November 28 Meeting: Schedule Discussion Cont.

AT Minutes

11/28/12

In Attendance:  Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Jim Peacock, Paul Wagner, Lacy Fonnesbeck, Drew Neilson, Brad Nelson, Curtis Jenson, Gordon Geddes, Mike Mudrow, Mary Morgan, Donna Starley, Sharilee Griffiths, Toph Cottle

Excused: Jason Soffe

Mary:  In the SPED department, a rollover is hard.  They have to have aids and personnel here at specialized times.   Here are a few schedule examples of student schedules.

Drew:  Aren’t they in self-contained classrooms?

Mary:  No, not all are self-contained.  A full time staff is something else, and there wouldn’t be as many concerns.  Tashina has 16 students right now. 

Donna:  We could do something that is not as complicated and keep it simple.

Paul:  I shared some rolling ideas with our English dept.  Not many liked it, it just sounds messy.  No real reasons why they didn’t like it.

Gordon:  I saw the same thing in the social studies deparment. 

Paul:  What if we did a 6 period tri that is optional period for students that need it.  All students would have 5 periods.  Half teachers, half students could start later or earlier.   This is good for students who want electives and AP courses.  Bussing would be an issue.  Our credit earning potential could go up to 9 available credits.

Brad:  I like the options and flexibility. 

Mary:  This also allows our students to retake classes the very next trimester instead of waiting a whole year.

Donna:  How can we fund this when we won’t be getting anymore FTE if a student would like to take one extra class?

Sharilee:  Would you have teachers who would like to start early and kids wanting to come late? 

Shane:  An obstacle is going to be bussing.  We need to keep that in mind. 

Drew:  Why not just have some students having certain hours off?

Shane:  How many students are helping out parents who are working?  Sharilee, what do you think?

Sharilee:  I know many of our Hispanic students are doing it.  They would have a hard time getting here by then.  Some after school kids that stay for tutoring and mentoring and would struggle.

Mike: I still haven’t heard anyone address instructional gaps and CRT’s.

Shane:  I will address the instructional gaps and CRT.  A longer period will address that through differentiated learning and working in smaller groups.  The research has shown that longer periods will help with that.

Mike:  Please look at this schedule I handed out.

Paul:  If we run it like Sky View, and introduce ala carte in the lobby and extend the lunch hour, we would need to work with the lunch people to prepare all lunches.

Shane:  We have 300 more students than county schools.  We don’t have the actual equipment to make the lunch in that much time.  We serve more students here than either county school.

Mike: with this schedule, we are staying within the bounds of where we are now with just more class time.

Brad:  We spoke with Dave Isom about the different schedules he has been on and why certain things work.  He really like the trimester the best because of the time issues, not too much, but just enough.

Gordon:  I can see prep time issues with some teachers getting more free time than others.

Shane:  We need to remember it’s about our students options.  We can’t cater to teachers that have to teach only certain hours.  It really limits our students.

Mike:  I think we are getting more contact hours with our students and that’s why our scores are so much better. 

Donna:  I agree with Shane, we need something that isn’t going to put departments and teachers against each other.

Lacy:  What about some of the schedules they are doing in Wyoming and also Rich High School.  We would have to extend the school day.  A four day school week.  Take the Friday and use the time elsewhere where it can be better for the kids.

Shane:  Some schools have had great success with that and not many athletics.  With 14 athletic events, it’s going to be impossible to say that those can’t be interrupted.  The school is very small and rural and can get away from that.  Also, as a result, they have lost championship teams.  Many schools will only travel on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Parents hate it because they lose their weekends.  It’s an option.  I haven’t asked about us having later start times for PLC’s.  I will bet that we are tied to that, like we have currently.

Brad:  I would like to take this modified tri and identify the hurdles.  I am not sure that we can’t overcome some of these.

Mike:  I will plug this into my computer and run what this would look like.

Shane:  Issues:  Bussing, FTE funding, kids only 5, teaching 4 out of 5, Hispanic families concern.  What are our must haves?  Contact time during the day or yearlong?  My research shows that it’s during the day, length during the school day that helps more. 

