Community and Family Involvement

Pat Diskin Elementary held student led conferences with teachers and parents after school until 7:30 PM on Thursday, March 25, 2015. My cooperating teacher and I gathered the necessary information to prepare students for these conferences. The students then presented their learning targets achievements to their parents while we listened. We also interjected any other pertinent information to the parents that they may have needed to know such as student’s behavior in class. The following is the Reflection on Myself Checklist the students followed in order to discuss each item with their parents.

As part of gathering the necessary information needed for these conferences, I assisted my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Kimberly Heinemann with benchmark testing on academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. First, I led the AIMS Web test, which determined the number of words each student could read in a one minute period with little to no errors. These tests are intended to prepare the students to reach the school’s overall second grade goal of reading 106 words a minute by the end of the year. The second test I conducted was of the Dolch words list, which tests students on their ability to comprehend and create sentences using terms from a list of 500 words. Mrs. Heinemann and I also examined the students’ ability to read through and take the STAR Reading Test on the Renaissance Place program website.

This assessment helps determine if the student can read at the 2.9 AR (Accelerated Reader) 2nd grade level by the school year end. The class should also be at the Math Blaster level 9 by year end which is a timed test in which students need to score 100% to move up to the next level.

I spoke with each family as they arrived and sat in on all conferences at one point or another. At times, there were 6 families in the classroom having their conferences all at once with their child. It was a good experience for me to get to know my students’ families and talk with them about how their child was doing. Mrs. Heinemann also had 5 students that fell below these learning targets and we were able to get the parents to sign to retain their child next year and have them repeat 2nd grade. Most of this class is made up of ELL students who struggle to read at grade level. Many of the parents speak only Spanish at home. We had an amazing turn out and all 24 students had family members participate in these conferences to see how their child was doing in school. Students also had to share with their family their goals and how their behavior was in class.

Although it was a very long day for me, I really enjoyed the interaction with my students’ families. It was a wonderful experience to help me when I complete parent teacher conferences for my own class next year. I was very impressed by these conferences as I felt like it took much of the burden off the teacher to discuss how each student was doing. We only observed the conferences, visited with the parents, and added additional information as needed.

Another school community project I participated in was during Reading Week which was held March 2nd through March 6th, 2015. The theme this year was “Read Like a Super Hero”. Each teacher was to design a poster for their classroom door as a school competition among teachers and classrooms. I made this poster of The Incredibles Disney heroes and posted it on our door. I copied Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, Principal, and Mr. Rick Crandall, Assistant Principal, pictures and attached them to the poster instead of the original characters’ faces. We received many compliments on this poster from faculty and students, and even though we didn’t win, Mr. Crandall said it was going in the yearbook.

This bulletin board was one I did before Spring break in support of the Accelerated Reading Program at Diskin Elementary. It is titled “Spring into Reading” and features spring tulips, lilies, Easter eggs, and book covers. This bulletin board was made to encourage, and motivate students to read and take Accelerated Reading tests.