MTAC Meeting December 2014

    

Members:

Gentry, Stephanie J sjgentry@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (a)
Mabry II, Eugene L <emabry@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (a)
Harmon, Hannah M <hmharmon@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Santoro, Frankie J <fjsantoro@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Watson, John H <jhwatson@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Sigmon, John C <jsigmon2@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Stalter, Sarah K <skstalter@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Trace, Jane S <jtrace@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Dipiazza, Julia A <adipiazz@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Guffey, Lesley A <laguffey@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (a)
Suttles Jr, Ronald A <rasuttles@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Daniels, Deborah T <dtdaniels@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Phillips, Patricia S <psphillips@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (a)
Kilgore, Rita <rkilgore@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Burch, Carrie L <clburch@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Turner, Elizabeth K <lturner@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Downs, John D jdowns@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Parent:  Christine Isacsson (p)

Vetting titles for purpose of use at  SEMS

• Forms for WS selection committee Blue and Local News
• Lack of rigor and  book challenges are some of the reasons for this procedure
• As soon as paperwork is submitted, then the books can be ordered
• AG money allows for 35/40 copies for grade level

Santoro--8th grade selectios:

• "Life As We Knew It"
• Ties well to science with the story line of and asteroid hitting the moon and affects the girl
• Did not get approved last year , though it has already been purchased, just needs approved
• The procedure requires three teacher reps to sign and a parent and student
• Any content a concern with a parent?
• There's nothing too suggestive
• "The Maze Runner", was already on the list but this committee has to approve
• It's a popular series and often on the waiting list in the media center
• It's about a 16 year old boy trying to get out of the maze
• Lisa,  any opposed or questions? 
• All in favor? I--All were in favor and none opposed

Ryymes--7th Grade, "Ungifted"

• "Ungifted"  is a very engaging read, told from multiple perspectives
• Some reviews were offended by stereotypes of how AG kids are portrayed
• Good character analysis
• The author, Gordan Korman--s known to be liked by boys
• A good quality is the theme of stereotypes
• The paper work has to be signed on this one.  
• All in favor? All were in favor no one opposed

Koester--6th Grade--"The Book Wonder"

• About a boy with physical deformities, with a theme of bullying
• It has advanced vocabulary and would be good as a read aloud
• The story changes point of view and has lots of figurative language
• No objectionable content
• This book is often on the waiting list in the media center
• Andi Hoskins read it aloud to her study skills students and they loved it
• The students were very reflective of it
• Already has been approved so  no paper work is necessary

Turner:  "Blue" and "Local News"

• "Blue"--historical fiction about polio during WW2--history
• Speaker coming to talk about this book has special knoweldge of the hospital for polio victims in Hickory
• Groups are already reading this book over the holidays
• Can only buy 40 copies
• Book fair money will go for the speaker and the book
• "Local News": by Gary Soto, award winning Hispanic Author
• 4.7 lexile level
• Very engaging story with good use of other language
• Has good reviews and nothing objectional
• Vote on Turner's books:  All were in favor of adding "Blue" and "Local News"

Downs Laptops:

8 laptop carts with 24 Lenovo laptops coming in January:
issues:  distribution / care taking / checkout

• Downs suggested 3 for 6th grade, 3 for 7th grade, 1 for 8th and 1 for encore
• Downs shared the contract  that 8th grade teachers use with their science classes:  8th grade laptop contract 
• Watson and Harmon to discuss with their pods on a possible "caretaker" and also the training for proper student use and upkeep
• Rhymes and Dipiazza to discuss with 7th grade
• Santoro and Trace to discuss with 8th grade
• Daniels and Kilgore to discuss with Encore
• Please get feedback and report to Downs

Dr. Daniels:

Net cetera manual:  https://bulkorder.ftc.gov/publications/net-cetera-chatting-kids-about-being-online

http://www.onguardonline.gov/media/video-0001-net-cetera-chatting-kids-about-being-online

Good ideas in light of BYOD

SIT Meeting November 2014

CHAMPS training for Staff

• Gentry:  big discussion piece with encore--desire to re-do staff training and clear up the CHAMPS hallway expectations 

• Does SIT feel like it needs to happen and how?  
• training from a different source?

