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MECA HS PTA General and Election Meeting- October 18, 2023

Virtual meeting (zoom)

Attendees: (Complete list available upon request)

Meeting Started 7:05pm with Quorum of parent members. 

PTA President Josh Ehrlich chairing the meeting. Monica Soto PTA secretary scribing the meeting notes.

1. Approval of meeting minutes: Josh shared the screen showing where the meeting notes for June and review the highlights of the September meeting on screen. All PTA meeting notes are available to the PTA website https://mecahspta.org   . After making a motion for the approval of the minutes, both meeting minutes were approved and no recorded opposition.

2. President’s Report- Josh Ehrlich: 

• College Night Informational Meeting: Josh informed that the PTA will host a College Night during the November 15th  general meeting. This will be a presentation from Ms Camacho (Assistant Principal) and Ms Laurent (College Counselor). All parents and guardians of all grades will be invited.

• Parent’s Mixer: the executive board would like to hold a parents’ mixer. The goal is to get to know 9th and 10th grade parents and meet the PTA board. Stay tuned for the date.

• Also stay tunned for information PTA will continue to do the Breakfast/Dessert table for MECA. 

3. Treasurer’s Report- Shelby Banks:

Shelby provided a recap that the PTA has provided scholarships for the last three years. The PTA is looking for ideas to fundraise for this.

4. Principal’s Report-: Patricia Edwards, Assistant principal, provided the following updates and news:

Updates:

• MECA is working on efforts to support the new core curriculum in Math, science and English. 

• Ther was a successful In-campus College Fair last Friday. Kudos to Ms Laurent for putting it together.

• Newcomers support: MECA has a dedicated Intake team to help support the newcomers to our school community. The School Leadership Team (SLT) is looking for ways to support those students and their families. ENL staff are providing support to teachers to connect to those students when English is not their first language. 

Questions from parents: 

Q1- Has instructional time being affected by the additional services being provided to the newcomers students? Should parents be doing additional actions to support their students?

A1: Ms Edwards answered what she sees. Students are supporting other students. Most classrooms have two teachers where one provides instructions, while the other walks around to make sure everyone is following the class.

A2: Ms Ingram, 9th grade teacher, also provided answer based on her experience on this. She said she does not have a co-teacher and provided testimony that it is overwhelming for her. She could also see many staff who need help with setting/adjusting the class. 

At this point parents commented with ideas and comments to connect with parents of those students: in-person meeting at school, offer parents workshop to show how to “  “ in their own language maybe after school or a Saturday. Josh added this is an item of discussion during the October STL meeting. Ms Edwards added that parent’s engagement is the 5th priority for MECA.

A parent knows about a flyer with different information that will be beneficial to those parents seeking asylum. Ms Cruz informed that every family has a case worker and that they are the ones managing those families immediate needs.

5. New Business- 

No new business.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:37pm .

Please reach out via email to ptainfo@mecahspta.org 

Replies from our PTA HS comes from 02M280PA@schools.nyc.gov