SIT Meeting April 2015

Attendance:

Gentry
Kottenbrock
Downs
Eisebacher
Gardner
Graham
Halverstadt
Jones, Julie
Martin
Miller
Thorne
Turner
Young
Wells

Revisions to the School Improvement Plan (SIT) Plan:

• Here's a copy of the condensed version of our SIP and the Feedback from the central Office
• Nancy Sutton, Wylette Nash and Alex Hoskins were on the team to look at our plan
• Bulk of conversation was on our last two goals, one was the parent goal
• We were missing data for parent feedback at the time
• Are there measurable goals?  Simple revision can address this.
• Very pleased with our plan  overall
• We had very concrete groups, 
• such as: "science teachers will..."
• or "admins will...", etc.
• Complimented us on our attention to detail.

End of Year plan/Test Plan/Test training

• First priority is the test training plan
• Test trainings are long—especially EOG
• Last year:  we took 2 days for each of these groups (8^th and Encore, and then 6th and 7th grade)
• We expanded the planning blocks to allow teachers enough time to complete the training in one sitting for EOG

Two training sessions

1)      EOG (8^th grade Math and 8^th grade science)

2)      Final Exams and CTE

Was the expanded blocks worthwhile?  What do people think?

• Downs:  better to get it over in one day for the EOG on a "ballooned day".
• Gardner: Having the "question Board" helped last year…saved time with repetitive questions during the meetings
• Math 1 test training--Encore probably won’t have to do…
• Will students have both electives on the expanded planning days?  Yes…

Test Window:  

There is a 15 day window—Friday May 22^nd starts the window

• Middle Schools will be consistent with the days in which they test for a number of reasons including the constructive response 
• We would like to start on the early end to give plenty of time on constructed responses.
• What to knock out that first day?
• Online tests—don’t want to compete with High Schools testing, so best to start early because of that too
• CTE and Foreign Language testing—several days

Split test session days?

• Last year, We had a morning session, lunch,  and then a PM test session at end of the day.
• What is your input on those type of days?
• People didn't have too much to say other than students seemed to not take the afternoon sessions as seriously perhaps? and students were particularly worn out on those days
• Is CTE post test online? not sure yet
• Gentry not really in favor of the two sessions--scheduling was a nightmare
• Even if we spread over 4 days it's probably will be better
• Goal is to have all testing done in 9 days
• Our goal  is for there to be no regular test sessions the last week of school
• CTE is a "real test" this year,  not a field test.
• May calendar with all of this information is coming out soon

Any burning questions?

• What about testing for all those days straight in a row?
• One advantage of the closed down testing days is that kids can be found when they are “stuck” while others are in testing sessions—helps with makeups.  Teams help too
• Maybe rotate CTE in the middle?

Next meeting is May 18th