Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Walter C. Young Middle School
School Advisory Council (SAC) Meeting Minutes
I.
II.
Welcome. Meeting called to order at 4:03pm by Madelyn Doval. A quorum was not reached.
Roll Call – Timothy Arnwine, Grisel Berrios, Risa Bell, Marques Brown, Madelyn Doval, Danielle
Jones, Charles King, Rachel Malca, Harold Osborn, Dory Spector, and Milisa Villanueva. Guests
included Lorry Bruce Greenberg, Gary DeRosa, Susan Kincaid, and Marcela Mansur.
III.
Approval of the March minutes – A quorum was not met to approve the March minutes. Due to a
quorum not being reached, during next month’s SAC meeting, the SAC committee will approve both
the March 14, 2017 and April 18, 2017 minutes.
IV.
Students Working Against Tobacco – Milisa Villanueva, a Language Arts teacher, sponsors Students
Working Against Tobacco (S.W.A.T.). The goal of the State of Florida sponsored S.W.A.T. is to
educate and equip students to work towards a tobacco free future. The candy flavored tobacco
products are a big focus of avoidance for students. S.W.A.T. also teaches students about advocacy
and how to make informed choices. Kickbuttsday.org is also a resource project created by S.W.A.T.
that promotes a drug free environment. Ms. Villanueva also informed the SAC members that by
teaching students to recognize the dangers of tobacco, it will give them the tools they need to make
better choices for their future.
V.
School-Wide Positive Behavior Plan – Mr. Charles King discussed the School-Wide Positive
Behavior Plan with all attendees. Mr. King informed the members that the School-Wide Positive
Behavior Plan applies to all teachers and students and must be fully enforced, 8-hours a day, 5 days
a week. The school has a Functioning Team and Administrative Support team that consists of
Harold Osborn (Principal), Lorry Bruce Greenberg (SPBP Point of Contact), Daniele Jones
(Parent/Community Representation), Charles King (BTU Representative), Rene Joseph (Teacher),
Nadia Brookner (Teacher), Mary Alt (Teacher), Susan Crawford (Teacher), Gary DeRosa (Teacher),
Brian Lokeinsky (Teacher), Dorlissa Carter (Teacher), Victor Calderon (Guidance Director),
Madelyn Doval (Literary Coach and SAC Chair), and Zadia Schwendel (Paraprofessional). The first
team meeting was held on August 15, 2017, with subsequent meetings planned for October 26,
2017, January 18, 2018, and March 22, 2018. The plan was presented to the staff on April 4, 2017,
and to the stakeholders on April 18, 2017. A faculty vote will take place on Friday, April 20, 2017 to
select a date to implement the plan. Prior to August 10, during the pre-planning week, there will be
another meeting to make sure that any last-minute concerns are addressed and that all
components are ready for a full roll out. All stakeholders will be provided access to the plan, and
feedback will be collected for future team meetings. The group will meet once every quarter to
discuss how the plan is being implemented and how successful it is, or if there are any concerns as
to how the plan is being monitored and done, as well as student outcomes. These quarterly
meetings are currently scheduled for October 3, 2017, December 5, 2017, February 6, 2018, and
April 3, 2018.
A system called BASIS 3.0 was utilized in assisting the team in collecting data to populate a Top 10
Behavior Incident list for Walter C. Young. As of March 7, there have been 61 incidents of
Unruly/Disruptive behaviors, 57 incidents of Disobedience/Insubordination, 27 incidents of
Disruptive/Unruly Play, 23 incidents of Class Cut (Skipping), 21 incidents of Habitual Tardiness, 17
incidents of Fight/Minor/Altercations/Confrontations, 16 incidents of Fighting, 15 incidents of
students being Out of Area, 13 incidents of Insulting/Profane/Obscene language, and 12 incidents
of Alcohol Use/Possession/Influence. Based on those infractions, Non-Compliance,
Unruly/Disruptive Behaviors, Tardiness and Disrespect will be the negative characteristics mostly
focused on correcting. These negative characteristics will be opposed through four positive
replacement characteristics resulting in School-Wide Expectations of Be Cooperative, Self-Control,
Time Management Awareness, and Be Respectful; Based on all the disciplines that have been
observed, the goal is to teach students what is expected of them as to decrease the number of
future infractions. Each School-Wide Expectation has a correlating lesson plan template that will be
utilized. The lesson plans list which departments will teach certain expectations, as well as the
times of instruction, positive examples of the behaviors, as well as non-examples. For example, on
August 28, 2017 from 9:05am – 9:58am and August 29, 2017 from 9:05am – 9:58am, the Language
Arts department will be tasked with teaching students a lesson plan geared towards “Be
Cooperative,” while the Science Department will be implementing lesson plans toward “Time
Management Awareness” on the same dates and times. The team was also responsible for
determining three locations for the event problems and creating an Expectations/Rules Chart from
the school-wide expectations. These three locations, for Walter C. Young, are the hallway, the
cafeteria, and the locker room. Additionally, the students’ first period classroom teachers will be
also utilizing lesson plans that supplement the created rules of the team on August 28, 2017 from
9:05am to 9:58am, with a reinforcement activity planned for September 4, 2017.
