[House] Notes from PTA meeting.

[Robin Lee Powell]

- the conversion to parentvue is done
- career day is on the 26th, they need more people
- leukemia fundraiser will be sent home; children are to collect 8
  quarters
- Winter instrumental music performance on the 29th at 13:30 and
  18:00
- Online auction, very lucrative
  - Gloria is the primary contact, but apparently the front office
    can accept stuff
  - I've got one of the forms; we can copy that
  - they need help getting items; perhaps the girls would like to
    help us
  - we can get a signed letter with a form on where to mail stuff
  - donations needed of:
    - gift cards
    - services
    - actual stuff
    - wine
    - sports tickets (giants)
    - home cooked meals have sold well
      - like "thai meal for six" sort of thing
      - we could certainly offer home cooking for specialized diets
    - dog walking :D
    - babysitting
    - taking people's kids to some interesting event (ball game,
      whatever)
      - taking people rock climbing has sold in the past
    - private lessons (sewing, guitar)
      - last year apparently 10 huors of sewing lessons sold well
  - they suggest we talk to places we go to often
    - emmy's?
  - perhaps I could sell computer help?
- Immersion:
  - the current results on reading ability are not good
  - most kids in the Spanish program are not reading academic
    Spanish at grade level, including the native Spanish speakers
  - apparently the language switching (where one teacher changes
    languages) is more effective at teaching
  - the program is called "acheive 3000", apparently very common on
    the east coast, and apparently very effective
  - she feels confident that it's going to help; it's helped in
    other schools consistently
  - apparently the problem in the past has been the focus on
    English; to improve skill in academic performance in the second
    language (because most of them are native Spanish speakers) you
    have to build up the native language academic skills first and
    then transfer it to academic skills in the second language
  - for kids whose native language is Spanish, they're scoring
    higher in Spanish academic reading than the native Spanish kids,
    so they're not worrying about them
  - the teachers are just trained on Acheive 3000 like last month,
    the students should be using it like next week
  - it's grades 2-5
  - ask for the parents having the kids reading books in Spanish,
    and asking them about what Spanish words they've learned, and we
    should ask them about the words and how they're used correctly,
    why would you say that to someone, when would you say that to
    someone, and so on; basically probe their learning of vocabulary
  - there will probably be a workshop on how to support your kids'
    bilingual learning, but it's bascially that ^^
  - apparently they'll be splitting grades 4 & 5 next year; 2 4th, 1
    5th; apparently this will result in an absurdly large 5th grade
    class
  - the SF teacher's union cap is 33 students per class, which seems
    like waaaaaay too much -_-, but Dr. MacKay says she's done 42 by
    herself
  - if the class goes over 33, the teacher's union *must* provide a
    second real actual teacher
  - I do like her.  :)