MUST HAVES: 

Mike:  I was very skeptical when we moved from trimesters to semesters.  The teacher at MC is an awesome teacher, and has won many awards.  She has lower scores than I do and she attributes that to her class time.  A trimester has fallbacks when it comes to 1^st and 2^nd tri with and test during the 3^rd.

Mary:  We can get around the concerns from Paul’s Kelly Tri.  We just create a 6 period tri.  We can have before and after school programs for kids that don’t have the first hour but just have to ride the bus.  We would only have the bus come once.

Paul:  We would run into staffing issues with that.  What is the magic number of class time?  We need to know what minutes would look like.

Brad:  I would like to tackle some of these hurdles and see if we could actually make some of these work.

Donna:  I worry about our Fine Arts-Chauntairs, the musical classes.  What will be required?

Shane:  I spoke with Dave about what they do at Sky View.

Mike:  I am still reserved about our instructional gaps and CRT scores. 

Lacy:  Why can’t we put the junky Friday time somewhere else?

Shane:  I love 4 day work weeks.  However, there are still lots of limitations.  Our hourly employees were hurt with one less work day.  It does affect them and their family.  That halted it in Idaho where I was.  I have seen Friday intervention days that don’t work.  It also will bring our Hispanic students into concern again, where they need to be home to help parents.

Mike:  Four day weeks wouldn’t work with the 60 minute classes, we are eliminating options again.

Paul:  What about a 6 period tri, with a rollover.  70 minute classes with an intervention time every day.  We would have to decide what courses could go year round and have the data to support.

Lacy: We waste lots of instructional time with start and stops.  We are not teaching actually 3100 hours. 

Donna:  I have already handed the list out with the data we need to decide what classes would need what. 

Mike:  I can provide information tomorrow.

Shane:  Paul made the comment that not all minutes are created equal.  The last four weeks of school are worth half of what the rest of the year.  That makes me wonder how to get classes AB, that’s the way a trimester would work.

Curtis:  what was wrong with AB rollover?

Shane:  Sub-plans shouldn’t be just finding a video.  It should be preparing for the school day.  The biggest issue with AB modified is the staffing concerns to staff for 8 periods and also training our staff to be able to utilize their time. 

Brad:  Math also suffered on the rollover schedule.

Lacy:  I don’t think that the AB rollover or modified has been an option we have really looked at.  We probably could work out the issues that are associated with it.  I think people are just scared to look at the block.  It makes better teachers.

Shane:  We could still offer quarter classes for those classes that don’t need the whole semester.  We should still be looking at it.  We need to go back to our pro and con list.  The modified AB rollover had more pros than with any other schedule.

Paul:  I think this modified 6 period rolling trimester is something that could answer all the questions.  The FTE is the issue that I can’t answer.  There aren’t any problems here.  We could be flexible.

Shane:  Will everyone want the first two periods?  If we are looking at the trimester, we need to be able to address the issues that we faced when we moved away from the tri.  We still have the questions in place.

Jim:  It’s now a modified tri.  We have an intervention and a sixth period.

Donna:  Please take this sheet back to your department and ask each department would have to be a C. 

Shane:  No one submitted any new courses for the year to us, so we still have the same courses that we have now.  As long as it was on the list last year.

Mike:  Donna, can you address the BATC issues?

Donna:  They work with us and grumble a little but can make it work.  They might be happy with us if we moved back to a tri like everyone else.  Please email me what you find with the courses that need a C and I will put this in today.

November 26 Meeting: Schedule Discussion cont.

11/26/12

In attendance: Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Jim Peacock, Mike Mudrow, Drew Neilson, Gordon Geddes,  Mary Morgan, Toph Cottle, Paul Wagner,  Brad Nelson, Lacy Fonnesbeck

Excused: Jason Soffe

Jill: Review of minutes

Shane: Objectives for today’s meeting: 1) Through consensus determine recommendation for schedule 2) Establish parameters for Wednesdays’ meeting.

There have been comments on the blog, please check those comments if you would like to see different ideas and data.  It looked as though some supporters of the trimester started it out, then supporters of the block schedule added some comments.  I visited with the Sky View principal and shared with me some of his thoughts that I would like to share as well.  Toph also got some feedback from our student body that I would love to hear.

