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