Mr. DeRosa was concerned about the four expectations being taught on the same date and at the
same time. Ms. Jones asserted that maybe the times should be changed to whenever the students
have the subject area. Ms. Villanueva suggested dedicating a core value to one whole day, and an
expectation to a whole day. Mr. Greenberg clarified that the expectations are being done in a
specific department class, and that he must go back and change the times to “all day during their
periods.” He also asserted that the second component, the rules, will be taught at a specific time by
every teacher on a certain day. Mr. DeRosa also voiced his concerns regarding any grievances that
may arise with instructional time being taken away, EOC’s, and performance targets that may
suffer. Mr. Osborn stepped in to assert that the meeting must go on, to apologize to the attendees
for the “airing of dirty laundry” and informed Mr. DeRosa that the behavior plan has not been voted
on yet. Mr. King went over the rest of the behavior plan’s components informing the SAC meeting
members and guests that the School-Wide Behavior Plan also includes provisions for rewarding
and recognizing students who follow the school-wide expectations and location specific rules,
effective discipline procedures, a flow chart for the discipline process, data collection and analysis,
and provisions on how the plan will be monitored. Mr. DeRosa commented that he feels strongly
about the Behavior Plan’s development and implementation and read a small paragraph of the past
behavior plan that he felt stated what the committee should not be doing compared to what he
feels the SPBP committee is now doing. Mr. DeRosa also stated that he feels like, as teachers and
parents, that there was never any real participation in developing the behavior plan. He also stated
that the behavior plan was not presented to the faculty on April 4, 2017. Ms. Kinkaid stated that Mr.
DeRosa is a clear disrespect to the group that met and developed the behavior plan. Mr. Greenberg
affirmed that the behavior plan was on SharePoint and that the meeting was advertised, and that a
PA announcement was made in the morning encouraging teachers to come to the meeting and
voice their concerns. Mr. Osborn urged Mr. DeRosa to be concise in his delivery due to the other
items on the meeting agenda that have not been addressed yet. Mr. DeRosa apologized for his
impassioned delivery and asserted that the new behavior plan, he felt, is very vague compared to
the previous plan that was implemented.
VI.
Principal’s Report – Mr. Osborn was happy to report that the School Enhancement Ballot has taken
place. The majority vote went for Option Two with 211 votes compared to 32 votes for Option One.
Mr. Osborn stated that the project manager will begin to send out the PO’s for any work and
equipment purchases that need to be made with the beginning stages of the enhancement being
commenced possibly before the end of the school year. Mr. Greenberg primed attendees that
$55,000 out of $100,000 has been spent already and that certain items (anything over $5000)
require a second estimate, i.e. the blinds. There were also questions that were risen over spring
break that must be addressed.
The Unified School Uniform vote has been completed. Voting resulted in 733 yeses’ and 27 no votes
to continue the uniform policy for another three years.
BCPS has also finalized their three-year instructional plan. Walter C. Young has already achieved
the targets for reading and math, per Mr. Osborn.
Mr. Osborn also communicated the F.A.C.E. customer service informational plan to those in
attendance. F.A.C.E. is designed to give administrative staff, instructional staff, and support staff
practical tips on customer service to bring their customer service skills to the next level. Mr.
Osborn then asked Ms. Spector and Ms. Doval to pass out handouts pertaining to the F.A.C.E.
initiative.
Additionally, Mr. Osborn stated that a production company called BEACON came to the school last
year to do a marketing video for the school. Mr. Osborn, as well as a few teachers and students, was
interviewed for the video footage. Ms. Doval played the marketing video for the SAC members,
which was met with positive reaction. Mr. Osborn said the video will be put on the Walter C. Young
website and used during future student orientations.
VII.
For the Good of the Group – Ms. Bell commended the committee for putting together the behavior
plan that was presented to the group. She asserted that, as members of the SAC committee, we
must “look at the glass half full instead of half empty.” Ms. Bell also urged the group to get to a point
where we can agree to disagree because that is one of the purposes of the SAC meetings. The SAC
meeting was adjourned at 5:45pm by Ms. Doval. The next SAC meeting will be on May 9, 2017 at
4:00pm.