In May 2011, the Cambridgeport/King Open/Fletcher Maynard Academy cluster had joint meetings to discuss three topics: Facilities, Community and Staffing/Curriculum. Each meeting was held at one of the schools and hosted by that school's principal. All the meetings were advertised as being open to attend by parents/caregivers in all three schools. Each meeting was moderated by an outside facilitator, Ellen McClaughlin, the executive director of Tutoring Plus. The nonprofit Tutoring Plus, which operates out of an office in Fletcher Maynard, provides free-of-charge programming during the week from 5 to 7 pm to Cambridgeport, King Open and Fletcher Maynard Academy that includes tutoring, MCAS prep, engineering programming, science programming and a "Girls, Media and You" collaboration with Lesley University. Ellen took notes at the meetings and compiled them and returned them to the principals. She also sought out comments from five individuals from the FMA that were unable to attend the meetings on staffing and curriculum and will update these notes with their comments. She also sent out a survey to everyone who attended the meetings and will report the results of that survey (however, she noted in a recent email that she hasn't received many surveys back so far).
Ellen wrote: "It was a pleasure to facilitate each of the meetings and get to meet many of the staff and parents from your buildings. One thing that is loud and clear is that everyone is fearful of the unknown and fearful that they will loose their "sense of community." Each community is fearful of one another. So in some ways you do have a common theme "fear" to begin work on...letting everyone know they are not different but more alike."

The principal at Cambridgeport School (Katie Charner-Laird) wrote in a school newsletter that the notes from these meetings were forwarded to the district. The notes were requested by a parent and shared with at Cambridgeport School by being posted on Cambridgeport's PTO website. It's not clear how the information was shared at King Open or Fletcher Maynard Academy.

Katie emphasized that "at all three meetings, this was a brainstorm. What it [the notes] doesn't show is how much consensus (if any) showed up around any of these ideas."

FACILITIES MEETING (May 16, 4 pm, King Open School)

What to consider when creating space for learning? Programs drive facilities; Sufficient bathrooms for kids and adults

Adequate Classroom Space

• Available to one teacher full time not shared
• Space for OT and PT
• Space for Art, Gym and Music
• Special Needs classes

Library and Computer LabsOpen to all classes

• Close to one another

Out of School Space
        Use Frisoli Pre-school

• Use Frisoli for gym
• Use Frisoli for cooking projects
• Use Frisoli for Before and After School Classes

Community spaceAuditorium

• Main entrance serves as a way to draw community in
• All 6,7 and 8th grades enter through one door
• Space for OST Programs
• Space for Afterschool activities - Drama, Music etc..
• Ways to display student work
• Space to be noisy and quiet- grouping/regrouping
• Lunchroom that is calm and relaxed-time to eat
• Storage
• Use current gym for Library

What to consider when including all communities within the school building?
    Downsize the size of elementary school

• Move location of Extended Day classrooms from 2nd floor
• Move Pre-school to Frisoli
• Keep Kindergartens where they are
• Could room 113 become part of media center
• Create temporary buildings
• Give up computer lab and get a mobile cart
• Consider putting one grade cluster of classes into trailers
• Move library near an entrance

Suggestions for Instructional Classroom Space

Create designated K-5 and 6-8 spaces

Combine Library and Media Labs for K-5 and 6-8 into one space

Suggested use for portable classrooms

     Grade 5

     Library/Media/Science Lab

     Preschool

Multi-grade classrooms

• First grade separate
• 2nd/3rd grades
• 4th/5th grades

Folding Ola` in at upper grades

• Does this increase classroom numbers?
• Does this require another classroom?
• Does this free up a classroom?

Elementary Classes

• 1st grade by itself
• All K-5, OLA and Sub-separate on 1st floor
• Move Pre-school to Frisoli Center
• All specialsts (OSE, Reading Recovery, book rooms
       on 2nd floor

Middle School Classes

• Use upper level in school
• Consolidate two bookrooms into one

COMMUNITY BUILDING MEETING (May 17, 5 pm, Fletcher Maynard Academy)

What does the word community mean to you?
        Shared ownership

• Shared mission
• Home away form home, where we care about each other
• Friends
• Shared goals
• Belonging
• Comfort and Safety
• Supporting each other
• Togetherness
• Goals
• Working Together
• Shared space
• Shared values
• 5th and 6th grade ballroom dancing

How does your school today create community of learning for student, parents and staff?

• Music - school songs
• Community Meetings - 3x a week
• program awards
• celebrating core values
• songs
• Dinners for students
• Dinners for parents and teachers - a night out
• Faculty basketball games
• Math and Science nights
• Extended Day events
• All School share - All grades and students share their work- 4 times a year
• Community Breakfasts
• Multi-grade plays
• Pasta night for families
• Carnival - Common event
• Lunch/recess by grades
• Events around curriculum- Renaissance Fair
• Spaghetti Dinners
• Make a Difference Day - School clean up
• Multi-cultural Potluck Dinner
• Turkey Trot - Dinner of Thanks
• Community Art Show and Breakfast
• Silent Auction

What does building community between schools mean to you?