• Young:  People not doing duties ?

• Champs History:  Training was done extensively when it first started 
   
• Graham:  a refresher would be good (keep it short) 

• Wells: can we do in grade level ?

• Miller:  Needs to be a school consensus on CHAMPS

• Halverstatdt:  what is the training?-- It's a review of the SEMS expectations for class changes and hall behavior 

• Graham:  consistency in enforcement is an issue

• Gentry:  We should look at staff handbook for all the detailed expectations 

• What are the expectations when teachers are dealing with other grade level?

• a menu of options to address issues 
  • A what point does it go to the office? 

• Pull that document and let SIT look at it and decide to do with it 

• SIT needs to be on board based on necessity 

• MIller: Teachers need to be out in the hall during locker changes (especially people in the pods) 

What would training it look like?  and how do we do it? 

• Last time, Laura Horn and others provided the training

• Young:  more than happy to help... 

• Gentry:  very choosy about staff meeting items--might not be the best forum?

• Douglass:  Could we do it on the Monday afternoon training sessions that we have been doing?

• Look at the document in the handbook and make official recommendations for what to include 

• Gentry--people get tired of hearing from me 

• Thorne:  Can we make it more meaningful?--so make it specific to grade level  concerns

• Wells--could we do the training in 2 parts? one for specifics and then one for the whole group...

• Problem addressing a large group--people often don’t think they are talking to them 

• Another thing to think about--If you were to walk in other schools/ halls  people might realize what we have here 

• Give Gentry feedback on the handbook document and then schedule grade levels and then do the whole group 

• Maybe in early January do the grade level meeting refresher

• But she really needs the feedback from the document 

Discipline Date for 1st Q 

• It's now much easier access to our discipline data 

• We got a huge excel file that Gentry filtered and gave to us 

• Do we have the past first quarter data to compare it to? no

• 220 incidents for the first quarter that were documented by administration 

• With Aaron coming on board--it can change the way things are coded 

• 8th grade:  54%  of offenses

• reportable offenses?--for example, marijuana

• Mr. Griffin:  last week almost 80 ISS attendees, 400 for the year (if they come through the door Griffin documents their visit)  

• How heavy ISS has gotten--admins have noticed 

• Teacher morale is way off, that could be a factor in discipline?

• If Brian gets loaded , then might have to close it off and handle among teams 

• Some teachers abuse ISS and use it as a babysitting service 

• Griffin:  Students take it more serious when ISS assignment comes from an administrator 

• Young: are admins aware of frequent fliers? oh yes

• A "taste of ALC" a week long stint in ISS 

• Will continue to give you the discipline data 

• Would like to look at the data by race 

Staff Survey for December / January:

• Do we want to give the staff a survey late December or early January?

• Come up with a sub committee with questions 

• What showed up on the survey last year and needed addressed

Ideas for topics

• Questions about CHAMPS: 

• Resources for teachers 

• other hot button ideas 

• leadership roles 

• Downs do the online part of it, Turner to work on the questions
• Martin, Young, Thorne, and Miller to ask constituents about topics for the survey

• Members send committee members and give SIT team to give feedback 

• Thorne:  focus on SE Middle School--specifics to us that are able to be fixed 

• no later than the second week of January 

Good of the order?  nothing

Media and Technology Committee Meeting October 27, 2014

Members:

