HE’E Planning Meeting
The Learning Coalition Office Suite 301
August 9, 2011 9-11am
Attendees:
1. Mary Weir (FACE)
2. Cynthia Okazaki (PACT)
3. Zach Dilonno (PPS)
4. Sue Haglund (PPS)
5. Gordon Miyamoto (DOE)
6. Ann Davis (HEM)
7. Craig Chong (Fresh Leadership)
8. Matt Lorin (TLC)
9. Kathy Bryant (HE‘E)
10. Cheri Nakamura (HE‘E)
11. Pamela Young
Agenda
9:00-9:15 Introductions-Parents for Public Schools Hawaii Overview
Zach Dilonno and Sue Haglund gave an overview of PPS Hawaii.
Mission is to engage parents, students, and community members across the State in supporting enriched and quality public education through:
1) effective communication between families, community, and schools
2) greater awareness of educational policies and practices
3) community involvement in education and decision making that promotes
school support, improvement, and student achievement
4) accurate media representation of public education
PPS will be hosting Middle School Tours –first one on October 15. School TBA. These tours are a way to show parents the merits of public school. PPS chose to do a middle school tour, as this is an important transition for parents and students. PPS is working with Middle Schools Association of Hawaii.
9:15-10:00 Workgroup review/strategic plan
Cheri Nakamura went through presentation reviewing working group strategies, actions and time-lines. (Presentation2.pptx). Family Engagement and Policy Teams are the two groups that have made progress on their strategies and actions. Both groups were encouraged to have follow up meetings with their respective teams to keep momentum going.
School Leadership team has made recommendations on the SSQ to the BOE. However, because there is no team leader, it is difficult to progress.
After reviewing the strategies and actions of the Trust Building Team, we also questioned whether Trust Building should continue to be a working group—although the concept is still important to the Coalition, perhaps there is no need to have a formal working group.
Basic Needs group had ambitious objectives with GIS mapping but with no team leader, there has not been much progress besides one meeting discussing “mapping success” idea.
Group thought that it was fine that attention was being focused on areas where people seem to have most interest. For the areas that currently do not have a team leader, we might invite/encourage members to champion that issue.
Planning team thought it was a good idea to revisit strategic plan, as many of the original participants are no longer participating. The plan a good guide but should be seen as a living document that is revisited on an annual basis. Rather than getting whole coalition involved in the revision, it was suggested that we should put together a group made up of a few members who could make recommendations to the full group.
10:00-10:30 Outreach
Staff brought up the issue of outreach, as growing the coalition is an important objective. Staff is making efforts to broaden base, but HE‘E members should also be involved outreach
Group discussed benefits of being part of HE‘E. Some mentioned that is exciting to hear family engagement discussed more frequently within the DOE and in the community, and that the level of focus has been elevated and that is due to the efforts of HE‘E membership. The whole group felt that the networking aspect is also extremely important-that they are able to find out what others are doing and seek opportunities for partnership. Additionally, people felt that because HE‘E has credibility with policy makers, members have way to reach the Board or the Legislature, or Department.
Currently, HE‘E does seem to be providing a link from the community to policy makers and media; however, the voices are coming from individual organizations or individuals. We are happy to do this and policy makers are eager to hear these responses. But because HE‘E is a coalition, we want to also be able to bring a voice of consensus, if the group should feel strongly about a particular issue. Some in the group suggested that we might re-visit the 75% consensus criteria; policy makers may be more interested in that actual vote of members on an issue—so if is 60% 40% or 30% 70% in favor or opposition, respectively, policy makers would appreciate that transparency.
There was a suggestion about trying to reach the business community, as organizations are often looking for ways to help the education community. There was another suggestion about broadening the ethnic diversity of the coalition base, since Hawaii has the unique characteristic of a multi-cultural society.
Group also talked about hosting forums as a way to invite new organizations and network. However, the forum would have to be based on a strong issue and include interaction so that organizations could work together.
10:15-1030 Website review
Cheri touched briefly on the HE‘E website to get some feedback from members. We are looking to see if it is feasible to create a private site where members can log in and have their own discussion on policy issues, for example. We don’t want to pursue unless we are sure that people would use it.
Group seemed to like the website so far as some find the in the news section and calendar section very helpful. Private site will need further discussion.
10:30-11:00 Announcements
Castle Complex Community Council will have a Town Hall Meeting at Windward Community College on August 29, 2011 from 6:30-9:00 pm. Complex will review school data. Guest speaker is Dr. Abigail James, gender education specialist to address why boys are underperforming girls in schools. Open to public.
FACE will be holding a parent academy for the Farrington Complex on September 24, 2011 from 9-3pm. Public is also welcome.
11:00 Meeting adjourned.