AT meeting 11/12/12
In Attendance: Shane
Ogden, Jill Lowe, Jim Peacock, Curtis Jenson, Gordon Geddes, Toph Cottle, Brad
Nelson, Sadie Anderson, Lacy Fonnesbeck,
Mike Mudrow, Jason Soffe, Donna
Starley, Paul Wagner, Drew Nielson, Mary Morgan
Excused: Sharilee
Griffiths
Jill: Review of minutes
Shane: I have updated
Facebook and twitter. We have the blog
out and minutes are posted.
Jill: our RST communication team can help spread the word on
this communication piece.
Shane: Jill, Jim,
Paul, Curtis and I met about the direction we are heading in with this
group. Does everyone have a picture in
their mind of what they would like their non-negotiable to look like? Is everyone going to be assigned to go to the
intervention?
Brad: I don’t think
we are ready to move forward. We are
here right now to decide just that. Are
we using this as a reward system?
Shane: We are here
to decide an intervention and find a schedule if needed to fit. Not the reverse. That’s the direction we are heading-correct?
Mary: Where would
students go that don’t need that “intervention time”?
Drew: We need to have
a positive piece to it, perhaps extra lunch time?
Brad: Brown bag
seminary? Taking lunch to another
location? Extended lunch?
Jason: It sounds like
a punishment for kids that don’t understand.
Toph: Everyone should
have to go
Drew:
Jason: Students are
going to see it as more of a punishment.
Lacy: If students are
working towards credit?
Brad: Where are the
AP kids getting help? Right now they
aren’t getting any. How we sell it won’t
matter.
Mary: An open door
policy..
Brad: It’s not
mandatory, if you aren’t on the list, go do something else.
Shane: Does each
teacher need to write something into their syllabus?
Jason: Teachers will
keep in simple and not do much.
Paul: The idea needs
to be structured around the PLC’s and common assessments. Students should be able to show you that they
are competent and they can do the skill.
Complexity comes with time.
Whatever we do, it should reflect our values as a school. Finishing homework vs. perfecting a skill.
However we portray this should reflect our values as teachers at LHS.
Jason: I see how our
students treat their lunch, our students are so short term with how they see
things.
Drew: Our students
should earn their privilege of extra time or lunch or whatever. Everyone should have to meet these criteria. Should fit everyone.
Brad: Some students
will get the invitation to come because they can’t meet the standard
Mike: BLT-Bonus Lunch
Time
Shane: It is sounding
like the only intervention we are looking at centering around lunch? That sounds to me like the direction you
are heading in.
Jason: It sounds like
we are heading towards something for a few students
Drew: We have over
500 students with F’s.
Jason: We have 25% of our students that are college ready.
Mary: What if we
offer peer tutoring for our students that are getting it?
Paul: Mary is talking
about enrichment opportunities. We need
to have something that is getting our students college and career ready. It should be all kids. Enrichment can be many things. Music, debate, clubs, or study help. It will all improve their academics. It might not really be sitting down with your
math teacher. Teachers schedule what
their intervention time is for-ACT prep, etc.
We need to look ahead.
Curtis: Can we work
something into another time other than lunch?
Mike: If we can put
something in place to …. We have lots of AP teachers in here. Our AP kids are making the time to get
together and make things happen to get the good grades. We need to worry about kids that can’t do
that, all of our F students.
Brad: We need to look
at our D students as well.
Drew: We need to
reach the D’s and F’s. The total
standards in the school go up. IF you
are a PE teacher, you probably aren’t going to have kids coming in. They could do some fun club type things
during this time where they could help out.
Toph: My uncle
teaches PE at Sky View and gets lots of kids that come to him during
remediation time to help kids come and run the mile or talking about drivers
ed.
Paul: We could
stagger teachers within a department during the intervention time.
Jason: If we want a
longer lunch then that’s what we will get.
But I’m not sure the student achievement will go up.
Paul:
Drew: We haven’t seen
the models. Lakeridge was a middle
school. Adelei had the extended
lunchtime that kids earned. We need to
decide that kids have earned the right to an extended lunch. We need to craft our intervention with high
standards.
Paul: I don’t know
that we have it in us to provide all the enrichment opportunities for
everyone. We need to look at Tier 1 and
2.
Brad: Enrichment is a
good term that reaches out to everyone.
Maybe we can stagger teachers.
Gordon: If a student
has a D, they have to come to…..We need to have a school wide rule about who
goes to enrichment and when. The overall
criteria.
Brad: I make
mandatory labs where parents have to come in and work with their students. It works.
Mike: If we set the
bar a little higher each year, we will get to where we want to be.
Shane: At year 7,
Lakeridge was a blue ribbon school. We
need to start somewhere.
Mary: We just need to
make it work and stick with it.
Paul: Every person we
talked to didn’t want to go back. All
teachers and students didn’t want to go back.
All they did was to extend the lunch.
