Oakland Park Elementary
School Advisory Council Meeting Agenda
October 21, 2015 @ 7:30 a.m.
Opportunity Promotes Excellence
1. Welcome- Lynnel Joseph- The meeting was called to order at
7:37 a.m.
a. Introductions: Provide email and upcoming dates for
meetings
 Review Minutes: Minutes from the last meeting- 922-15:
 Discussed SAC bylaws, voted members in,
upcoming school events, review drills that have to
do, interims (by now should have received
interims), Broward 100 - doing activities at school to
celebrate the Broward 100, discussed getting
different representatives to make up the SAC
membership, School improvement plan- talked
about its progress- will speak about that at every
meeting as it is a work in progress
d. Lynnel Joseph made a motion to accept the minutes as they
were. Dawn McMahon second the motion. All were in favor.
2. Principal’s Report- Michelle Garcia
a. OPE (Oakland Park Elementary) Updates:
 Book fair ended on Monday- do not have the
amount of money that raised, but will have by the
next meeting
 Dolphin Academy- For all students- Success
 Jazz Activity- For 4th and 5th graders- Success
 FPL energy program- About energy conservation For Prek-5th grades- Success
b. Upcoming Events
 Early release tomorrow, teacher planning Friday
 Next Friday- Vocabulary Parade (in place of
dressing up for Halloween), Pre-K can still dress up,
but no weapons or masks.
 Report Cards- Go home on November 12th
 Honor Roll- Takes place on November 18th and 19th
 Instructional Review- November 4th- Curriculum
specialist will evaluate the entire school
3. City of Oakland Park Representative- Gwendolyn Batie
 Represents School Advisory Board for the city of Oakland
Park
 Serves to help the school achieve goals that we may have
 Said discussion about thinking maps and re-wording how
arrived at the answer helps her teach her own grandson
4. Accreditation-Lynnel Joseph/Cynthia Woods
a. This is an accreditation year for school
b. Team will be in Broward for 3 days and the school will be
judged on standards
c. Takes place every 5 years
d. Additional information about accreditation is on Broward
County’s website- Click, “about us” then click, “department.”
e. This is the third time that Broward schools will be accredited.
f. The school needs to show evidence that we do each of these
standards.
 There are 5 standards and each standard has indicators
under each standard.
 Will look at systems that have in place at OPE to address
each standard
 Purpose and Direction: System maintains and
communicates at all levels of the organization about
shared learning and values
 2: Governance and Leadership: Policies and
procedures that are in place at the school, in
particular, the operation and function.
 3: Teaching and Assisting for Learning: Consider
curriculum and what kinds of assessments and
monitoring systems are used
 4: Resources and Support Systems: How OPE
retains employees, what standards we look at when
hiring people, etc.
 5: Using Results for Continuous Improvement:
Clear assessment system in place as to how student
progress is monitored.
5. School Improvement Plan-Cynthia Woods
 Will look at past ELA scores to see where weaknesses exist and
develop a plan to address it to ensure that each student is
strong in every area
 Additional information about accreditation is on Broward
County’s website, click, “about us” then click “school
improvement plan” and lastly, “OPE”
 Changes to the upcoming state tests: Fourth grade will be
taking a computer-based test in ELA. Next year grades 3-5 will
take computer-based tests in ELA and Math. Students will need
to be able to complete a grid and answer questions.
6. Title One Report- Dawn McMahon
 This is a Title I school, which allows us additional funds from
federal government
 Funded: “Math Night at Publix"- Solve real world problems at
the store
 Funded: “Celebration of Learning”- Parents were taught
different strategies to assist their children at home
7. Thinking Maps- Dawn McMahon
 OPE is a “Thinking Maps” school: OPE uses thinking maps to
train students to categorize information in a more strategic way
 Mrs. Garcia and Mrs. McMahon are trainers
 Implemented in all subjects- There are 8 maps and are training
students to look at a document and what needs to be done with
the information to translate into a thinking map
 Orange County uses thinking maps, but not a lot of schools use
it, although they have been around for a long time
 A parent said she has seen thinking maps being incorporated in
her daughter’s homework and they work together to complete
the homework. Initially, thinking maps were difficult for mom
so she tried to teach her child how to do the homework her way
and child said had to use the thinking map to “strategize.”
 Another mom said her child had difficulty with doubles plus
one and had to find a way to teach child how to solve the
problem.
8. Adjournment- Lynnel Joseph adjourned the meeting at 8:05.
 Next Meeting is November 18th
 Will provide updates via e-mails