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 students 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 schools
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 didnt 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.