Community+Education+Committee

The Community Education Committee helps coordinate speakers, panel discussions and like events for all audiences -- students, parents, faculty/staff and community.

Current members of the Committee: Kathy Brechner, Laurie Dean, Susan Dullea, Ed Fuhrman, Cliff Gabrielsen, Pat Hackett, John Nikotopoulos, Al Pucci

__**Next meeting date:**__ The next meeting of the Community Education Committee will be in May; Kathy Brechner will be in touch to set the date/time and location.

__**Meeting notes**__ // April 4, 2011 // Present: Kathy Brechner, Laurie Dean, Ellen Hackett, Pat Hackett, Ginny Loughlin, John Nikotopoulous,

Debriefed from the Mike Nerney presentations. PVC -- he offered solid info. And positive anti-drug prevention. CHHS was more of a mixed discussion. More minimization of risks. Presented some of the clear science. Some adults felt it was ‘too permissive’. However, the students, when asked about it at the Student Congress Meeting felt that he was “pretty straight” with the info and that they were not being “lectured to”.

**April 12th** **–Tuesday:** Ty Sells from Youth-to-Youth, Intl., will speak at both PVC and CHHS in assemblies. He will also lead a leadership workshop in the afternoon from 3-5pm in the CHHS caferteria. Students who attend will received certificates and community service for their participation.

To do: KB to call Leslie Valentine and check to make sure cafeteria was booked KB contact Ty Sells to see what equipment he needs for the assemblies and the workshop. KB will come in to set up snacks at CHHS the afternoon of the 12th. Will also get table cloths for the snacks EH will do the PVC bldg. use form Flyer to be distributed to the houses of worship EH will make the certificates for that Tuesday

**April 7th Thursday BOE meeting:** The Drug Free Zone issue is on the agenda for that evening around 9pm.

** April 28th Thursday Parent Survey Presentation: ** Bonnie from student services will present the data at the Croton library from 7:30 – 9pm. GL will contact the Bedford Counseling Group to see if they are still avail. For a panel presentation following the data presentation. Topic to be focused on how parents should apply this data information to parenting issues and discussions. LD will contact the PTSA about doing an email notification ??? Coffee, tea, cookies ???

** April 29th Friday: ** Distracted Driving program at the HS. Periods, 3,5,8. Will be supported by coalition.

** May 18th Wednesday: ** Ellen is arranging the panel for the “Teens, Parents and the Law” which will make use of the PTSA forum evening. It will be in the CHHS community room. LD will do building use form.

Next meeting: ??? Early May – TBD (May 20th is Vasallo Park event)

Focus at meeting should be on next year: ? What are the planning priorities ? What parent events ? Around what themes

Submitted: 4/11/2011 K. Brechner

//March 4, 2010// 12noon-1:45pm Location: 2nd Floor Conference Room, Municipal Bldg Present: Kathy Brechner, Laurie Dean, Ellen Hackett, Pat Hackett, Ginny Loughlin, John Nikotopoulous, Ginny gave a brief overview and re-setting of the stage for this committee. Areas of funding from the grant that this committee can draw from, depending upon the activities, include the following as defined in the grant requirements: --Presenters --Athletics --Trainers --Translation Services Some of these funds must be expended by September.

This committee deals with student, community and parent education issues and can partner with the school district PTA organizations when appropriate

Ellen reviewed several scheduled and poss. Speakers already in the works: --Mike Nerney – Facts of using marijuana – impact on brain. Will do a 60 student, engagement and lunch will be provided by the PTSA. (March 31st) --Ty Sells: Offers leadership development, character building. Thought is to do an assembly at CHHS and then some student leadership group training in the afternoon. This would include some selected 7th & 8th grade student leaders. His fee is approx. $2600. Croton is splitting travel with New Rochelle. (April 12th proposed date)* Waiting to hear if the CHHS Tolerance committee which had requested some funding from the coalition and PTSA have been able to put their bullying/internet speaker plans together. If so, the Ty would be used 9-11th and then @ PVC for a 5-8 assembly followed by a separate one for 8th grade which would highlight the transition into HS as a focus.

Discussion on the presentation of the Parent Survey Data and any activities to accompany or follow that dissemination of information.

Possible use of the May 18th PTSA forum night already in place which could be used by coalition. “Teens, Parents and the Law” – particularly before prom time.

The Coalition will do a brief presentation and just touch on the survey data at the Tuesday, March 8th PVC am coffee. Kathy and Laurie will join Ellen and Ginny if poss.