Gentry, Stephanie J sjgentry@wsfcs.k12.nc.us 
Mabry II, Eugene L <emabry@wsfcs.k12.nc.us> (p)
Harmon, Hannah M <hmharmon@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Santoro, Frankie J <fjsantoro@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Watson, John H <jhwatson@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Sigmon, John C <jsigmon2@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Stalter, Sarah K <skstalter@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Trace, Jane S <jtrace@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Dipiazza, Julia A <adipiazz@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Guffey, Lesley A <laguffey@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Suttles Jr, Ronald A <rasuttles@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (had meeting)
Daniels, Deborah T <dtdaniels@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Phillips, Patricia S <psphillips@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Kilgore, Rita <rkilgore@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Burch, Carrie L <clburch@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Crummel, George J gcrummel@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Turner, Elizabeth K <lturner@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)
Downs, John D jdowns@wsfcs.k12.nc.us (p)

Facilitators:  Downs/Turner

Role of MTAC members

• Members reviewed the district guidelines linked here
• Questions/concerns?
• Question about a parent member on the committee
• Suggestion was made to ask current parent volunteer in the main office
• It has been difficult to get parents on SIT considering the time of the day, etc. so we will start by asking Mrs. Isacsson.  if not, might mention to Gentry to bring up at her PTSA board meeting.  Downs spoke to Christine Isacsson who volunteers at the front desk, and she is going to think about it.  christine.isacsson@gmail.com

Media:

• VCR's
• Turner gave an update on the problems with tapes and the Bogen system
• The question arose would it be better to just get DVD players instead of combos?  What about getting DVD's to replace old VHS selections?
• It's possible but would be very time consuming and may end up costing as much as replacing the units.  Also combo units are not that much more than DVD units themselves.
• Lisa will run a report of the checked out VHS titles to see how prevalent their use is.
• What about phasing out and using the saved money for Discovery Streaming subscription next year?
• Lisa does have a quote from Larry Wall, the Bogen guy who can replace four units with combo VCR/DVD and fairly cheap labor (~$150-$200/unit plus labor of $125.00 to install)

• Book Challenges:
• committee members were informed by Turner of the process and what MTAC’s responsibility is to review and read a book if it is challenged by a parent.  There is a specific process in place and we will cross that bridge when it happens, but members need to be aware.
• Expanded to include discussion about SIR materials such as novels to request for the book room. 
• Book Room Titles and Lists:
• media is addressing the new county list of “recommended” SIR titles, the process is tedious and there is consultation taking place with vertical planning among ELA teachers.  This is also being applied to recommended SIR science and social studies titles.

Technology Hardware Issues/Money

·        Ongoing:  Replacements for TV fund --We are expecting at this point to have to replace a TV or two per year as well as possibly Document Cameras and we have to budget for this.

·        Next year and Technology Facilitator role--School system is proposing to combine the technology facilitator role into a half time testing coordinator/half time technology facilitator classified position with the curriculum coordinator position moving away from the testing.

• Since this could have implications for the future and technology here at SEMS. the committee was asked to consider this.
• Mr Mabry said we need to be vocal about their support for maintaining the full time technology facilitator position .  He mentioned in the past when Jeff Nichols taught Social Studies and tried to support technology--many things were neglected
• Also mentioned was the "volume of technology stuff" that needs supported and will be neglected if a person is not dedicated to supporting it.

Equipment Needs and Purchases:

·         612 lab/EC Case Manager and Band room-- projectors vs TV’s

• Mr Mabry spoke of the interactive projector and how his wife uses it at her school.  It is a close to wall mount and gives interactivity on the white board
• MS Stalter had used them and spoke positively of them
• Mr Downs suggested that if it gets installed that others might consider them as TV's die

·         Upgrade computers in 612?

• The question about the future of 612 and do we need to maintain a lab in there?  This arose as we consider replacing the projector that "blew" in the power outage.
• Most agreed that we still need a place like this for people to go and work with full desktops and monitors
• Also in light of all the online testing situations, we probably still need this site and should consider upgrading the computers in there as the current batch is getting old 

Procedural Issues:

·        New laptop distribution and procedures for 6^th and 7^th grade laptops

o   How do we best do this?

