School Site Council Meeting Notes
February 19, 2015
Present: Sean Ryan, Seth Jacobsen, Pat Cairns, Julia Cheri Hoos, Phil Wenker, Liz Cowgill, Kellye McKinna, Dylan Eisman, Peter Dorsch, Mindy Petersen, Karen Quartz, Bonnie Thoreson, Wendy Cary, Karen Farrer
Updates:
· Dave Jackson is getting better but will be out for a while due to his surgery.
· Every 15 Months will be happening in one month. Computer carts are starting to get classroom use. 8th grade field trip to Museum of Holocaust and it went well.
· M.S. pep rally at lunch today with cheerleaders, etc. with good teacher participation. M.S. dance is coming up with free tacos.
· S Jacobson participated in the LCAP webinar and would encourage people to download the PowerPoint to get a sense of District funding formula, etc. HS had spirit week and winter formal dance.
Student Voice Project: Peter Dorsch went to ASB class to try out new questions for survey. Changed from broad questions to more specific free response questions such as name as at least one thing your teacher has done in this class to improve your learning, etc.
Plan to do survey:
· Middle school – through the English classes
· 9th grade – through freshman seminar
· 10th and 12th – through history
· 11th – through English
Could possibly do sampling of various classes or reduce the number of questions.
Will need to go back to ASB to finalize the survey – then figure out when to give them. Peter will go to the ASB class to finalize the survey.
UPDATES ON PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES:
L. Cowgil — Underperforming/Special Education Students PLC. She is very excited to be the head of the PLC of underperforming students. My committee is comprised of the special Ed teachers and a few others. Focused on a particular student as a case study to figure out what interventions had been done. Teachers came up with a huge list of possible interventions. Then decided what is in our control and out of our control (costs money); what can be measured. Then people picked an intervention or strategy to try out. Examples motivational rewards, consequences, Google calendars with parents, tutors, etc, parent contact, lowering caseload, fresh start meetings. People researched their issue then did research in their classrooms. Some interventions were too cumbersome and others were easy to put into place and had good results. Will do another presentation of the results of the intervention. Some of these interventions would be great to implement school-wide. Excited by the teacher participation and the results.
Sean Ryan – History Dept. PLC – focus on transition to Common Core with a focus on Close Reading strategies. Split from English PLC to focus on a set of materials that has primary sources for common core which has been purchased for history. Three teachers who teach common core gave a common assessment – scored as high, middle, low. Will do these assessments again and check for progress. Meetings are looking at how these documents are working, trading information on how it works. Will give a common assessment at the end on the Cold War. Most that the 4 teachers in dept. have collaborated in the past 10 years. More participation from different groups of kids.
W. Cary: Are assessments modified for special education students?
S. Ryan: Assessments are made through verbal scaffolding, group work, but the text itself is not scaffolded.
K Quartz: Interesting point that focus on rubric can hinder professional conversation. Is there feedback given to students?
S. Ryan: yes, but the assessment we did was not graded, just for our own purposes.
S. Jacobson: will you create a data set to chart progress? Can this data be connected to the teaching process?
Julia Cheri: other factors influence reading comprehension such as their interest in the subject matter.
K. Quartz: a good school-wide conversation might be what counts as good evidence, what counts as growth – might be a good conversation to have between the different PLCs.
P. Cairns: How often do students do this?
S. Ryan: at least once per week, but not always working with full essays.
New Principal Search recommendation:
Have been taking resumes for about a week and a half; will push again to advertise for the position. Karen hosted session as part of the PTA where Deborah Washington presented rubric for decision-making; Mark Kelly debriefed with Deborah.
Mark came and spoke to the faculty and we discussed our “wish list” – we asked for a common meeting with teachers, parents, students.
The process is underway; we just want to keep on top of the process.
S. Jacobson: The Good to Great blog. Have refreshed content to include interviews with new teachers. Will look at other options for content. Will meet with Chris about promoting the blog to the parent population + want to meet with principals to engage 5th grade parents as they transition to the middle school. Idea of update on common core to target parents’ concerns. Want to market it more aggressively to parents. Will come back with a list of story ideas to present to Council.
M. Peterson: would be good to have a link in the Monday message to the blog.
S. Jacobson: Colleen is redesigning the website – talking about how to make the blog more prominent.
Site Council membership and election:
(2 open parent memberships.)
S. Jacobson: no clear guidelines seen through minutes of Site Council meetings + Dave has been more aggressive in soliciting teacher engagement. Jan. to Jan. schedule. Bylaws say parents are only supposed to serve for 2 years. There will be staff opening as well. Do the staff election now.
P. Cairns will talk to teacher and staff people to figure out where they are at in cycle.
Continuing parents: Seth, Mindy
No longer continuing: Julie Friedman, Karen Quartz
Will need 2 more parents – 1 of each middle school and high school
Next meeting agenda:
1. For our new members, go through our version of single plan
2. PLC update: Math/English
3. 15-minute conversation about blogs
4. Update on Student Voice
5. Election results for new members
6. Single plan: check to see if it’s approved