To: kvpta@iitb.ac.in
From: ptaboard@iitb.ac.in
Subject: Minutes of meeting with parents (classes 1-2)
X-Mailer: MH-E 7.82; nmh 1.0.4; GNU Emacs 20.7.1
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The meeting (held on Sunday, Feb 20, 2005) had about 60 parents. It was
indeed heartening to see parents so enthusiastic about making KVIIT THE
school to be.  The meeting started with an introduction by the PTA
secretary.  

Several points were raised.  They are listed here in NO particular
order! Please do not take it for granted that there is uniform support
for all the points mentioned here.

For the draft agenda for the teacher meeting please see the pta web
page. 

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1. Books in school:  
- Good idea. 
- Often, condition of books are bad.

- Do we really need a second set of books? Can't they be looked after better?
- For a test, books should be returned in advance, not a day before the
  test is scheduled. 


2. Communication with parents and parents to teachers: 

- Communication is not enough with some information arriving rather late. 
- The diary is being under utilized.
- The diary itself is handed out late.
- Schedule of many events in unclear.


3. Evaluation:

- Can we extend the no test policy till 5th? 
- Will there be pressure on the kids when going from 2nd to 3rd (HW and
  testing).

4. Projects:

- Projects are sometimes trivial (like cutting and pasting with no new
  knowledge being gained) or too complex for children to do so that
  parents end up doing 
- Shouldn't parents refuse to do complex projects?
- Projects should be practical encouraging thinking by the student.

5. Library:

- Inadequate library facilities for 1st and 2nd.  
- Can books be checked out? 
- Parents were willing to contribute towards setting up this
  facility. 
- Sports, arts and craft, computer: More structure required.

6. Can we explore 5 day week.

7. Parents showed interest in getting involved with and a majority
   volunteered to spend time helping make improvements in the school. 

8. Uneven participation in activities by children. Some children get
   too many opportunities while others get very few or none at all
   which is very discouraging to them.

9. Assembly: 

- Can we split assembly into two parts possibly conducted in parallel in
  grounds on either side of the school building, one for primary and one
  for secondary/high where topics of relevance can be discussed in each
  assembly. The same idea of splitting can be applied to all school
  gatherings.

10. Lunch hour: Classes are empty but not monitored as a result of
    which some books may get trashed by kids playing around in
    the class.

11. Monsoon: Appropriate attire for monsoons (gumboots to be allowed)
    and indeed the idea of white shoes 4 days a week makes it very hard
    to keep shoes clean. The idea of brown canvas shoes was mooted for
    all days of the week.

12. Future meetings: Should be more often and the parents wanted to see
    at least the principal if not some teachers present at these
    meetings to gauge the mood of the parents.