• We should be receiving upwards of 200 laptops around the first of the year, and these will be distributed in 6th and 7th grade as laptop carts of either 24 or 32
• These would be shared on teams and perhaps one in each pod
• Discussion about maintaining them and situating them with teachers who don't take ownership but do need to take responsibility
• Key is training the teachers and the students in proper use.
• Consider using the 8th grade laptop contract with 6/7th grade teachers and students
• Security in the PODS an issue? Are they alarmed?
• Carts should have the ability to lock and secure and will definitely need to out there
• What about another laptop cart for 8^th grade?
• Depending on how many we get, might consider since 8th grade teachers were basically given the impression that those carts would be for science and therefore the rest of 8th grade has limited access to laptops

·        Software Clearinghouse Procedures (new platform/system in place)

• Gentry was introduced to the new procedure at her principal's meeting and we informed the committee that teachers considering any purchase of online or desktop computer software would have to go through the clearinghouse for approval before any purchase can be made.

Instructional Issues: 

·        BYOD and Digital safety—are people discussing?

• Mainly tabled this item knowing that teachers will be receiving training during the final two early release days, but teachers who are interested in BYOD should visit the WSFSC digital Safety Site before starting a BYOD lesson with students.
• Downs is available to help any teacher who wants to try a lesson using BYOD

·        User name convention:

• word needs to get out to use 4/4/4 for all user names such as edmodo, and other online accounts.  Committee members were made aware to do that for all future accounts

·        Laptop battery best practices__will discuss at the time the new laptops arrive

Discipline Issues:

• Use of technology and classroom management issues (such as broken keys on laptops)
• Downs will do training when new laptops arrive--we talked about doing the same procedure they do in the media center and 8th grade science classes where each student uses the same number laptop each day and is accountable for the individual machine.  They also sign off on acceptable use policy.

UNCG Grant—

·         Possibly acquiring Technology for Cooperating teachers.

• As part of the grant, student teachers may come with new technology for example, maybe an IPAD and APPLE TV
• 360 Camera to our school for use with lesson planning
• Maker’s Space:  Google it
• What type of items would be purchase?  Committee to consider

Other miscellaneous issues

·         Space for Computer Repair coming

• Let the committee know that the Department of Technology will now fix broken computers on site instead of sending in for repair and have requested a space for that in each school.

·         STARS student(s) on committee?

• Committee said no

·         Parent on Committee?

• Talk to Christine in the front office

·         Coming Upgrades (wireless in 8^th grade coming soon)

• Downs sent an email out about this

·        Communication was brought up as a Department of Technology issue and we were asked to discuss the best way to communicate to faculty and staff about important issues related to technology. (student email, power school access, etc.)

• For example, Teacher on Teacher Advisory Council had not heard of BYOD
• Committee said that mass emails sent out like the ones sent out by Kevin SHerrill about student ability to log in to power parent portal are best but a followup witha blog site with archived information for reference would be good.

October 20, 2014

Members Present:

Douglass
Downs
Eisebacher
Gardner
Gentry
Halverstadt
Jones, Julie
Martin, Jennifer
Miller
Sherman, Jamie
Thorne
Turner
Wells
Young

SIT Chair -- Miller:

2 items on the agenda--PLT process and the School Improvement Plan Process:

1)  Is the new PLT process working for you?

• Halverstadt:  setting up goals gave us a direction and that was good
• Thorne:  listening to the vertical team was beneficial and helped us get to our goals
• Young--Encore is working in departments--they are excited, but the complaint is the shortness of their planning
• Would be nice if we could work on this early release Wednesday, but we have the workshops
• EC/Douglass:  Their session put us all on the same page and using research based interventions
• Sherman--At their county couseling meeting-- heard from other schools and sounds like SEMS is doing it right.
• This is all about buy in and everyone being part of the decion making process...some just won't buy in
• Miller:  Heard from teachers who felt more overwhelmed than previous first quarters with workload
• Gentry:  3 early release days within first quarter seemed like too much?
• Our Superintendent wanted to make sure people had time to get their PLT's together, but perhaps three is too many sessions for one quarter?
• Teachers are also saying that group time is good, but then they need some alone time to percolate the ideas
• Maybe they will give us a chance to really evaluate the early release days