I let Donna know that I really don’t care what schedule we pick, we can make anything work, we then discussed staffing and graduation requirements.  I am still undecided now, but Dave Swenson has shared with me that the county is thinking about moving to a six period tri, instead of a 5.  Their community now is worried about their students having enough options and teachers want to see their kids every day.  Their students are have only a couple of options like band and seminary-that’s it.  These are the reasons they are looking at moving to a six period schedule.  It will give them 3 additional credits per year or 9 additional over three years.  They are looking at doing what we are now doing, just at a tri instead of semesters like we do.  They love their ROCK hour, and Mt. Crest loves their FLEX.  There are both positives and negatives for any system.  I have the same concern as a parent about options.  We discussed with Marshal the concerns we have with the AB schedule.  It creates some staffing issues that we might not be able to maintain with where we are currently.  I still believe that we can make anything work. 

Mike:  In my dealings with Zane, he indicated that we could do a block schedule if teachers taught 7 out of 8 classes.  You would get 90 minute prep every other day.

Shane:  My work with this schedule is that you get the prep every day, that’s my recommendation.  My district also offered to buy out one of my preps, which was nice, I also became more productive. 

Brad:  We would need specialized training for our faculty on how to utilize those 90 minutes.  Some can’t use the 50 minutes we have now.

Shane:  I have discussed with Marshal and Robin about our professional development and we could make that work this spring and summer if needed.  Brad brought up a good point.  It’s hard for me to push for more class time when we have so many kids in the lobby after each class.  I did visit with a couple of teachers who are regularly letting students out of class early.  It’s hard for me to fight for more time when parents come in and see kids out of class hanging out in the hallway.  Our system has also allowed for kids to not ever go to class.  How much more of that is going to happen if we move to 90 minutes?  It goes back to that PD point.

Toph:  I have poor planning on this… I lost the information I had.  I did have one junior and one freshman class.  The average score for freshman 4.7 that wants more time for lunch vs. juniors who were about at a 3.  Both classes were a 3 on overwhelming classes.  Juniors were 4.2 would like longer classes and less electives.  Freshman were opposite of the juniors.  Friends always replied with trimester.  If they didn’t like AB block, it was because it would be long class times.  If students missed days, they could be a week behind in some classes.  The students did like the modified block better.  Students I spoke with were worried about missing school.  I feel that students are biased for the trimester.  Students agree that their needs to be some flagging done to make students know where they need to be or they would take advantage of that.

Mary:  I spoke with my transition students about the extended lunch.  The students that are hear trying are totally for the extended lunch.  Many are just here to socialize. 

Lacy:  The students I spoke with want more options.  They want to be able to have elective options.  Larry Williams gave me some info on Castle View High School with an AB schedule.  There were some classes that met every day for 45 minutes all year long.  I liked how they modified the yearlong classes to meet every day. (handout)

Mike:  When we talked last week we mentioned some stats on Michigan schools.  They mentioned a few things in their explanations that sounded familiar to what we saw a few years ago…they also had principals quoting.  Many talked about moving back to semester schedules, which is what we talked about.  The Art department and language departments are paranoid that we are going to take their schedules away and will mess up their courses.  I am extremely concerned about the instructional gaps in our non AP courses.  No one at this table has addressed this.  I realize that our semester schedule has problems, but not like a tri.  Standardized testing is worrisome.  If we are testing in April and May, we have students that are done with their courses the first trimester.  

Shane:  we would have 1.5 free credits if we went with strictly state requirements.

Donna: the county earns more credits and options available in their freshman centers.   They can fit in more electives.

Shane:  Dave expressed their worry about not able to expand with any new ideas or classes.  They are also pushing concurrent, not AP.  They can’t fit any more AP courses into their schedule.  They would have to have them ABC tris cannot afford to do that.

Brad:  Jason said he could fit some of his classes.

Jim:  AP tests are in May.  When would you hold your courses? 

Shane:  We would lose staff on the tri in the CTE department.  They are funded differently and their money comes from CTE funds.  We wouldn’t have the general funding to pay them to continue to teach those classes, even though we are understaffed.

Mike:  The prep situation will necessitate teachers as well.

Brad:  It sounds like we are looking at the top 30%.

