October 17, 2011

Laura Horn Items for this weeks Agenda--4 things on our list for today

• Updated School Improvement Plan
• Instant Recess
• Final Discussion on Tutoring
• Issue of Printing progress reports vs Parent Assist

School Improvement Plan:

• We need to go back to each section and look at the data, and see if there is anything we need to change
• For example, EOG reading scores--we did not target certain areas, and some other areas that we targeted we might need to tweak a little.  Also, some other subgroups have popped up that may need targeting--Gentry and Neal have been adding data
• New district requirement for a school safety plan--yellow copy of safety plan for the school
• Blue copy is also something new that is required--school wide discipline plan--we are at a bit of an advantage  because we already had some of this in place--was in the staff handbook. We did not have to start from scratch
• We have added  a section on ALC
• Also added a section on bullying and positive intervention (those seem to be working very well)
• ISS attendance has been way down--some suspensions have actually been OSS as opposed to ISS--showing students we are serious about things like bullying
• Maxcy--positive reinforcement--maybe include parent contact log that teachers are doing?
• bully patrol survey is way down, a couple were pranks, only 4/5 that were legit...maybe more willing to come forward with concerns openly now that bullying is so well publicized?
• SIP has to be submitted to downtown soon.
• Look through in the next week, and see if anything needs to be changed or edited and let Gentry know.

Grade level proposals  for "instant recess": Part of the NC Healthy Schools...
The following are the current proposals brought forward from grade level reps--these may still be tweaked.

6th Grade Proposal-

• Propose to go into gym every day 10 minutes before lunch, during encore planning.
• Groups will overlap by about five minutes, and no more than two groups in there at one time. 
• Starts at ~ 11:25, and the  last group goes through ~ 12:00

7th grade Proposal-

• They would like to do it by team...
• Everyone will use the videos that were offered to us--brain busters,  teams will determine which videos and mostly last ten minutes before they go to electives.  Downs expressed a concern about streaming all those videos at the same time, possible to download.  Gentry to send Downs the link

8th grade Proposal:

• Go outside and walk the track 
• Ten minutes built into lunch time
• One teacher doesn't want to do that,  rainy and cold issues?  
• Horn is thinking about bouncing around the idea of the brain buster videos on the web for the bad weather day concerns
• Walking the track should not conflict with 6th grade in the gym since 8th grade would be outside
• Gentry--we can always try and if we run into bottle necks, then we will adjust
• Concern--Hall door locked at end--can we take a look at that?  Gentry will look into options for that
• 8th grade lunch group starts at 10:45, and last group ends ~11:45.

Tutoring during planning periods--final discussion--are we all clear?

• We made some decisions here at the last SIT meeting
• Grade levels sounded a little wishy washy...
• We need to clear up the decisions we made here on SIT--those plans are still in effect
• Deb and Gentry are working on the groups and final details of the plan, groups, schedule, etc.
• Will be organized in a way so that students will not miss the same encore course all the time
• Will be as simple as possible, and will be available on-line
• Days will be Wednesday-Thursday
• Curriculum information (Neal  is sick today)  
• Deb was working on lessons,
• She wants to work with reps around the building to get some consistency with lessons
• Should be able to reuse some of the material since your groups will rotate.
• All information will be in writing.
• We are targeting our non proficient kids so there should also be some consistent goals there.
• Issues?
• Possible conflicts on parent conferences? 
• Can they be focused on Mondays and Fridays?
• Maxcy--could we say as a rule of thumb that they be consistently scheduled from Guidance on those days where ever possible?
• Issues with 504's and IEP's because of the sheer volume of those meetings. 
• Worrell--Can we double up Math and Science, and LA and Social Studies for example?  Problems...some will tag team, one teaches while one goes and makes copies.
• Professionalism issue...need to stick behind the pairings with both teachers being in there teaching. 
• What about Sub days?
• Should subs be doing tutoring sessions as a general rule?
• If a sub is there--go onto encore class?  Or tag team again with the remaining team teacher or other teacher in 8th grade?
• It was agreed that subs should be able to help the other teacher who is paired for tutoring.

Printing of Progress Reports/Downs brought this issue up

• At last Technology meeting there was a long discussion about the printing of progress reports in light of the new printer management program (each print out is costing us almost a penny per page)
• With 1200 students and 70 + teachers printing 100-300 pages each time we are talking hundreds of dollars and also wear and tear on the printers. 
• Betty Weycker's position was that schools should be using Parent Assist and not printing progress reports.

 Concerns:

• With a large free and reduced lunch population--how much Internet access is there?  Maxcy said that Mandy Durrenece said that an extensive survey done at Flat Rock (60% free and reduced) had over 90% with access to Internet
• What about Singling out issue?  handing out paper copies to individuals why do some get paper copies and not others?
• What about parents with language issues who don't understand parent assist?
• Should we wean parents off paper copies (like employees were with e-docs)?
• Should we target the 8th grade? (probably not, probably do all or none)
• Cut paper copies  back to once a quarter?  Again, probably not, probably all electronic or none
• When does the child see it/How does student see his grade?  
• Brendan--teachers could conference individually with students on progress report days --Teacher would still have an obligation to the student--can't just say have your parents look on parent assists
• Mathematically how do the students have a handle on their grade without seeing their progress report
• Lackey--as parent representative--What about a student who sees a blank on a progress report--identifying a mistake?
• Gentry--has No problems rolling it out...there is definitely a need for parent accountability, but teachers still need to have conversations with students. There would be a period of parents having to be added to parent assist and a publicity campaign (Sunday messages, alert now emails, team pack notifications, etc. )
• We need to take a closer look at it--Have discussions with your constituents and bring back report to Monday November 28th meeting:
• If we decide this, Gentry to look at time table--give teachers a menu of what to do...encore and core may have a difference...in numbers
• Downs to talk to other tech facilitators and find out how other schools have rolled this out.
• Either or?--a school decision to move forward or not...conference with kids during tutoring?