The School Improvement Plan Process:

• The SIP was submitted along with the safe school plan, discipline plan, and crisis template
• District will give us feedback and ask us to revisit and see how we are doing based on the indicators
• In December or January we will have to follow up and see where we are
• Do you think we should do a survey for teachers based on the things we have targeted? --with questions based on the top few things that on which we have focused?-- A Mini Check in
• We will need to decide what we want to include in the survey
• Maybe 15 questions--John to assist with setting it up online
• Survey--maybe look at the one from last year?
• We will identify the areas to focus by our November meeting

Other concerns?

• Turner:  Tech issues for MTAC?--VCR's
• Young: Review hallway duties
• Gentry there are basically 4 ways to handle:
• don't do anything
• Come to Gentry or another administrator
• You sit down with the adult with an encouraging talk
• Agree to a sit down with a third party
• Keep in mind, If you go to Gentry, it will be taken care of "the Gentry way"
• Larger issue: People seem to be afraid to talk to adults face to face (societal issue?)
• Sometimes teachers taking action is contagious, so if one teacher is seen taking action in the hall for example, others will follow suit.

Next meeting scheduled before November 24th--bring possible questions for the survey. and any feedback for the SIT plan

September 15th SIP Goals and Strategies

In attendance:

Douglass, Robin
Gentry, Stephanie
Gardner, Leah
Graham, Brian
Halverstadt
Jones, Julie
Martin, Jennifer

Miller
Sherman, Jamie
Thorne, Kristin
Turner, Lisa
Wells
Young, Sarah

Gentry:

Today we are going to look at the Summary of our SIP Goals and Strategies from our 2012-2014 plan as well as the current data to help us choose Goals and Strategies for our 2014-2016 SIPlan.

• There is a quick due date coming up 
• Gentry is working on the template but looking for SIT input 
• Safe schools part and discipline part is already in the works 
• We are trying to determine what specific goals we want to have 
• Today we are handing out the goals, and strategies from the last plan 
• We have a Template for everyone to list ideas and make notes 
• Gentry will  give the staff a summary of the report too
• Does one of our goals need to be a priority (the two sub groups)? 
• Groups worked and came up with a list of goals and strategies
• Gentry will email everyone what is on the draft…with a summary of our input

SIT Meeting September 2014

Present:

Douglass
Eisbacher
Gardner
Gentry
Graham

Griffin
Halverstadt

Julie Jones
Jennifer Martin
Miller
Sherman

Thorne
Turner

Wells
Young

Today's Agenda--New SIT  team members, School Improvement Plan

• Double checking status of classified position
• Brian Griffin can rotate off, but checking if any interest by other classified
• More than likely Brian will rotate back on and serve
• We will select a chair person today
• Will go over some more test data today as well
• Need School Improvement Plan by the end of October to go Superintendent

Chairperson role:

• Principal should not run the agenda
• Could be Co-chairs?
• Acts as a "point person" to put items on the agenda/meet with principal
• If members have items to bring to SIT,  they should put issues in writing to chair person
• Chair person then typically meets with the principal before the next meeting 
• Sometimes the answer is no for items to be brought to SIT
• Chair acts in a facilitator role to walk us through the agenda
• Sometimes SIT chair is involved with hiring for example our AP position

Does anyone want to nominate a person to serve as chair?

