DUNWOODY HIGH SCHOOL PAC Meeting - Summary of Action January 19, 2021 (Virtual Meeting)

A"endance - Allegra Johnson, Priscilla Cole, Kevin Travis, John Nash, Maria Jiram, Davina Proﬁt, Dave Levy, Yolanda Parker-Smith, Bob Fiscella, KaEe Scharf, Fran Bartel (PTSO), Julia LeDoyen (PTSO), Andrea Jameson, Kimberly Wiles, Amirant Lester, Lisa Beiger & Todd Beiger

MeeEng Called to order at 4:00pm Virtually via MicrosoR Teams

MoEon to amend agenda by Allegra Johnson & Priscilla Cole

Approval of Minutes from last meeEng by Allegra Johnson & John Nash

Teachers Report/Teacher & Staﬀ Issues/Needs

Kevin Travis - Concerns & Thoughts from Teachers about Virtual Learning and PotenEal Reopening

• Teachers are very busy preparing for the potenEal reopening and anEcipaEng as many changes as possible. They have a lot of quesEons about returning and are very concerned about how the county will be able to meet the expectaEons.

• Teachers biggest concern is the technology used for concurrent instrucEon for hybrid learning.

• Allegra asked if the teachers are concerned for their safety and the amount of cleaning supplies. Kevin Travis - Yes, they are concerned. They understand that there will be iniEal supplies, but what will happen over Eme.

John Nash - teachers have the same concerns over amounts of cleaning supplies and the ability of the county to keep up with the demand. There are also concerns over suﬃcient technology and wiﬁ for the return of students to the classroom. There are plans for a new wiﬁ in the building for the students to use as a guest.

Principal's Report - Ms Cole

·	Enrollment - the same previous meeEng and 2019-20 school year - 2142.

·	Chromebook Distribu2on - all students at DHS have a device (Chromebook or home computer) and the school has extras for exchanges and other needs.

·	Technology - P. Cole - most employees use the safe network by district, guests and non-employees use the guest network. The new guest network has not been tested with all of the users in the building, so there is no way to know its funcEonality. The district has let go most of the ITT Tech support staﬀ over the covid pandemic. Currently our school shares our IT support staﬀ person with 5 other schools. Teachers and staﬀ will have to ﬁll out a support request Ecket. There are no plans or money to outsource IT assistance.

·	Status of Virtual Learning/Reopening Plans- today (1/19/2021) was the ﬁrst day with the full bell schedule. Travis felt like it was a very long day, while we know it is a normal bell schedule, it was long because it is all virtual. It was a lot of screen Eme for teachers and students. Today included ‘on boarding’ for classes. Teachers need to involve ‘non-virtual’ Eme into their block. There is concern for burnout. P.Cole explained teachers are only required for 30 minutes of lecture and encouraged a break from the computers for other work through breakouts or individual learning. Allegra asked if there is a way for DHS to break from the county to adjust the block schedule Emes this semester. P.Cole said no changes are allowed in the current year, but could be addressed for further years. The longer bell schedule was requested by parents for longer days to reﬂect the potenEal return to hybrid learning.

·	Reopening Plans/Status - no new informaEon, no updated date for student return, staﬀ plans to return to the building Feb 3rd. Subs have been contacted about intent to return, waiEng on staﬀ commitment on FMLA to see the number of subs needed. Due to the incomplete numbers of Intent to Return survey, the staﬀ plan for the ﬁrst week of hybrid learning to be very ﬂuid. There is no way of knowing exact numbers of students returning unEl the ﬁrst day. If classes have to change for students due to staﬀ/student numbers, the plan is for students to be moved to a diﬀerent period but keep the same teacher.

