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Minutes 07-28-11 MINUTES OF THE EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD MEETING HELD ON JULY 28, 2011, AT 7:00 P.M. IN COMMISSION CHAMBERS, CITY HALL, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA PRESENT: Steve Waldman, Chair Sherri Claude, Board Liaison Myra Jones Hattie Miller Libby Stroud Lori Wilkinson Khadijah Davis, Student regular voting member Calin Roiban, Student regular voting member Dr. Tiffany North, Alternate ABSENT: Mary Morera, Vice Chair Carol Lundquist April Nobles, Alternate Mikerline Louis, Student non-voting member I. Call to Order Chair Waldman called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. II. Pledge of Allegiance/Moment of Silent Reflection Ms. Wilkinson led the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silent reflection. III. Approval of Minutes of June 23, 2011 Ms. Jones moved to approve the minutes and was seconded by Ms. Miller. The motion passed unanimously. IV. Approval of Agenda Dr. North moved to approve the agenda and was seconded by Ms. Wilkinson. The motion passed unanimously. V. Announcements/Presentations/Correspondence th Chair Waldman announced that he and his wife would be celebrating their 50 wedding anniversary and in honor of the occasion donated $50 to the Board. Meeting Minutes Education and Youth Advisory Board Boynton Beach, FL July 28, 2011 Ms. Claude shared an article from the Boynton Forum newspaper on the Borovy Award winner. The American Legion donated $300 towards the Borovy Award fund. VI. Public Audience th Jeannie Havelin , 734 NE 9 Avenue, wanted to thank the Board for their help with the Young Artists Showcase. For those new to the Board, she introduced herself as President of the Sister Cities Committee and advised the Board had partnered with her for the past five years with the Young Artists Showcase. VII. New Business A. Sister cities – Introduction of Liaison from Qufu, China and discussion of educational exchange program. Ms. Havelin introduced the official liaison, Jenny (Yuanyuan Jiang), from the sister city, Qufu, China which was the birthplace of Confucius. Jenny is a teacher in Qufu at the high school, which has 6,000 students. She has been the liaison with the Young Artists program and was looking to expand some student programs and student/teacher exchanges. Jenny informed the group that she was here looking for further communication and asked the group for questions. She advised she was a high school teacher and taught in the #1 high school in Qufu. Chair Waldman inquired of Jenny how more participation could be encouraged from the children and students in China to make the program even better. Jenny felt that teachers in Qufu should work harder on that and possibly start earlier. She suggested that other schools, not only her school, could participate. There are two high schools in Qufu and several middle schools to enable the activities and programs to be expanded. Ms. Wilkinson asked how the grading system worked in China and how old students are in high school. Jenny advised high school was broken down as Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3. The age range was 15-18 years of age. When high school is completed, most of the students attend college if the college entrance exam was passed. Sometimes, this becomes a problem as the competition was extremely fierce and the exam very complicated. The college entrance test was similar to the SAT in the United States. Children in China begin kindergarten at three or four years of age, then attend six years in primary grades, three years in middle school and three years in high school. The school day was much longer and in high school there was a morning reading class from 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. There is no teacher present during this time and the students read articles from textbooks aloud. From 7:40 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., students attend four classes. After 11:45 a.m., there is a break where the students go home and return to school at 2:30 p.m. and continue to 5:30 p.m. Every night from 6:40 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., 2 Meeting Minutes Education and Youth Advisory Board Boynton Beach, FL July 28, 2011 there was night class, five days a week. In night class, teachers do not teach. Students go to study by themselves. Some students live in dormitories because they live far from home; so weekend classes would be common if they cannot go home due to distance. Some classes are also held on Sunday night and teachers are usually assigned to “keep watch” to make sure the students are studying. Ms. Wilkinson inquired about extracurricular activities such as sports. Jenny advised it was part of the school day. There were many after school programs that students partake in. All students, as in the United States, must take core classes. At Grade 1, all students study all subjects. At the end of Grade 1, the students divide into two groups, as some students do not like physics or chemistry and some do not like history or politics. One group would have interest in the science areas and the other in literature or history area. There are approximately 50 students per class. Jenny advised she currently teaches two classes for a total of 103 students. Ms. Jones inquired whether the schools were private or owned by the government. Jenny advised the schools were public schools owned by the government, but there were private schools in Qufu also. Usually they are English training schools. In China, a lot of attention was paid to English. English, Chinese and Math are three subjects that are mandatory. The students wear school uniforms, but not everyday. They would wear them on special occasions or for meetings. There are special programs for students needing discipline. Each teacher helps five students in each class. The teacher must be responsible for the students and their behavior. The student must keep a journal, keeping track of what they thought or did that day and turn it in to the teacher each day. The teacher would determine what the problem was and talk to the student about it. Dr. North inquired what the high school graduation requirements were and what exams or tests were required of the students to successfully complete high school. Jenny advised there was a test at Grade 2. If the test was passed at Grade 2, the student would receive a graduation certificate. If the student failed, it would have to be retaken at Grade 3. If the student failed at Grade 3, they would retake it again. All the subjects are included in one test. Jenny explained the province where she was from had a very large population. The students and teachers are under a lot of