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PSMLA Executive
Council Meeting Agenda I. Welcome / Introductions / New Roster ( 10:00 a.m. ) Saturday: Present were: M. Boettjer, V. Burke, C. Dohmen, T. Fall ,E. Irish, A. Richards, P. Rzodkiewicz , N .Sterniak, J. Stewart, K. Williams, D. Wills, B. Youngs, R .Hall, K. Boykin, P.Kolega, F. Mulhern, J. Pearce, S. Nimmrichter.. Absent were: R. Cartier, D.Rao, T. White and D. Prejsnar. Sunday: Present were all mentioned above. Absent were: A. Richards, P. Kolega ,J. Pearce ,D. Prejsnar, T. White and R. Cartier. There was discussion of need for archiving of Council projects, documents, works in progress etc. Council should send information to K. Boykin from time to time. Perhaps we will need to expand the Technology Committee to help with this.
II. Approval of Minutes (Burke) (Done via email) Addendum: On November 10, P. Rzodkiewicz motioned and J. Stewart seconded that PSMLA contribute $500 for the SOPI Workshop which will take place at the University of Pittsburgh in August of 2005. Council voted via Email to approve this motion.
III. Treasurer's Report (Wills ) P. Rzodkiewicz moved that Council accept the Treasurer's Report. C. Dohmen seconded. Motion carried.
IV. Business Manager's Report (Boykin)---2 reports PSMLA has 587 members plus 6 Institutional members as of this date. Membership letters and cards have been sent to all new and renewing members. Letters will be sent to methods instructors encouraging them to recruit members from among student teachers. There was discussion about recruiting members. Council accepted the Business Manager's Report.
V . Advertising Manager's Report (Hall) Letters have been sent to vendors and publishers for the 2005 Conference. Council accepted the Ad Manager's Report.
VI. COMMITTEE REPORTS 2005 Conference (Irish, Nimmrichter,Burke) Dr. Susanne Nimmrichter from Millersville University reported to Council on the upcoming PSMLA/MU 2005 Conference which will be held on October 28 and 29, 2005 at the Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center in Lancaster , Pa ."Hold the Date" postcards and electronic notices have been sent to members as well as to members of AATs and to Millersville University Conference attendees. Announcements and Session Proposal Forms have been posted on PSMLA Website since January. Proposals for sessions have been coming in and the committee looks forward to selecting from the varied topics. Keynote speakers with different international backgrounds will address the theme "World Languages: Promoting Peace for the Next Generation." Hotel rooms will be $99 and should be reserved directly from the Host Resort before September 28, 2005 . Telephone (717) 299-5500. A special visit to Millersville University 's new Language Laboratory will be arranged and a special interest Dinner at an Amish Farm will be available for 40 people for Friday evening. Registration forms are due to be mailed out in late summer. 2006 Conference (Rzodkiewicz) Phyllis Rzodkiewicz gave a deposit to The Ambassador Banquet and Conference Center in The Courtyard by Marriott in Erie which will be the conference site again in 2006. Splash Lagoon, a local attraction, is nearby. C. Dohmen will handle Registration, K. Williams will arrange for the food and D. Rao will be in charge of the sessions. The theme will be " Connections”. 2007 Conference Possible sites being considered include Philadelphia and the King of Prussia area. Awards Committee (Rzodkiewicz) Nominations for Teacher of the Year, K-12 and Post Secondary are still being accepted. The Historian was asked to develop or find a list of past Award winners. A suggestion was made that Council put this list on our website and ask for nominations from members. P. Rzodkiewicz will contact Devin Browne about this. Members are reminded that nominees must be PSMLA members, except for the Merit Award. Award plaques will be purchased from the same company as last year. Nominating Committee (Dohmen) New Council members elected were: Andrew Richards, Fox Chapel Area School District Elizabeth Crum, Quaker Valley School District Jane Hershberger, Conestoga Valley School District There was discussion about the time of year ballots are sent out and the voting procedure. Council will look into the possibility of voting on line. President Fall will again send letters to administrators of new Council members congratulating them on the election of their teacher,as well as to local newspapers. The Nominating Committee will present a slate of officers for approval by the membership in the Fall. Advocacy (Cartier and Sterniak) The Advocacy Committee wants to make up a packet of letters to present to Secretary Barnes. It was suggested by Council that P. Kolega use the letters which have already been written for this cause. Standards Committee (Rzodkiewicz) PSMLA Standards will be distributed at 2005 Conference even if PDE has not adopted state Standards. A session will be planned to give examples and activities to help teachers implement PSMLA standards in their classes. The next component will need to be a plan to help superintendents to work with the Standards. President Fall will draft a letter to Governor Rendell stressing the need for support of these standards in the state. YOL Committee (Frank Mulhern) Governor Rendell has proclaimed 2005 as the Year of Languages in Pennsylvania . E. Irish and F. Mulhern from PSMLA and P. Kolega from PDE attended the Meeting of the States at the NECTFL Conference. F. Mulhern has provided ongoing updates from ACTFL on YOL activities and PSMLA members participation in them. PEP Award Committee (Fall) In honor of the national 2005 Year of Languages, PSMLA is showcasing exemplary PA high school foreign language programs. In the fall of 2004, information was mailed to more than 1000 school districts and private schools in the state. PEP Awards are in four categories: Golden Globe, Silver Globe, Bronze Globe and Honorable Mention. More information about schools honored is available on the website. Membership Committee (Irish) Council discussed distribution of a brochure explaining the Institutional Membership. J. Stewart will look into prices for printing the brochure. It was decided that the Business Manager would do a mass mailing to school districts with the PEP Award and Institutional Membership information. Council will continue to advertise these for several years so that members become aware of the programs. Council also discussed what should be included in the E-Flash and how often it should be sent to members. Varying the foreign language stressed and sending out fewer E-Flashes per year were ideas considered. Council was reminded to send ideas for sharing in the E-Flash to the committee. Members are also invited to share teaching tips, useful websites and helpful hints with other PSMLA members via the E-Flash. Finance Committee (Rzodkiewicz) P. Rzodkiewicz made the following motions: 1. That PSMLA give a free meal and registration to conference presenters on the day of their presentation. This would apply to up to 3 co-presenters. K. Williams seconded. Motion carried. 