Some discussion about extracting the CCC related parameters of data from the Parent survey rather than reviewing all survey content data. It was decided that this topic would be discussed at the next full Coalition meeting.

Holding off until September was thought to be the time to bring in another outside speaker such as Wendy Kaufman to discuss “what next” from the parent survey data results.

**__Follow-up Assignments:__** Ginny will contact Sue Dullea about reaching out to other extra curricular leadership groups.

Laurie and Pat will coordinate the info for May 18th poss. Use of the forum date once it has been established. Ellen has the info about the panelists so Laurie and Pat will do the contacting.

Check on Thursday, April 28th to present parent data ?? Ginny will check library avail. for that date and will follow up w/the Therapy Center as to their availability to facilitate discussion. This would tie into Alcohol Awareness month.

Kathy will contact Wendy Kaufman as to her poss. avail. this coming September.

For the 3/31 event – Laurie will find out where PTSA orders subs from. Ellen will submit a building use form. Pat offered to help with any pick up of supplies. Food would need to be set up by 10:30 that morning. Will reach out to others of this committee not present to see if they can assist with the lunch distribution that day.

Kathy will put out a Doodle calendar to find best time for the next meeting for this committee

Ginny and Ellen to give Kathy some dates to start with as to when they are available.

Submitted: 3/10/2011 K. Brechner

//January 21, 2010// 10:00-11:30am Attending: Cliff Gabrielsen, John Nikitopoulos, Ginny Loughlin --How to encourage parent to attend meetings and parent education workshops? Could we offer incentives? For instance, community service credit for students if they attend with their parents. --Could we integrate community education with 10th grade state-required health classes? or with sports? At HenHud, parents are required to attend a 30-45 minute presentation in order for their child to participate on school teams. Classes are offered daytime, afternoon, evening to make this accessible to all. --Community seems to respond best to outside experts. Note huge turnout for the panel discussion in fall 2009. --Can we look for some publicity in the North County News in addition to The Gazette. That might help reach more parents. --Would be useful to time some presentations before the proms.

//November 22, 2010// 10:00-11:30am Attending: Kathy Brechner, Laurie Dean, Ginny Loughlin, John Nikitopolous --Parent community is not clear on who we are or why/how to get involved. Need to be aware of the timing of our events to meet the needs of the widest possible audience. We could videotape meetings *presentations, not Q&A) and have them available on our website or through the district link. --Need to publicize events widely and need to get school involved to tie-in with their communications and publicity. --One possible goal of this group would be to provide mutual support for parents; possible topic areas could include: ........Drug/Alcohol and other concerns; ........Parenting in the technical/digital age (how do our kids communicate? how do we use/set limits in that context?); ........Parenting-The teenage brain. ........Internet Safety ........"Not Your Mother's Marijuana" Translate terms, products, etc (acknowledge that children of the 70s are parents of teens in 2010) Observation was made that the relationship among parents is very strong in the elementary grades but that parents shut each other out in the teenage years. --Need to provide a good format for Q&A after presentation. Could use index cards to solicit questions so attendees could be more anonymous. --Would it make sense to consider a Parent University? Would take a lot of $ to attract people; could end up with a "train the trainer" model --Would having simultaneous projects for kids make it more likely that parents would go? --Would raffles be enticing and encourage attendance? If so, what? --Possible speaker: Wendy Kaufman. She works with corporations and school districts. She spoke in Croton an number of years ago. She works with kids and parents on Balancing Life's Issues. She's Westchester-based and shares experiences well. --Another possible speaker: Brian Gerety/Gary Silverstein; Ginny agreed to contact Alice Joselow, who has used them for parent presentations successfully. --Could use the parent survey results as a starting-block. --Could also email parents who attended the student survey data presentation to solicit input on topics and ask them to forward to others. Use survey monkey. --We need to get more expert at advertising and promotion.

__**Year One/2009-2010**__

//Media Literacy// Peter DeBenedittis, PhD spoke in Croton April 13-14. He held a presentation with question/answer for the community at 7pm on Tuesday, April 13 at the Croton Free Library. On Tuesday, April 14 he spoke at student assemblies at CHHS and PVC and at a combined PVC/CHHS faculty meeting after school.

Coalition members were asked to provide feedback on the flyer (line below) by the end of day, Friday, March 26.

Note the following suggestions which were agreed to at the Coalition meeting on Thursday, March 25: It was agreed that we would change the word "hurt" to "influence" and that the date and reference to "free" would be made more prominent. It was also agreed that there is too much text at the bottom of the flyer.