Parent Calendar Input - you're invited!

You are invited to provide your input on the proposed Alamosa School Calendar for next school year. 

Sunday, Feb 24th at 7pm
Bistro Rialto in the Big Room.

Parent representatives to the calendar committee will be there to hear your input and will take your input to the calendar committee.

We encourage you to attend!

BOE Meeting - Calendar Status

The School Board met on Tuesday night and 9 different parents spoke regarding the proposed 2013-14 school calendar.  The key points shared by many of the parents were:

• Doubling of PLC time is excessive - 78 total hours is over two full weeks of school time that students lose.
• Wednesday is a poor choice for early release - interrupts the weekly learning flow.  Most parents (and many teachers) prefer Friday, based on last year's calendar survey.
• Lack of alignment of school breaks (Fall, Winter, Spring) with Adams State and TSJC.

There was also discussion on the process of the calendar development and how parent representatives to the calendar committee are not selected by the parents, but by the administration.

The end result was that the 2013-14 School Calendar was tabled and the calendar committee has been asked to revisit the calendar and to come back as a committee to the next school board meeting (March 4) to present a revised calendar.

Unfortunately, none of the parent representatives to the calendar committee were at the school board meeting to hear the parent input.  The parent representatives are: Donna Wehe, Jolene Lopez, Sophia Avila and Faustin Martinez.  A-PAGE is currently working to set up a meeting with the parent representatives so we can share our input directly.  We will post details of when that meeting will happen as soon as possible.  It will likely happen this weekend.  (Update - meeting is Sunday, Feb 24th at 7pm at Bistro Rialto)

If you were unable to speak at the School Board meeting, but have concerns or comments you’d like presented to the calendar committee parent representatives, you have several options:
1) Contact any of the committee members you know to provide your input directly
2) Attend this weekend's meeting
3) Leave a comment below or send us an email to alamosapage@gmail.com with your comments and we will include them in the discussion with the parent representatives.

We cannot let our hard work and effort stop here – let’s rally and get our input heard by those on the committee who are designated to represent us!

2013-14 School Calendar

The school district provided the proposed 2013-14 School Calendar to the District Accountability Committee on Monday night.  The calendar is now out for teacher review/comments and will then go before the school board for approval on Tuesday, Feb. 19th at 7pm.  If you have comments on the proposed calendar, we encourage you to attend the school board meeting on Feb. 19th.  Click the highlighted link to see the proposed calendar.  

Last year A-PAGE did a district wide parent survey to gather parent input on a variety of school calendar options.  The results of that survey can be found here.  The survey showed that most parents preferred early release activities to be scheduled on Friday's.  Also, most parents desired alignment of spring break with both Adams State and with other school districts in the valley.  Last year this input made no significant impact on the 2012-13 school calendar.  This year's proposed calendar is much the same.  The only items incorporated from the parent survey were:

• Consistent schedule for early release days (same day every week, but not the day preferred by most parents)
• Alignment of spring break with other valley districts (but not Adams State)

Additional items to note regarding the proposed calendar:

• Early Release day has been moved to Wednesdays.
• Early Release time has been moved back an additional hour to a 12:45 release time for Elementary, 12:55 release time for Secondary, almost doubling the early release time.
• School is out the entire week of Thanksgiving.
• School starts in the fall on a Friday.

Since parent input from the parent calendar survey does not appear to be considered, we highly recommend that you attend the Feb. 19th School Board meeting to provide your input.  The school board meeting begins at 7pm at the District Office (209 Victoria Avenue – next OMS). You must arrive 5 minutes early and sign up with the secretary to speak during the meeting. You will get 3 minutes to address the board. This section of the meeting occurs shortly after the start of the meeting. 

If you are unable to attend the school board meeting, consider contacting any/all school board members by phone prior to the meeting.  You can find the school board member names and phone numbers here: School Board Reps

If you have any questions about the process, we are more than happy to answer any questions by emailing us at alamosapage@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

The Alamosa Parent Advocacy Group for Education (A-PAGE) committee.

Alamosa Parent Academy - April 6th

The first annual Alamosa Parent Academy will be held on Saturday, April 6th from 8am - 1:30pm.  This workshop is being hosted by the Alamosa School District and is tailored to the needs of Alamosa middle school and high school families.

The Alamosa Parent Academy was designed to provide parents with learning opportunities that will assist them in fostering their children's success in school and in life.  Parents will partake in three learning opportunities of their choice through our breakout sessions as well as hear from the keynote speaker.

The workshop is FREE, however, if parents are able to make a $5 donation or provide a canned food they will be accepted at check-in. Free childcare will also be available.

You can find out more about the Parent Academy by downloading this flyer and you may register for the event at the Alamosa Parent Academy website.

Sign up for OMS and AHS Parent Teacher Conferences

A-PAGE has once again worked with the Alamosa School District to be able to pre-schedule parent-teacher conferences online. The feedback we received from parents and teachers for the OMS trial of this system in October was very positive and so we have worked to add AHS to the pre-scheduling lineup for this next round of parent-teacher conferences. 

You can now sign up for conferences at either school by visiting these links to sign up:
OMS: http://ptcfast.com/schools/A_PAGE_OMS_School
AHS: http://ptcfast.com/schools/A_PAGE_AHS_School

If you don't want to sign up online (or can't for some reason), call the school directly and the secretary will sign you up. Sign-ups will be open until the day prior to the conference.

Instructions for how to schedule a Parent Teacher Conference online can be found by clicking this link.

We will again be soliciting feedback on this process from both parents and teachers to use in improving the process in the future. If you would like to leave us feedback directly, you may either leave a comment on this post or email us directly at alamosapage@gmail.com.

January District Accountability Meeting (DAC)

The DAC met on Jan 14th.  Key items of discussion were:

Presentation from Andy Lavier on the Block Schedule (which was moved away from several years ago) and how the amount of planning time for teachers is insufficient.  No high performing schools have as little planning time as we have.  High performing schools have planning time to teaching time ratio of approximate 25% (as compared to our 16%).  This is not an issue just at the high school, but at all grade levels - especially with the changes in curiculum in the last several years.

NWEA Mid-year test scores.  K-8 on track in 13 out of 18 categories.  No mid-year testing was done at AHS.  The categories NOT on track to meet end of year goals are:

• Math all grades 5th grade and up
• Reading in grades 7th and 8th 

Parent/Teacher Conference Pre-scheduling will be available at both OMS and AHS for the February conferences.  A-PAGE is setting up the conference system for both schools.

School Board Meeting 1/14

The Board of Education meet on Jan 14th - A-PAGE was in attendance.  Key items of parent interest were:

• Community Gardens has been funded $10,000 to continue to provide classroom instruction at AES. 

• Athletic and VoAg complex planning continues - the VoAg complex will now be a separate facility across Carroll Street on the south side of AHS.