2. That vendors (Up to 2) get free meal on Friday . D.Wills seconded. Motion carried. 3. That PSMLA subsidize $50 per night toward hotel expenses for Executive Council members not otherwise reimbursed for Executive Council meetings, starting with the Fall Executive Council meeting. M. Boettjer seconded .Motion carried. 4. That PSMLA cover the costs of Executive Council members' dinner on Saturday night, April 17. D. Wills seconded. Motion carried. Cultural Communications Alliance (Wills) The second competition is coming up with Heinz Corporation on April 27 in Pittsburgh . Student teams will be giving their presentation of how to market ketchup in India . Businessmen will judge each team and award prizes. The Bayer Corporation began this competition several years ago. International Education Committee (Prejsnar) PaCIE has proposed tighter links to PSMLA. Our PaCIE representative will discuss these issues further with PaCIE. Technology Committee (Youngs) This committee needs a new chair and several more members. A co-chair in the East and one in the West would be the most advantageous. Co -chairs would be invited to our next meeting. Council discussed developing a separate listserve but decided to stay with the free one for another year. Publication Committee (Youngs) The Spring edition of the Forum will be mailed within the next few weeks. Council discussed changing the publication dates for the two editions. New submission dates from now on will be January 1 and July 1 to allow for timely sharing of news with members. Bylaws Committee (Boykin and Mulhern) No report at this time. Professional Development (Mulhern) Reminder that the SOPI Rater Training Workshop will take place at the University of Pittsburgh on August 16 and 17. The committee will update its list of workshop presenters and review the guidelines. Publicity committee (Youngs) (new) President Fall reiterated the need to continue publicizing PSMLA events, awards, etc. to the local media. Council members were encouraged to send her a list of local media contact names and numbers for us to have a database available. Local/smaller newspapers often have space for educational news.
ACE/PDE Certification Projects (Fall) (new) President Fall has contacted universities and invited them to participate in an ACE/PDE Certification Project. This initiative would reward K-12 students for attaining proficiency, motivate K-12 students to attain higher levels of proficiency, enable development of K-16 program articulation and unite language departments setting common goals and finding common solutions. Discussion would take place with these universities concerning how much credit and what type of credit would be given. Several university language departments have already endorsed the ACTFL/ACE initiative and President Fall will be meeting with other local university departments to discuss their participation.
OTHER REPORTS : ACT 48 (Youngs) PSMLA will grant Act 48 credit as an umbrella organization for other national groups such as AATG, etc with the following proviso: 1) all teachers desiring PSMLA to input their hours be members of PSMLA, 2) PSMLA receive a detailed agenda of the workshop stressing content and hours, 3) PSMLA receive a biography of the presenter(s) and 4) PSMLA receive the necessary information to input for teachers requesting that PSMLA grant credit for their participation. It is understood that if PSMLA does not find the workshops/ events to be ACT 48 "worthy", then PSMLA will no longer input those hours. ACTFL (Mulhern) ACTFL has developed a separate YOL website (www.yearoflanguages.org) which contains a calendar of YOL activities, endorsements, the Senate resolution and many related items. Teachers should become familiar with this site. At the ACTFL Conference, display boards were organized for member organizations to display materials that their association had developed for YOL. PSMLA was able to display YOL posters, brochures and PEP information. JNCL (Sterniak) N. Sterniak gave an overview of bills proposed in the last several years dealing with World Languages.No bills have been recommended recently by Pa . Congressmen. N. Sterniak will represent PSMLA at the Delegate Assembly in Washington , D.C. in May. Council requested that Nancy focus on support for FLAP grants available to districts not just the States and funding for professional development by the state organizations. NECTFL / Meade Fellowship (Irish) Elizabeth Crum was the recipient of the Meade Fellowship for 2005. There was discussion about ways to attract more applications in the future. D. Rao, C. Dohmen and S. McElhinny represented PSMLA with their Best of Pennsylvania Session at NECTFL in April. PDE (Kolega) ASL is now considered a language, therefore certification will need to be developed. P. Kolega is working on this now. ADA will be involved in this as well as universities. There was discussion of the “Intermediate High” level for certification of teachers, and that this level is too low for teachers to develop intermediate and advanced levels in their students. Ecuador will be twinning with a rural, vo-tech school and a Technical College in Pa. The agreement is to be finalized. PDE applied for FLAP grants for Erie , Harrisburg , Philadelphia and York school districts and for the Asian Society grant to design a curriculum resource website. PDE also sent mailings for YOL and did publicity for video conferencing at Chapel Hill . Outstanding Senior Award (Boettjer) The application date is now May 15. The award is for students who "have learned the majority of their language in the U.S. " Students will be asked to give PSMLA permission to publish their photo and a brief biography. Upcoming Meetings (Fall meeting date and location) Sept 24, 25 2005, tentatively in State College. New Business- Drew Richards will be in Germany for a year, Michelle Williams will be asked to serve in the interim. PSMLA Executive Council meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 17, 2005 . |