It makes the most sense to go the extended lunch route.
Brad: I know my
students need to have their grades checked.
Sky View does it during 3rd hour, with an extra 15 minutes to
check grades. If we could check daily,
we can see it coming. I can make it
work.
Paul: Any logistical
issue can be solved. Lakeridge would
pass out red or green papers to students.
Brad: We could flag
students in Pinnacle.
Paul: I talked with
Clark last year, and I could flag kids for falling below a C or if students do
bad on a test, he is flagged. As long as
they have a flag they will be somewhere.
Shane: We have to
remember that Clark and Kim are no longer here, and they were master script
readers/writers.
Mike: Our teachers
won’t do manual adding of students.
Drew: We are putting
the cart before the horse. We are
putting scenarios out there before they are even a possibility. We don’t have the time.
Donna: So, we are
needing functioning PLC’s?
Paul: I think
so. We need a structure in place and we
can build around it.
Donna: We need
functioning PLC’s in place before we create an intervention.
Brad: We need the
time in place. PLC’s are huge, but we
also need the time.
Paul: We have common
assessments in the English department but not time to look at the results.
Curtis: We would need
to have times and timelines in place.
Gordon: The idea of
PLC’s is not foreign to anyone. We just
don’t have time to do them.
Drew: We are wasting
our time with logistical things. We gain
nothing by continuing to focus on things we can’t control. Our students are being left behind.
Jason: If I have to
put in much more effort to get the content taught. I am worried about instructional time being
challenged. Not all minutes are created
equal. I would rather have 4 days of 60
minute classes than 5 days of 45 minute classes. Can I use that time effectively makes more
sense to me?
Brad: We need to
protect instructional time. Sky View
loses 5 minutes each class for an assembly, and doesn’t really lose
instructional time. Face time is key.
Shane: The con on
every single scenario was staff training from your homework.
Sadie: I like the
flagging idea. Students should be able
to choose. I think kids will love the
flag idea. I would still go to a teacher
even if I didn’t have a flag. If each
teacher had their own criteria, and students knew about that, it would really
help.
Toph: With a 60 minute
lunch vs. a 25 minutes lunch, it’s still not that big of an issue. I will still go to see the teachers I need to
see. I also like the flagging idea. What
about self-flagging?
Shane: I have to say
that as I look at our 1750 students a majority of them are right there and want
to push themselves. Some will buck the
issue. I think the bulk of our students
will voluntarily come in for help. If we
have enrichment, that will take some kids, but I think many will look for their
teachers to help them. I think the bulk
of our kids will utilize that.
Brad: I think the
lower end kid will realize that they are missing out on success and will want
to see it. Let’s give them time during
the school day to get their homework done.
Shane: I think we are
going back to justifying why we need to go to intervention time.
Paul: I feel that as
a group we are migrating towards an extended lunch time or a consensus. If anyone has anything else to say, now is
the time.
Shane: I just wanted
to remind you guys of Wasatch. They are
on the block (A/B rollover), and teaching time is less but students have
another 15 minutes in that class to meet with their students.
Paul: I don’t think
30 minutes every two weeks is enough time.
Brad: Time is
huge. Not broken up time, but real,
solid time. We need to start looking at
schedules.
Shane: I see a lot of
nodding. A fear that we have is that as
we are visiting with others on this topic.
I don’t get a feeling that any of us are leaning towards a certain
schedule or have one in mind. We know
things can get heated and people can get defensive or department vs.
department. We need to do what’s best
for our kids. Also keeping in mind the
great variety of courses we offer and enrichment opportunities. When you read through chpt. 2, it went
through a couple of different models (a modified block, a rollover). Semester models have a whole years’ worth of
classes which some of the cons were alarming.
The interdisciplinary model was a very huge paradigm shift. It talked about our students not so much of
this is my course, but these are our students.
Explains different models…..The traditional models we looked at. We also have some more untraditional models
that we should also look at and ask ourselves the questions that were at the
end of the chapter. Read through those
questions about why we are doing this.
Let’s get some smaller groups together to present the pros and cons of
each schedule (teacher, student, infrastructure, etc). Think about the schedules that you might not
immediately be drawn to and work with a group on that topic. Please highlight the cons. What type of schedules do we want groups to
look at?
Trimester 5 & 6 (Curtis, Toph, Brad, Sadie, Donna)
A/B rollover 1-4, 5-8 (Jason, Lacy, Drew)
A/B modified 1-4, 5-6, 1-8, etc.
7/8 standard & modified (Paul, Mary, Mike, Jill)
Interdisciplinary??-Not ready for this, PLC’s must be
functioning, (eventually we need to get
this way)
Math Dept. (Kelly, Gordon, Shane)
Things that went well: Great discussion, Toph had a great
idea, open minded and student focused.
Things that need to change: Bring food! Objective posted on the board, please email
the objective/agenda out
