SDMC meeting February 24, 2016 Opening remarks: Welcome. SDMC minutes will be loaded to the website for public viewing. Four meetings will be scheduled per year. The next meeting is scheduled for March 24th. Attendees: BCMAR Parent: Ms. Knolle Community member: Pasteur McGee BCMAR Teacher: Mr. Barnes BCM Asst. Professor, BCMAR STEM Specialist,: Dr. Perez-Sweeney BCM Associate Provost and Senior Associate Director: Dr. Moreno BCMAR Principal: Mrs. Malhan 1. STEM Station Updates: We are preparing a new Science Technology Engineering Math dedicated space for next year that fits two classrooms with the help of BCM. This space will be used for multimedia, crosscutting collaborative learning across the science disciplines and even across non-science disciplines. There is currently a test room in place at our school as part of the Phase I curriculum implementation, where our teachers are testing how best to use the room and its equipment. The new room will be in full use by both our health science and science teachers in the next academic year. Financial support is provided by the Magnet Schools of America Program grant. 2. External Experiences: Our school takes pride in providing many external experiences for our students. Included in such experiences have been field trips to the DeBakey Veterans Hospital, Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, Baylor College of Medicine, the Houston Zoo, Washington DC and more. In addition, we have brought many professionals to the school to speak and work with students including health professionals from UT Medical Branch, Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Chess Masters and more. This last month our 6th graders learned about health science careers in a field trip to BCM (Our most recent visitor to students during the Health Science elective was Siemens Energy during Engineers week. The next visitor for the Health Science elective will be parent Dr. Cara Davis, a geochemist, from Exon Mobile. 3. Science Research: BCMA at Ryan takes pride in preparing its students for Health Science. Health Science includes careers in medical practice, research and engineering. In order to prepare students for research, BCMA at Ryan has launched for the first time a school-wide science fair with the help of BCM. It successfully hosted and showed off 100s of projects. The awards ceremony was highlighted by a talk by Doug Pettitt, senior project coordinator for the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative and a reward visit by the Southwest Mobile Dairy Farm, where

students witnessed how cows are milked and learned about livestock and the nutrition of milk.

Along similar lines, it is the goal of BCMA at Ryan to integrate the health sciences into all courses following the Next Generation Science Standards. BCMA at Ryan has offered a couple of integration workshops for teachers and executed its first official STEAM integration day where teachers provided fun science, technology, engineering, art and math health science integration points into their classroom with the help of BCM. Financial support to create a strong foundation for the research program through supplies and software tools is provided by the Magnet Schools of America Program grant. 4. Harvest Lab: BCMA at Ryan with the help of Urban Harvest and BCM launched its edible garden last year with curriculum support from Urban Harvest and BCM. It continues to move forward through garden club electives this year with curriculum help from Urban Harvest, BCM and EcoUSA. Dr. William will be heading the Harvest Lab next year and is running her first Harvest Lab event at NuWaters Coop with Ms. Scott. They will sell dried basil. Financial support is provided by the Magnet Schools of America Program grant and EcoUSA. 5. A Tech Cafe was started at a Parent Involvement Day in the library for parents to learn about electronic access points for materials and student records. BCMA at Ryan’s would like to continue these cafes with the help of the PTO. 6. PEIMS (Public Education Information Management System) 2015 – 2016 published on November 6, 2015. BCMA at Ryan is comprised of 10% Asian, 36% Black/African American, 45% latino, 7% white and 1% of two or more ethnicities. 59% are considered economically disadvantaged. 39% have been tested as gifted and talented, 26% at risk, and 1% are special education. 7. PUA (Per unit allocation) cut off is $275. BCMA at Ryan does not expect to loose any new teachers. As per HISD, BCMA at Ryan, like other HISD schools, will have a counselor and librarian next academic year. 8. Projected Enrollment: Enrollment for the school is projected to be around 775 students total for the next academic year, with 320 sixth grade students projected to be accepted. No new seventh graders are scheduled to enroll. 9. Magnet Schools of America Program Grant update: $1,257,238.68 have been spent or are ear-marked to be spent by August 2018. The money has supported the acquisition of laptops (1 for every pair of students), professional development for teachers, additional staffing needs (i.e. support of a technologists), contract with BCM, Educational software tools, Math needs like calculators and all other needs associated with creating a strong the health science theme for the school. 10. Tutoring: BCMA at Ryan launched peer-tutoring programs last year under Mr. Duesterbeck. This year, Mr. Barnes has joined by offering fantastic peer tutoring

opportunities during enrichment classes. Peer tutoring is a service learning opportunity where both the tutor and the tutee benefit immensely. The peer tutor benefits as teaching helps reinforce and helps them retain what they previously learned. The peer tutor also benefits through the act of serving and reaching out. The tutee benefits through the opportunity to learn from a tutor of similar age to whom they can relate. Our peer tutors are Scholastic Stewards. 11. Staffing and Subs: Staff and teacher retention needs are being addressed through the creation of rewards programs. One such program is the We are BCMA at Ryan acknowledgement, where a faculty or staff member gets acknowledged for their contributions to BCMA at Ryan. Another one is Random Acts of Kindness, where student council provides random acts of kindness to faculty and staff that they find very helpful to the student body. The PTO offers monthly lunch to faculty and staff that provides a venue for camaraderie. Teacher mentoring for new teachers is provided by Mr. Deusterbeck. Additional mentoring opportunities will be provided by additional seasoned teachers. Teachers will be encouraged to visit other teacher classrooms more as well. To help teachers manage students of diverse backgrounds, diversity training will be provided. Furthermore, additional monthly teacher rewards programs will be unveiled this academic year for next year. Closing remarks: Thank you to all those who attended. Mr. Barnes is leading a Black History Awareness program for Black History month. For diversity training, BCMA at Ryan will look into joining another school like Energy High school for Capturing Kids Hearts training and diversity training from Texas A&M University.