Mary:  The students that drop out feel that there is nothing for them here.  Our students love the flexibility and options.

Shane:  In Rti, students in the top part of the pyramid will drop out if they have to give up all their electives and to participate in their intervention.

Mike:  We shouldn’t have to pick a remediation or not.

Drew:  We should meet the state requirements that will leave us with some electives.

Brad:  We need to get creative.  We can use our online options for students to get more credits.  We should look at what we all do that meet the upper end kid’s needs, and still make it more flexible.  A simple schedule is part of what we wanted our original schedule to look like.  The tri is the most flexible for students.  I can see that math scores suffer on the semester.  Flexibility is key.

Mike:  I can’t find a school anywhere that can meet our math and science scores.           

Drew:  Are there some staffing concerns that would help us here?  Something that we can’t make happen?

Shane:  A block schedule can often need more staff.

Donna:  Couldn’t we come up with a daily intervention with what we are in right now?  We promised a bunch of things that we never did. 

Drew:  How can a daily intervention work?

Brad:  We would have to take prep away.

Donna:  we can come up with a way to stay flexible and represent our parents who are concerned with choices.

Jim:  How can we cut any class time now?  We can’t make them any shorter.

Paul:  What if we did 7 periods like we have now.  We could front load the classes that would meet every day, and the other four could rotate.  The first three classes are every day, and the remaining meets every other.  We are taking from passing time, not class time.  Scheduling would be tricky.  It’s a compromise between the tri and the block.  Prep hours would be the same as we are now.  We need to be able to justify why we would need that.  Collaboration time should be scheduled every other day. 

Brad:  One model won’t fit.

Paul:  simplicity seems to be the best option.  The easiest thing would be to cram in 30 minutes into our current schedule.  We could also add school day time.

Brad:  maybe the funding would help us make the semester work, if we were staffed.

Drew:  are we extending contract time? 

Shane:  We are under by 20 minutes right now.  Technically it’s 7:10-3:05.

Mary:  Could we start later?

Lacy:  seven classes are too many for our students.  That’s the point is to make it more manageable.

Shane:  Brown bag seminary isn’t the preferred method as I have asked around.  They aren’t getting the material covered they need to.  We have some lunchroom concerns with our ladies needing 30 minutes to prep for the 2^nd lunch.  We give them like 10 minutes on the Veterans day assembly to serve and we didn’t get all students served. 

Mike:  If we opened the lunchtime to one hour, more students will go off campus. 

Toph:  The hot dog stand in the lobby was a great idea.  We need to bring that back.

Shane:  where are we at?

Paul:  presents the following:  the semester with a few changes…school would start at 7:30-2:40.  In class teaching time is the same amount.  We could even rotate the class times so we didn’t have departments fighting for the time.  Something like this would make intervention time easier to plug in.  It would be a planning issue, but something we could work out.  It could lessen the work load for kids somewhat. 

Toph:  adding to the school day is not good for our students…or teachers.

Mary:  I know we have discussed electives and changing our requirements to fit the state requirements. 

Drew:  The student’s choice is a huge driving factor for these changes.  We can’t speak out of both sides of our mouth.  We need to work with counselors on these.

Shane:  Wyoming is giving out a Half Way scholarship of $4000 to students with a 2.5 GPA.  When they did that, most districts changed their requirements to meet that.  Kids didn’t have choices and started to drop out when they lost their choices.  It was hard as a German teacher, but I realized that some kids don’t need those language classes.  I don’t think every kid should have to take those classes.  We need to individually help each kid set their own path.

Toph:  I like the multiple diploma idea where kids are headed down their own track.

Mike:  in the 1980’s we had different tracks students could go down and earn different diplomas.

Shane:  We can be flexible with even quarter credit classes.  We can open up lots of different options with that.

Drew:  I feel that the trimester has lots of opposition.  The AB also has money worries.

Shane:  what Paul presented was a modified AB schedule with one less class.  We could simplify that even more.

Mike:  We could set up different testing days. 

Lacy:  It would be hard to plan those crazy longer and shorter days.  I would rather have a 50 minute day.

Brad:  I like the 60-70 minute day.  I can’t get much done with the short time.

