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.