·	School Safety, Security & Covid Renova2ons & Protocols - The district will supply kits every 2 months to schools (including: large hand saniEzer, box of latex gloves, box of rags for wiping, disinfectant wipes, 2 spray bohles of disinfectant, 2 black masks). Our PTSO is supplying supplemental backup supplies out of our own budget (including: aerosol spray cleaner, smaller hand saniEzer bohles, gowns, cleaning supplies, wipes, picnic tables for outdoor eaEng, paper towels and supplies for oﬃces not included in district kits). PTSO strongly emphasized the supplies by the PTSO is for backup needs and the district supplies are the primary use in the building and in the classrooms. Levy asked if there was a plan for a ‘deep clean’ at the school before return - P.Cole said staﬀ has been in the building since May cleaning and preparing the school. There are currently no HVAC concerns or issues, but when the school is reopened some issues may arise. They have been served and ﬁlters cleaned. There are no outstanding work orders that aﬀect the classrooms or the reopening plans. Levy asked about the 30 day leave but the district for staﬀ - P.Cole said it was approved for Jan 4-Feb 2 and is set to expire. Staﬀ will return Feb 3 to the classrooms. DHS is fully staﬀed - 2 teachers are reEring at the end of Feb and 2 staﬀ members are leaving. There are already plans in place for these posiEons.

·	Safety Protocols - Teachers on the Pandemic Team started working in Nov and are revising the plans moving forward. Masks will be mandatory and properly work by all, students won’t be suspended but will be sent home for virtual learning if they do not comply. A safe 6R distance will be maintained by all to the best of their ability, there is signage around the hallways and in classrooms, all are asked to respect the space of the person in front of them in hallways and around campus. Bathrooms will be closed during class transiEon and only open during the class period (opening aRer the ﬁrst 15 minutes and closing before the last 15 minutes of class), only 3 students allowed in the bathroom at a Eme. Every other bathroom stall will be blocked oﬀ for distancing. NO lockers will be used and students will be allowed to bring backpacks. PAC members expressed concern

over students bringing unwanted items to school in backpacks and P.Cole expressed her hope that everyone will respect the rules. No water fountains will be open, school will have some supplies of water bohles, but students and staﬀ will be encouraged to bring their own water bohles. We are waiEng for the ETA of the water ﬁlling staEons by the district. The school building will open at 7:30am (normal Eme) with no early arrival. The cafeteria will be open from 7:30-7:45 for breakfast or students can go to the gym, at 7:45 students can go to their ﬁrst period in order to reduce group sizes. Lunch Eme will provider more outdoor seaEng, cafeteria will be open and 5 unused classrooms. There will be a video provided for all DHS students and staﬀ explaining these protocols.

·	New Modular Units - all installaEon work is complete on current modulars. There will NO new modulars installed. P.Cole refuses to allow for parking spaces or the tennis courts to be used for any future modular units.

New Business/Unﬁnished Business

·	Numbers of students failing during SY2020-21, safeguards and processes in place to monitor class par2cipa2on and performance and remedia2on plans and processes -P.Cole said we have more students failing courses than previous years. We have credit recovery for students outside the typical school day, this allows a student to retake a course for a new grade. These are oﬀered during lunches, before and aRer school and are currently all virtual. Hoping to move to F2F learning in order to reduce these numbers. Teachers are giving students several chances for turning in work and oﬀering extra help. Teachers are encouraged to reach out to students and parents via email, phone calls and during classes. Assistant Principals & Principals are noEﬁed about child failing and work with teacher, parents, counselor and student on how to repair the grade or class. If a student recovers a class grade, both the failed grade and new grade will be a part of the student’s GPA. The school has not seen an increase in numbers of dropouts. Assistant Principals’s are reaching out to families and students if they miss more than 3 days of school.

o How to remediate - teacher gives extra assignments to master a standard

o How to recover - allows students to remaster a grade for a new grade

·	Possibility of expanding 2me alloNed for lunch periods during virtual learning - P.Cole reiterated that there are no master schedule changes for the current year

·	Ar2ﬁcial Turf – Track and Field – David Levy has reached out to Noel Maloof again on Jan 14 and was told the Eming of compleEon of the turf is now expected by June. Mike Nash updated group that he and P.Cole did a walk through with the construcEon company and it went well, they don’t understand why it will take unEl June for compleEon. Nash menEoned that leRover money from previous projects can be used for current projects (ie: pole vault pit, nenng and other track and ﬁeld items) are these items are included in the turf construcEon. D.Proﬁt requested that these items are not just addendums to the request because they won’t get done.