Drew:  Do we need to just modify this?  We aren’t ready to make the big change.  I am a creature of habit and it’s hard to make big changes.  We all have our own worries, are we not willing to make a big change?  Is this where we truly are?  Students being able to choose a huge selection of classes?

Mike:  We have more sterling scholars from here than most schools in the state.  It can’t be just the SES status that is doing it.  We are doing good things here.  We need to adopt something that doesn’t mess up what we have.

Drew:  We have 9 sterling scholars.  We also have 25% of kids failing.  The data shows that.  Despite how well my AP students are doing.  Is a remediation period enough? 

Lacy:  We don’t get too many opportunities to change.

Shane:  When we met with the Superintendent, we did see this being a 3-5 year process.  He was open and encouraging of that.  Maybe we need to look at the interdisciplinary model where a paradigm shift is needed.  Without the change, I’m afraid of what it’s going to do to our staff.  We need to talk about what is best for kids.  When teachers are miserable, that’s not good for kids.  There will be change no matter what we do and it will have to be embraced. 

Donna: are we creating an intervention or a new schedule?

Drew:  I think if we have an intervention in place, we then need to figure out how to make the intervention work.

Lacy:  Why did we throw AB under and gone with Paul’s schedule?  The parent liked the idea of having another day to catch up.  The intervention period.

Mike:  I could get behind a modified AB.

Brad:  the trimesters are a downfall of choices.

Shane:  the research I have done shows that AB needs more staffing.  We would need to look at numbers to see if we could make it work.  Nothing is a barrier, just an obstacle. 

Brad:  Let’s look at two and make them work, really look at them.

Shane:  A longer period with proper utilization of their class time is what really works. 

Brad:  It’s not the schedule, just the teaching to the test.  The Michigan school has an ACT preparation program.

Jim:  How do we get ready for Wednesday? 

Brad:  Present it in groups of 10.

Donna:  One person needs to get up and explain the data.

Drew:  That would be unproductive to have a big group meeting.  We could break up into departments with other reps heading the conversations.  Show the roadblocks we are facing.

Paul:  We need to have a fair representation of all the pros and cons.  We all process them differently.

Mike:  many departmental discussions can go negative.

Brad:  What’s our purpose?  Are we looking for feedback?

Shane:  In our graduation requirements, what if a student could schedule themselves into a study hall or an off period?

Jim:  Is the schedule we are on better for students or is this modified schedule Paul set up better for kids?

Paul:  As long as we have two preps.  It’s scary to think we would have to do that.

Mike:  Can we trial this for two years?  Get the data we need to allow us information on what we are doing is working or not.  Just plugging in one thing at a time, rather than throwing everything in the blender.

Shane:  Parents don’t want to play around with their schedules.  They have four years to complete.

Jim:  My daughter needs more help in math.  I want something done now.  She doesn’t get the time she needs.

Drew:  This modified schedule has had more support than anything else for a reason. 

Shane:  I don’t like this schedule, trimester, or AB.  I like having 5 classes a day and having them roll.  I need to worry about what is affecting the students.  I like the options of 7 and rolling them.  If every class was 70 minutes and we had 5 classes a day seeing every teacher 4 days a week.  You can still have your interventions built in and AP’s are too.

Drew:  Let’s create a day for the student and present that on Wednesday. 

Shane:  We have BATC kids to think about too, about 100 of those.  What about a freshman/sophomore schedule and a junior and senior schedule?

Brad:  It’s a good idea to help catch those kids who are falling short.

Shane:  Can we meet again tomorrow before everyone takes off?  Can we reschedule our Wednesday staff meeting?

Donna: Let them know that we are muddled in this and it is taking more time than we planned.  Our faculty is very split.

Brad:  We don’t have a product to show them yet.

Shane:  We want to go in unified and with a direction.  Let’s meet at 7:00 on Wednesday morning.

November 19 Meeting: Schedule options cont.

AT MEETING

IN ATTENDANCE: Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Mike Mudrow, Donna Starley, Mary Morgan, Gordon Geddes, Curtis Jenson, Toph Cottle, Lisa Hopkins, Sadie Anderson, Paul Wagner, Brad Nelson, Drew Neilson, Lacy Fonnesbeck, Jason Soffe, Sharilee Griffiths

EXCUSED: Jim Peacock

Shane: Intro

Jill: Review of minutes

Shane: Let’s start with the traditional schedule.  The blog has also changed slightly; we have added a new side area with documents and data.

