipline. The teachers were generally very positive and their weaknesses were adherence to the discipline policy and leadership. The 7th and 8th grade students noted in the survey that they enjoyed the after-school activities and the outings. All three board members rated the school as "good". The scorecard did improve this year over last year as it has over the years. The recommendations are quite lengthy due to the annual recommendations as well as when probation was installed and lifted. The recommendations from this report are to focus on reading and writing, continue to implement a positive report to discipline and work with teachers to meet the ESL student needs, particularly those from Somalia. The Children's Research Center recommends regular, annual academic monitoring and reporting. David Chief - Director Crystal Gomar - Instructional Coordinator Mary Rose Suessy - CRTT Director Kendra Stegler - Dean of Students Soya Henderson - Assistant Principal of School Culture (APSC) and others Ms. Pointer-Mace said there are a number of improvements in the school relating to City of Milwaukee Page 2 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes November 10, 2016 COMMITTEE student attendance, teacher retention and other areas. Ms. Henderson said they have begun implementing mindfulness in the morning and the school is working on communicating quicker with parents when a discipline issue arises, before their child speaks with them, so parents are more open to listening. Ms. Gramling said that 163 students were suspended at least once, while the previous year was 167 students. 144 of those 163 spent an average of 3.7 days in suspension, while it was 154 students spent an average of 4.1 days; 71 students spent an average of 5 days in school while in suspension. These numbers are still too high for Ms. Mallory. A social worker has been hired to work with students. The social worker hired last year didn't work out, but the current one is a better fit with their culture. They also want to work with students on anger management and also restorative circles. The Committee recommended tools for the staff and the kids. Members encouraged the school to reach out to other school to find out how they handle discipline without suspensions. Mr. Chief said that they are still seeking board members as they currently only have three. Ms. Gomar pointed out it's hard to obtain current, working phone numbers for parents. Some of the parents come (about 50%), but those tend to be the parents administration doesn't really need to see. Parents might show up for the fun events, but not the academic events. Adminstration has also made time by scheduling it on a calendar to meet with the teacher teams on a standing basis. Some parents are receptive and some are not. Ms. Mallory asked if the school had considered a parent contract. They created a parent subcommittee, which has brought more parents in and they also offer more meetings at night so parents can't say they're at work. Ms. Mallory encouraged them to be innovative in getting parents in. Ms. Liston would also like to see the discipline data broke down. Ms. Mallory said she is pleased with their progress. Last year 47 students were Somalian and this year there are 35. Ms. Pointer-Mace moved, seconded by Ms. Mallory, to accept the recommendations. There were no objections 5. 150765 Communication relating to the 2015/16 activities of the Darrell Lynn Hines College Preparatory Academy of Excellence. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Ms. Susan Gramling, Children's Research Center, said that this school is at 89th and Good Hope and is in its 14th year as a charter school. The grade levels are K4-8th grade and has 267 students, with 90.6% African American and the special education population is 12.7% with almost 90% of the students getting free or reduced lunches. All of the recommendations from last year were met or were substantially met. The survey results are integrated throughout the report. Twelve teachers were interviewed, with most of them thinking the school is doing a good job. Forty one percent of the families completed a survey and most of the parents were comfortable talking with the staff and felt welcome at the school. Parents liked least the lack of after-school activities while some parents felt the school was too lenient and the others the school too strict. There are 5 board members and all 5 of them participated in the surveys and they are an involved board. The scorecard has an error in the designation of the category - 84% is a "high performing or exemplary" category, which is an increase from past years. She will send an updated electronic copy for the file. The school did all last year's recommendations; this year's recommendations include using the data to inform its strategies and interventions and focus on writing and math, espeically with new teachers, more culturally relevant materials and improve teacher fluidity. Children's Research Center recommends regular, annual monitoring and also engaging in another five-year contract with DL Hines Academy. City of Milwaukee Page 3 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes November 10, 2016 COMMITTEE Precious Washinginton - Executive Director Lois Fletcher - Prinicipal Mrs. Hood - parent and board member Dr. Lisa Mootry - liaison Ms. Pointer-Mace asked about feedback for new teachers. Ms. Fletcher spends more time with new teachers and develop what they need and there are on-going conversations with each teacher. Ms. Scott Krei said the reading and math scores aren't where they need to be, but the writing scores are very high. Ms. Fletcher said a goal was to differentiate the students and knowing yourself. Various doctors were invited to assist on bridging cultural divides. The school does gather a lot of data in a variety of areas. Ms. Mallory encouraged the school to include parents in reading and encourage them to improve their own levels of education. Mr. Ingram asked if they had a goal to increase parent participation in the survey as only 60% participated. Mr. Washington said the school does get parents to attend conferences, where the surveys are available, so she's not sure why the participation rate was so low. Ms. Gramling will compare the participation rate from two years ago when an electronic version wasn't available. Neither Children's Research Center nor the school sent reminder e-mails. Mr. Ingram noted 33% of the students were suspended at least one day. Ms. Gramling noted a breakdown on suspensions was provided in the footnotes. The school is working on decreasing suspensions, which are going down each year. Discipline was one of the things teacher wanted the most help with. Ms. Scott Krei moved, seconded by Ms. Pointer-Mace , to acccept the recommendations, excluding the 5-year renewal. There were no objections. Ms. Mallory moved, seconded by Ms. Scott Krei, to accept the recomendation for a 5-year renewal. There were no objections 6. 160959 Motion to renew a charter school five-year term for Darrell Lynn Hines College Preparatory Academy of Excellence. Sponsors: THE CHAIR This motion was approved under item #5. Meeting adjourned: 8:16 P.M. Linda M. Elmer Staff Assistant This meeting can be viewed in its entirety through the City's Legislative Research Center at http://milwaukee.legistar.com/calendar. City of Milwaukee Page 4