Students as Leaders at NMUSD Adult School

Twenty-one Newport-Mesa USD Adult School students met today at the BESST Center from 10-11am for our second student council meeting. 

Handouts: 

• May 9 Meeting Agenda
• May 9 Meeting PowerPoint (save to desktop and then open)
• Infant/Toddler Program FAQs (It takes a few seconds to open because of the graphics)
•  Office Assistants Certificate Proposal (It takes a few seconds to open; be patient.)

We will meet again on Friday, June 6, 10am-11am to continue our animated discussions on how to increase student persistence and refine our programs.  The following student-leaders will help lead our June 6th meeting:

• Monica from our Whittier Adult School day site
• Isabel from our BESST Adult School day site
• Domingo from our BESST Adult School night site

Click on the Continue Reading link for a summary of student suggestions, shared both orally and in writing, from today’s meeting. 

(student suggestions in red; school response to suggestions in black)

How can we increase student attendance and participation?

summer school Our summer school will be July 7 - August 14.

childcare for summer school We will provide childcare from 9am-12pm during the summer.

add a pronunciation class We can open a pronunciation class this summer if we can get enough interested students to commit to attending.  We have 2 options for days/times:  Mon-Thur, 12pm-1pm or Fridays 9am-12pm.  We took a vote during the meeting, and the majority of students (13/1) preferred the Friday option.  We will let you know if we have enough students interested by Wednesday, May 14, 2008. 

open a conversation class

add more English games

test month by month  All ESL teachers are expected to give end-of-unit tests.  We’ll make sure that is happening in each class.  You can find our pacing plans on our Downloads page of this blog to see the end-of-unit testing schedule for All-Star 1, 2, 3 and 4.

improve how we share INFORMATION about our programs - like Distance Learning We will give the coordinator of Infant/Toddler program the list of Distance Learning options so she can tell adult students their options for distance learning if they can’t get in to the Infant/Toddler program.  We will also enlist our Student Council students to help us share our information!

How can we refine our program to better serve student needs and interests?

make flyers and put them around the communityWe are starting a student-led group that will learn how to make flyers using Microsoft Publisher and distribute them to classmates and high-traffic businesses and centers around the community.  Please talk with Isabel in Mr. Wong’s class, Gloria and/or Erlinda in Mr. Vasquez’ class or Monica in Mr. Alcazar’s class for more details.

add a commercial on the radio(Piolin) We will investigate that possibility.  Perhaps a student council rep would be interested in making the call to Piolin station for us???

add an incentive program  when you refer a person to our program Monica from Whittier will lead a discussion about that idea at our next meeting.

add official WASC Accreditation stamp on ESL certificates of completion and certificates of attendance  Great idea.  We’ll do it!!!

organize a community event like a dance or activitySee Vicky in Ms. Buckner/Mr. Corrigan’s class for more details.

more conversation and reading in class

solve this problem:  “All-Star 3 is much more difficult compared to All-Star 2″  Some of our All-Star 3 teachers are revising the All-Star 3 curriculum for next year.  Sorry about the big jump!  We know it has been difficult for our Intermediate Low ESL students.