• Grade level pen pals - meeting one another at end of year with BBQ
• Field Day at park with activities
• Major fundraiser for middle school
• Autism awareness with in each school-educating staff and students
• Ola Program
• Special Needs
• Opening existing social events between schools
• Field Trips      
• Carnival
• Inviting local businesses and organization including OST groups to meetings
• Curriculum - Faculty working together across buildings - example gardening.
• Summer social events for all three buildings
• Tours of each buildings
• Joint field trips
• Mix school traditions for transitions - Long and short term
• Move up Day
• How to get 4th and 5th graders together
• How to grow subsets

How do you begin to create and build community between schools?

• Transition for 1st group
• How to meet one another to create first community?
• Use CCTV fro announcements
• Robo calls

School Council

• When to introduce students to one another
• 6-8th graders reading the same book over the summer-then sharing in fall.
• Fun Run - win T-shirts
• Create central song

PTO's

• A central PTO for parent involvement
• PTO's - Help in integrating communities
• Parent groups-sharing together

Adult retreat for teachers and parents

• Getting to know one another
• What makes up your community
• Log time together to build trust.

Create focus groups to have one-on-one conversation

• Parent/Teacher Study Group deepen discussion with Race and Class
• "Seeds" open the difficult conversation 1x a month - represent from all
       three schools- create an action plan

Off site get together once or twice a year

• Games for kids
• Breakfast for parents
• OST programs

Involve a greater number of men

• What's the best way to do this?
• Create sub groups
• Dad groups

Cultural

• Multi-Cultural Days - Family weeks
• Small discussion groups around race and class - monthly meetings

Class reps - room mothers by grades

Engage whole families

Joint Staff meetings between buildings-quarterly

STAFFING / CURRICULUM MEETING (Cambridgeport School, May 19, 6 pm)

Questions regarding the Role of Dean

• Should the dean report to the host principal?
• What will the relationship be between the principal and the Dean?
• Should the Assistant Principal support K-5 or 6-8 or both?
• What is the relationship to the administration?
• Is the responsibilities equitable?
• Do the school secretaries support Principal, Assistant Principal, Dean and teachers?
• Is the Dean responsible for discipline?
• Is the Dean responsible for curriculum?
• How will the Dean get to know all three communities prior to start of school year?
• Will all principals should be involved in hiring?
• Will the school leadership team have great input in the hiring of this position?

Important Qualities

• Dual/language or second language learning experience
• Interest, experience and concern for mental health issues, and a trauma sensitive lens.
• Strength around adolescence and that developmental stage: social/emotional demands
• Experience working with a merged school or new school
• Not a top/down style- shared leadership/ collaboration
• Collaborative vs. authoritarian approach
• Enthusiasm and vision
• Inspires teachers and kids
• Involved with the leadership teams from all schools
• Pushes creativity
• Organized and on top of the stuff that keeps our lives easier (teachers, kids)--communication
• Experience with scheduling
• Enjoys middle school kids, will advocate for them
• Classroom experience, in the trenches: 5-10 years of teaching experience

Role of Dean

• Owns 6-8 program
• Not in charge of discipline
• Familiar with curriculums/best practices
• Portfolio and evaluation of children
• Supportive of the arts in the classrooms and in strong electives
• Understands what it means to be a teacher
• Role model for learning and inquiry
• Support teacher scholarship   
• Meaningful professional development
• In charge of evaluating teachers.(Principal is in charge of the building,dean in charge of programs)
• Harness expertise of the teachers so teachers are invested and engaged
• Gives teachers/ kids autonomy
• Create sense of empowerment in the existing community
• Will know students and spend time in the classrooms
• Focus on the social/emotional development of kids
• Listens to kids & really hears their concerns/ desires/ worries…etc
• Supportive of the arts in the classrooms and in strong electives
• Supports parent involvement
• Strong communication with families
• Visible to families
• Become familiar and comfortable with uniqueness of Cambridge
• Urban setting but atypical
• Diversity
• Cultural competencies
• Develop collaborative relationship between principal and dean.
• Build a shared vision between the three schools
• Understands values of three feeder schools
• Understands curriculum from other schools
• Maintains a K-8 community/family
• Facilitate complex processes/ building community

What elements are you hoping to see in 6-8th grade?

• Contact across all grades - Older and younger kids
• Challenge all regardless of ability
• Assume creative and intelligent
• Value cultural background in teaching.
• Diverse social and academic world- kids get to try things twice-knits together a school
• Clearly defined literacy interventions for kids coming in lower
• Find ways to keep them in classroom and provide special interventions
• Must work together with interventions
• Heterogeneous groupings in the classrooms and commitment to kids learning together
• No tracking
• Time for collaboration for teachers, and project-based learning, a theme across disciplines
• Time for collegiality
• Humanities program loved in other schools
• Curriculum designed with K-8 in mind
• Connect 6-8 curriculum with the three K-5 schools
• Project based learning
• Theme to connect school across curricular areas in 6-8 grades; ex. water planet
• Content area literacy in each discipline area
• Portfolio assessment, and content area literacy attended to in a deep significant way
• Portfolio panels
• Spanish at grade 6
• A 30/70 Portuguese/English strand
• STEM
• Focus on 21st Century skills
• Technology in the classroom
• Reflective practices
• Continue social curriculum - Developmental design

Questions from the elements one would like to see in 6-8th grade

• Is foreign language instruction structured for all kids?
• Is there still a possibility to mix grade structure to 5/6 and 7/8?
• How will grades 6-8 be mixed?