General Home & School Meeting – Wed, January 27, 2010
Introductions of two new Greenfield teachers:
Brandon Rubenstein ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) – Technology
- He invites parents and students to check out the website he created for the technology classes
- http://www.webyourclass.com
- Visit the site to view what your students are doing in technology class
- Read more from Mr. Rubenstein here
Jaime Shapiro - ESOL
- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
News for 2010 from Mr. Lazar:
PECO grant:
- Greenfield received a grant from PECO and the Franklin Institute for an energy education program
- Lower grade Mentally Gifted students will participate
Spiral Q:
- Working on collaboration with them to do a small project this year and a larger project next year around the history of the Greenfield school
- Involves puppet-making and a large parade to celebrate Greenfield’s 40th birthday
Update on PSSA:
- “constructive responses” have been practiced in homerooms throughout the year
- professional development for teachers focused on PSSA until testing in spring
Are you signed up for Familynet?
https://phila.schoolnet.com/outreach/philadelphia/parents/
- Familynet gives you access to your children's progress data, report card grades, attendance, and test scores.
- In addition instructional resources aligned to the District's Core Curriculum, and customized to a child's individual learning needs can be accessed to continue learning at home.
- All you need is your student’s name, ID (you can find this on your child’s report card) and birth date to register for a Familynet account!
Discussion Questions:
Greenfield teachers have voted to not support Greenfield’s becoming a full site-selection school this year
- Some years the school is able to “site-select” (i.e. recruit and interview and select applicants on site) for an opening for a teacher position, other years we will not be able to recruit applicants directly, have to rely on the school district’s selections
How will you increase the level of academics at Greenfield?
- Differentiated instruction is the goal in all classes, that is, meeting all childrens’ needs within each classroom (instead of moving children between classrooms and grade levels)
- Teachers will receive professional development regarding differentiated instruction
- Morning intervention used to close the reading gap, bringing all children up to grade level
Number of classes:
- Goal is to have 3 K, 1st and 2nd grade classes from the beginning of the school year.
Science curriculum changes:
- Goal is to have science taught as a special but also in homeroom.
- Goal is to have 90 minutes of science in homeroom, so 3 periods of science per week in every grade
- Homeroom teachers will be teaching same curriculum as specialty science teacher, we are ordering more science kits to facilitate this
Community partnerships:
- Red Cross
- Reading Terminal Market
- Reading Buddies (4th graders), Law firm (2nd graders)
- Earth Force (with Greening Greenfield)
- Penn Museum, Rosenbach
- Moore College of Art
- JCC of greater Philadelphia – Art goes to school, volunteers in all K-3rd classrooms
- ASAP – afterschool clubs
- Wharton
- Arkema (10,000$ - provided laptops, science tables etc)
Committee Reports:
Mentally Gifted Committee
- Marc Meola ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) invites parents with questions about the MG program at Greenfield or those who want to help shape the program to join their google groups discussion or email him to get their new “MG guide”
Enrichment:
- Christine Carlson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) reported on upcoming enrichment events organized for our students in all grade levels
- They include dance, theater and music performances for all grades, programs with Moore College of Arts, the University of Penn Museum, butterflies for the Kindergarten classes and eggs for the first grade classes.
Greening Greenfield:
- The Greening committee is planning a spring social to benefit the next phase of Greening construction at Greenfield and Lisa Armstrong ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) invites anyone interested in planning to contact them
- There will also be other events to benefit Greening including a penny drive and an e-cycle day in spring
Bingo Night is Feb 5!
- There will be bingo and trivia and more prizes for the kids than ever!
- Come and join in this Greenfield community event, which is always a blast!
- Contact Barbara Dallao (215-763-2106) or Marnie Vandenburg ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) to help out at the event or to bring a desert.
Education Voters of Pennsylvania
- Anne Gemmel, parent of children in the Philadephia public school system informed us about education voters of Pennsylvania and how we can receive important information from them:
- Education Voters PA, www.educationvoterspa.org is a non-profit, non partisan organization working to make sure every kid has the chance for a great education. We work with a broad network of advocates around the state to engage and inform parents about what is going on in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and nationally that will affect all of our 1.8 million school kids.
- Click here to join: www.educationvoterspa.org. We are building a broad network of parents and citizens that know more about policies, issues and laws AS they are being debated instead of AFTER they just happen to all of us. This way, parents are afforded the chance to express their voice on education issues such as the statewide funding formula and other key issues.
