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School Parent Council

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The School Parent Council (SPC) is the independently established voice of all families in the Curley School community.

Curley families are invited to participate in elections to choose parents/guardians to serve on the SPC Executive Committee, on the School Site Council, and on the city-wide Parent Advisory Councils (PAC). Fundraising, recruiting parent volunteers and sponsoring academic and community-building programs are some  of the SPC activities. The SPC Executive Board (who include co-Chairs, a Treasurer and Secretary) conducts monthly meetings and organizes various projects. Through the SPC, parents decide which issues to address and have direct access to the principal and school faculty. The present Co-Chairs are Dave Demerjian and Genevieve Day, our Treasurer is Kimberly Rand, and our co-secretaries are Lisa Foulger and Julie Smith-Bartoloni.

2012-13 School Parent Council Meetings

During the 2012/2013 school year, SPC meetings are held the first Wednesday of each month from November onward while school is in session. Meeting are held in the Upper School Library. Childcare and food is available during the evening time slots; and food and Spanish translation will be provided during the morning meetings. The dates for this year’s meetings are below:

  • Tues, October 10, 2012, 6pm – 8pm (Held in the Lower School Cafeteria)
  • Wed, November 7, 2012, 6pm – 8pm
  • Wed, December 5, 2012, 8:45am – 10:45 am
  • Wed, January 9, 2013, 6pm – 8pm (This is the second Wednesday of the month)
  • Wed, February 6, 2013,  8:45am – 10:45 am
  • Wed, March 6, 2013, 6pm – 8pm
  • Wed, April 3, 2013,  8:45am – 10:45 am
  • Wed, May 1, 2013, 6pm – 8pm
  • Wed, June 5, 2013,  8:45am – 10:45 am

See here for minutes of past SPC meetings.

SPC Sub-Committees

The work of the SPC is carried out by the function of these committees: School-Site Council, Science, Fundraising, Outreach, Arts Teams, and Schoolyard Improvement.

  • School Site Council (SSC)
      There are 7 elected parent representatives on the School Site Council. The SSC is the governing body of the school and makes decisions about school programs, budgeting, and personnel and have direct access to the principal and school faculty. The SSC usually meets once a month during the afternoon. For more information, please contact Leah Barcan.
  • Arts Team
      The Curley Arts Team is a committee of parents and teachers committed to enhancing the school’s arts program. If you’re interested in working on arts or music programming, contact Bill Elsbree (welsbree@msn.com).
      The Arts Team is responsible for planning art and music programming and events for Curley K-8 students.  This committee works with the school’s teachers and administrators to support existing programming and to bring in outside resources to enrich our children’s art experience.
  • Events & Fundraising
      The primary goal of the fundraising committee is to raise money to support art, music, and science at the Curley K-8. To this end, the committee organizes events such as the Fall Fling, a holiday gift wrapping fundraiser through Barnes & Nobles, letter-writing campaigns, sponsored walks, a Silent Auction at Canary Square, an annual spring Plant Sale that’s now in it’s 14th year, and plenty of other activities. Yes, bake sales too! For a complete list of events organized by this committee, or if you’re interested in helping, contact Molly Mariano (mollymariano@gmail.com).
  • Outreach & Communications
      The Outreach Committee collaborates with administrators, teachers, and coordinators to improve communications between our school and our parent community; coordinates communications between the SPC and Curley families; keeps families apprised of Curley K-8 news and events; and works on outreach projects aimed at increasing the number of engaged families, with the goal of ensuring that our active parent group reflects the diversity of our student body. Current methods of communication include emails, flyers in your children’s backpacks, and a our website.  Contact Carrie Fletcher (carrie.fletcher@gmail.com) if you’re interested in helping with outreach.
      Please note: If you need to send out a school-wide notice, all parent-originated flyers should be forwarded to Carrie Fletcher for pre-distribution translation (English/Spanish) and review.
  • Community Initiatives
      In 2008, the Curley K-8 was the recipient of a $300,000 grant from the Boston Schoolyard Initiative (BSI) to design and build an improved schoolyard and an outdoor classroom for all our students! With the guidance of BSI and then co-principals Mirna Vega-Wilson and Jeffrey Slater, the Schoolyard Committee chose a landscape architect (John Ryder of Icon Designs) and construction began in Summer 2009.
      The ribbon cutting ceremony took place on October 8, 2009, opening the schoolyard after Phase 1 of the project was completed.  A new mural was completed in Summer 2010 in conjunction with Mayor Menino’s mural crew.
      We are currently fundraising in order to bring Phase 2 of the project to a successful conclusion (namely, a gateway seating area at the Centre Street entrance and a playing field with perimeter track behind the school.)
      The Community Initiatives Committee is comprised of parents, teachers and community organizations.  The Committee organizes a community clean-up of the schoolyard each semester and undertakes general improvement projects (planting, painting, etc.)  both outside and inside the school.  In January 2011, the Curley hosted Boston Cares’ day of service in which more than 600 volunteers chose to take “a day on” rather than a day off.
      A new project to steward our orchard on Centre Street is beginning that, together with Earthworks, aims to assist in maintaining, harvesting, preserving and donating the fruit of our labor.
  • Science Committee
      The Science Committee works closely with our science teachers.  Last year this group put together our first annual Curley Night at the Museum of Science.  The event was a huge success, and we nearly filled the museum with Curley students and their families.  Our science teachers are engaged and ready to collaborate with a parent chair on this year’s event! Open chair position – please contact Carrie Fletcher if you’re interested!