pressure. The Educational Bureau from the Province made a rule that it was not allowed to teach students or to have students take st classes during summer vacation. Classes end July 10 and begin on September 1. There were questions regarding drugs and weapons and whether they were a problem in the high schools. Jenny advised it was very difficult to obtain weapons in China. There also was never a problem with drugs because the Government strictly controlled those two issues. She advised drugs in China were more expensive than gold. In some 3 Meeting Minutes Education and Youth Advisory Board Boynton Beach, FL July 28, 2011 provinces in China that are close to Cambodia and Vietnam, some people use drugs there. People risk their lives to sell drugs illegally. If a person was caught carrying a certain amount of drugs in China, the person would be sentenced to death. The question was asked about students obtaining employment outside of school. Students would usually get jobs in restaurants, labor jobs or tutoring small children. The students who would not have the ability to pass the college entrance exam usually work in the labor jobs. If a student goes to the University, they would work office jobs, and executive jobs. But with such a large population, job hunting was much more difficult than before. Someone could still graduate from a University yet still perform labor work, due to the inability to find another job in their field. Years ago, it was easy to find a job as a teacher, but now there are many teachers and not enough teaching jobs. In education and government jobs, the competition was very fierce. Most young adults want to be independent after graduation. In China, the family bond was much different and much closer than in the United States. After marriage, in Qufu, most live with in-laws. Jenny explained that this was fairly typical. She advised they all live and eat together. She further advised her mother-in-law does all the cooking, which was very common in China. In past times, Chinese families had prejudices against girls because boys could continue the family line and to help work on the land. Girls would marry and leave the home and care for their in-laws and not their parents. They were not allowed to be educated to gain skills. Today, in China, women are equally educated and hold high positions in government. Some were very powerful, and if there were children, the in- laws care for them. Because the population in China was so great, there was a limitation on the amount of children a family could have. To control the population, each family usually had one child. Jenny asked the group to assist her in having additional communication to further the education and business portion of the sister city relationship. She commented that she was hoping to possibly coordinate student exchange programs so students in the United States could visit Qufu and experience the cultures there and have students from Qufu visit the United States. She advised a meeting was scheduled with the principal at Boynton Beach High School and she was going to discuss the exchange program. She currently had a pen pal program with American Heritage School with a teacher from Taiwan. Possibly a short program could be initiated where students could come for a short period of time to live with families. Dan DeCarlo , advised he was the past liaison for the Community Relations Board and worked for the City for 10 years. He is currently a professor at the University in Qufu and teaches all three levels of English. Because the focus in China was teaching students grammar, composition and sentence structure, rather than oral English, students graduating from high school have a hard time communicating due to a poor 4 Meeting Minutes Education and Youth Advisory Board Boynton Beach, FL July 28, 2011 level of English. His main objective in the University is to teach the teachers the oral English language. The feeling in China was that a person would not be able to secure a job in five years without good English. His daughter is with him in Qufu and attends middle school there. He advised he was working on the student/teacher exchange program to hopefully take place next summer and hoped the Board would work with them to identify students here. He had meetings with FAU (Florida Atlantic University) and will be meeting with Miami Dade College primarily because they have a Confucius Institute located there. There are over 400 Confucius Institutes in the world, with over 80 in the United States that teach Chinese culture and language. Ms. Wilkinson expressed the opinion that our students would be at a disadvantage in a teacher/student exchange program as the students here are not required to learn the Chinese language, whereas the Chinese students are required to learn the English language. Mr. DeCarlo advised it really would not be an issue because the students there want to learn English. Boynton Beach High School makes classes available on Saturdays for students who wish to learn Mandarin/Chinese, so an exchange program would allow them to better their language learning also. He indicated the goal was to bring 9-12 students to the United States next summer but advised the biggest deterrent was the airfare which runs about $1,200, so many families cannot afford it. Mr. DeCarlo also advised he was putting a facebook page together for the sister city and to discuss the progress of the visit. The equivalent to Facebook in China is called QQ. Every student in school had QQ which gives them access to the internet and works like texting. The Facebook page was just created and would be called Boynton Beach Sister Cities. VIII. Old Business A. Program Planning for Upcoming Year Chair Waldman explained the shredding event to the two new student members. th Options for dates in October were discussed. It was decided that October 15 would be nd the first choice and October 22 would be the second choice. Ms. Wilkinson would clear it with the school and Gator Shredding. B. Youth Volunteer Bank Chair Waldman explained the Youth Volunteer bank. He advised youth are asked to sign a piece of paper indicating hours volunteered and submit it to Ms. Claude to include on a database. Any volunteer work is accepted. The volunteer, in turn, would receive a gift card or other form of recognition. 5 Meeting Minutes Education and Youth Advisory Board Boynton Beach, FL July 28, 2011 C. Fundraising This item was not discussed. IX. Future Meeting Dates August, 25, 2011 and September 22, 2011 X. Adjournment Ms. Miller moved to adjourn the meeting and was seconded by Ms. Wilkinson. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting properly adjourned at 8:22 p.m. tf tct tOj~ lA/l G Ellie Caruso Recording Secretary 6