General John Nixon School Advisory Council 2008-2009
We are pleased to announce 1 nominee for this year’s open position on the School Advisory Council. Listed below is her statement, expressing her reasons for wanting to serve as a parent representative. Ballots will be available in the cafeteria at Back to School Night on Thursday, October 2nd. Ballots will be collected and tallied by the PTO. Please take the time to vote!
My name is Jamie Vandervelden and I am the mom of Justin and Olivia, a fourth grader and a second grader here at Nixon. I have enjoyed the role as your parent representative on the School Advisory Council (SAC) for the past two years. I would love to have the opportunity to serve a second term on the SAC to work with the school administration, faculty and other parents to define and implement the road map that will continue to improve our school in the next few years.
I am a dedicated, hard-working, organized person who has served as an advocate for the children in our school in this position. In my position on the SAC for the past two years, I have been able to provide valuable input on our current School Improvement Plan (SIP). In this time, we have had many initiatives both here at Nixon and District-wide. From a core-curriculum perspective our SIP has included increased math differentiation and challenge, guided reading used in all grades, a new and successful writing program and enhanced science and social studies teaching through the use of team teaching, better curriculum maps and science vocabulary treasuries. From a school culture perspective, the SIP has focused on enhanced communication between parents and teachers including more frequent classroom newsletters, improvements in school meeting and changes to the lunch/recess process including more time to eat and more supervision at recess. As part of the SAC, we have valued parent input in shaping the SIP by use of two parent surveys. I am very pleased that initiatives implemented via the SIP resulted in improved survey outcomes over the two years during which I have been a SAC member.
In addition to the core responsibilities required of SAC members, I have taken the initiative to help the school and Ms. Jay in additional capacities. I coordinated the effort to provide challenge math games to all classrooms at Nixon by compiling a list of games for teachers, sourcing funds from the PTO, direct parent donations and by drafting a SERF grant request and by spearheading the purchasing effort. I also drafted the SERF grant request which ultimately provided Project M3 math challenge materials to all the elementary schools in Sudbury. I have used my computer skills to aide in updating the Parent Handbook, revising and formatting the SIP and compiling a detailed analysis of the parent survey results to the SAC. I have also had the opportunity to present to the School Committee for the past two years as part of Nixon’s State of the School report.
Furthermore, I have been volunteering at Nixon in various other capacities. I was instrumental in ensuring that the PTO was able to take advantage of a district-wide matching program, which brought ActivBoards to all of our 5th grade classes for the 2007-8 school year. I also helped advise the PTO as they reviewed their fundraising dollars to provide these boards for all classrooms in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade during the 2008-9 school year. These boards are amazing tools which continue to excite both our teachers and students with the endless opportunities for new teaching and learning methods. I am presently the secretary of the PTO and one of the Room Parent Coordinators. I was the co-chair of 2006’s Great Math Mystery Night, I served as co-chair of the School Directory Committee for two years and I have been a member of the Science Fair Committee. I have also served as a room parent, a volunteer in the library and a lunch/recess monitor.
Prior to my children attending Nixon, I was a member of the advisory board for my children’s preschool for four years. In my professional life, I worked as a consultant for a leading management consulting firm where I designed, implemented and determined the financial implications of benefit programs for large corporate and non-profit employers. I acquired many skills in that capacity that I bring to the SAC, including analysis of financial information, interpretation of government regulations, demographic planning, preparation and presentation of communication materials to various constituency groups and creative problem solving.
Our district goals are aimed at ensuring that “all students will reach their intellectual and personal potential” and I would love to continue to be a part of the SAC to ensure that we achieve these goals.
I would appreciate your continued support and vote at Back to School Night so I can serve our school and our children in this position for another term.
Thanks for your participation!