• Lisa Turner nominates Helen Miller
• All in favor of Helen, none opposed

Gentry/SIT plan

• We looked at Data last time and have more data to look at this time
• We now have the Teacher Working Conditions Survey results
• Also look more closely at the academic data and make notes for Gentry
• We have had some trouble with discipline data, but will get for next time

Table discussions:

• Parent Survey
• Nothing really jumps out
• Fairly small group of survey respondants (52)
• Demographics of the survey, white females mostly
• Evidence of less bullying and also saw that with the student survey
• Only 7 reported bullying and only 4 reported the bullying
• Maybe we still need to include bullying even though "we got better", since it is such a hot button issue and Rachel’s challenge was a success, why not build on that?
• How the parent survey is publicized determines respondent pool
• Data discussions
• discrepancies in comparing the data from a non-common core year to a common core year (2014)
• 6^th grade black and Hispanic numbers almost half of AIG and white
• Science and EOC math stand out as strong
• Gentry will collect our comments from today and summarize the table discussions, and bring back to the next meeting for further review along with the current SIT Plan

August 2014

SIT meeting minutes August 2014

Present:
Cole, Bailey, Gardner, Gentry Graham, Halverstadt, Julie Jones, Jennifer Martin, Miller, Portia Lakey,Sharman Lakey, Rhymes,Jamie Sherman,Thorne,Turner,Worrell, Wells, Young

Gentry running the meeting since no SIT chair yet

Today's Agenda:  SIT membership and priority for school improvement plan

• Not voting today
• Will set up a survey to be voted on by SIT members
• SIT plan needs to be done by mid late September

Membership:

• Encore:  Sharman standing and a year left
• Is  there is someone to be voted in?
• Wells and Young here to be voted in as members
• 6^th Grade
• Graham returning
• Kristin Thorne 
• Both have another year 
• 7^th grade
• Lost Elkins
• 3 serving now:
• Rhymes—back for a second
• Julie Jones and Helen Miller willing to serve on the open spot
• 8^th Grade:
• Matt is back for another year
• Jennifer Martin is submitting to serve
• EC:
• Portia was serving as Parent
• Robin putting herself in to serve as EC
• Parent:
• Worrell had served and is willing to serve again
• Gentry offers PTSA to serve every year and open to all—meet at 2:20 and usually take care of in house because of that.
• Standing members:
• Guidance, AP’s, Technology, Media and curriculum 
• Will send out the survey with the voting.
• At second meeting with new members we will  vote for a new chair.

The School Improvement Plan 

• Sources of Data
• Student survey
• Teacher working condition survey
• Compares to district and state
• Academic data—can not go outside this room—not been cleared by the state board.
• Contains data from two years ago compared to last year
• There are various good data comparisons
• Each table to send someone up from the table to look at data in small groups
•   What data sticks out to you—positive or negative? (to what do we really need to pay attention?
• Conversation from the tables
• Lakey—discipline—WSFCS below average across the state
• Consistently enforce rules question is lower for SEMS
• 30% of 8^th grade Student also felt students were not well behaved--that does seem high
• Positive, Downs: Teacher leadership and shared vision numbers have improved from the previous year ---perhaps because of our focus on CHAMPS and bullying training (Rachel’s challenge)  might be something worth continuing?
• Positive, Rhymes: sufficient access to appropriate instructional materials (even though fairly low) learning teams—resources and instructional supplies 
• what due to?  Referring to common core, district support? Or directly related to the school?
• Highly dependent on subject and grade level
• Positive, Lakey:  Overall SEMS is mostly above state average on almost everything
• Test Data:
• 7^th grade Rhymes:  LEP and students with disability very low
• Looking at all the groups who met and did not meet, breakdown by subgroups, The New PLT’s groups will need to look at this data in terms of those grade level and subjects—will continue this conversation even with encore
• No science and social studies data because not used for our ratings but covered in EVASS.
• Will come back in two weeks and look more with our new members
• What Data do you want possession of that is not sitting here?
• Is there a parent survey?  is almost ready and posting on they will be posting on the portal, Gentry will share with us
• Miller-- Social studies strands?
• 6^th grade:  can we see the fifth grade scores?  Would be nice to see a summary but can’t too easily because they come from several different schools
• Perhaps a little bit of discipline data (50% is on the bus)
• Next meeting is Tuesday, September 2^nd.
• We will select a chair and new members will attend