·	Displacement of spring sports teams and alterna2ve venues during turf construc2on -The track team is having diﬃculty ﬁnding a locaEon for pracEce and meets. Mr Blake is working the AD at CCHS to share the track at N.Dekalb stadium. There is a disconnect on why the track was scraped before construcEon Eme was set to begin and therefore the Emeline extension for compleEon is frustraEng.

·	Tennis team displacement due to cracked court surfaces - Previously the CAC planned to move the tennis courts for renovaEons, so no repairs were planned. Now that the renovaEons are not occurring, the repairs are needed. They have been approved by the county but have not been completed. The booster club is not happy and the repairs will probably not happen this season. Mr Blake is working on other opEons.

·	Dekalb County School District Survey - Allegra - suggested that many of the issues addressed in the survey are Eed directly to the over crowding of the school, which a good problem to have - our school and staﬀ are awesome. P.Cole suggested using informaEon submihed by the staﬀ and other commihee survey results so they are all streamlined. PAC agreed that we need to send a google document out to the team to collect our concerns to submit in the survey.

·	Wildcat Fund Update/Game On Campaign (concession stand and bathroom project) -Nash - We have raised the money originally esEmated but the county informed the group that they are required to use the districts architect and go through the bidding process. Therefore more money will need to be raised for the project. Previous money raised was for a budget of the project of $105,000 but will probably end up being $185,000. Nash suggested reaching out to Melissa Humphreys from the Game On Campaign for requests or quesEons.

·	Status of decisions on any modular units for SY2021-22 - There will NO new modulars installed. P.Cole refuses to allow for parking spaces or the tennis courts to be used for any future modular units.

·	PTSO update of reopening related expenditures (Fran Bartel & Julia LeDoyen) - PTSO delivered 2 rounds of teacher support checks (2 amazon giR cards of $50) for home oﬃces and supplies. The PPE supplemental supplies for the school were about $7-8,000. Dunwoody Dads is building the picnic tables and benches on Jan 23rd with ADA accessible opEons. Community has reached out to PTSO on issues that are PAC related. PTSO suggests that PAC needs to be more visible to the community. P.Cole praised the PTSO on all of their eﬀorts and support.

·	Teacher Grant Commihee - team is reviewing requests and are not receiving as many grant requests as in the past. They have $20,000/year with a max grant of $1,000/person. Team doesn’t understand why teachers are not subminng requests. In the past teachers have used the money for conferences and travel, but there are none happening because of Covid. Nash/Travis - we will let the teachers know about the grants, but they think the problem is that teachers don’t know what they need yet for the classroom or when the next phase of learning begins. They won’t know unEl they are back in the classroom. P.Cole asked the PTSO to hold oﬀ making any changes to the grant process for another year due to Covid changes to the schedules. Budgets close for grant requests June 30, 20221

·	Other Business -

·	Mee2ng with Superintendent and Board Members - Allegra suggested senng up meeEngs with 1. Superintendent Harris, the COO and Mr Maloof 2. Anna Hill (new Board Member).

Public Comment -

• Lisa Beiger - DCDS has a new Superintendent and Board Members, we need to make sure these members know that several of our concerns for DHS and involved in the survey are being repeated. We need to speak to these members speciﬁcally about our concerns. She also expressed her concern over the lack of IT support for school. One IT person for every 6 school is not suﬃcient when schools are using more technology.

MeeEng was adjourned 5:45pm by Allegra Johnson & KaEe Scharf

Next MeeFng – planned for February 9, 2021 at 4pm has been moved to February 23, 2021 at 4:00pm

* Due to Covid-19 pandemic, meeEng was held virtually. Next meeEng is not scheduled unEl February 23, 2021 unless the school proceeds to reopening from Covid-19 pandemic closure.