TRADITIONAL (modified schedule)

Paul:  (Handout), this is what we have right now, just with the intervention built in.  This gives you the option to front load math classes for the first couple of class periods that would meet every day.  Some classes meet every day, some classes don’t.  Initially, students can have difficulty to know where they need to be when, but they get use to it.  It gives less passing time (in the halls). 

Mike:  There are a lot of good things and flexibility with this schedule which is why we switched in the first place.  The contract day is the exact same time, that doesn’t time.  We are just shuffling around time to meet with kids after school.  All three schedules you get 4 days contact.  Changing schedules isn’t a magic bullet.  We will have to adjust to what fits our needs.

Brad:  The schedule doesn’t drive the success of the students.  There is not a perfect schedule for teachers and students.  We are running our semester broken.  We never gave it a fair shot.  This schedule requires the most money. 

PROS: able to front load (math classes), increased student time, minimum of 4 day contact, longer periods, RE: GPA highest in semester school, endless options for flexibility, 30-35 minute intervention time,

CONS: remember what day and class they have, intense workload for kids, teacher preps, cost (requires more staff), 1 teacher multiple sections (has different sections on different days), complexity of modified.

Mary:  All the schedules I viewed, the schools start later.  Is there a chance we can start later?

Shane:  The research out there is supportive of the start time being later.  Then it interrupts the athletics, etc.

Mike:  We need to be careful of a back to back prep periods, which on certain days, might be tricky.

Shane:  I have seen something called Walking to Read.  The teacher does the whole group instruction, then students split up to get the extra help.  If you have longer periods, certain teachers can take a group of students and work with them.

Mike:  We could also allow different departments to assign homework on different nights, not all classes and each night.  We shouldn’t be teaching students that they can pass 5 AP classes with sports and other things.

Paul:  We can agree the student workload isn’t a deal breaker.  We can work through that. 

Shane:  Regardless of what we do, next month, we will have a lot of hard work to get through, the homework piece being a good point.

What items directly affect our intervention:  -Complexity (mod), -student workload, +daily contact, +flexibility, +allows electives, +longer class periods,

“THE KELLY”:

Gordon:  We have heard much of the arguments for this because we have gone over much of this previously.  We could start earlier and end early, or go later.  Kids with extracurricular would go early, if they didn’t, they could go later.  Teachers could choose to start early or late.

Sharilee:  This is a pain for a parent, it’s too complicated.

Shane:  This is a modification of what we just went over, just tweaked. 

PROS: flexible with early and late options, increase options to take classes, daily contact,

CONS: Teacher=early or late, need to adjust (FLEX/lunch),

What directly affects intervention: -Lunch dependant on intervention (never know #’s),  

Brad:  It’s hard with the data that shows kids need to start later.  We as teachers might like to start early, but kids struggle.

Lisa:  Sky View had a great idea with an open lunch room for kids to go and get food and take it anywhere in the building during their FLEX time.

Shane:  Did any schools with open lunch time have their intervention time during lunch? 

Brad:  Just Sky View.  Mtn. Crest was another class hour.  We would need someone to take over watching kids and their F grades.  Once students had the same lunch hour, kids didn’t bunch together into groups so much.

Shane: For Lakeridge to close their lunch, they had to open the school.  They looked for people to come and spend time during their personal lunches and give the kids something to do that they would want to do at the school.

Paul:  How do our students feel about lunch and being at school?

Toph:  We had thought about getting a survey together for the student body. 

Sadie:  If I am too far from the lunch room, I don’t eat.  I just bring my own lunch.  It would be nice if we had longer and have enough time to eat. 

Toph:  I can get more food from the dollar menu than I can here. 

Shane:  Let me address that-we had some big changes this year.  If a student went to talk with a teacher, you are going to be last in line, but still have 7 minutes to eat.  Numbers are still the same as it was the beginning of the year. 

Lisa:  There is just not enough food (amount) given at lunch.

Paul:  Regardless, lunch would take some consideration. 

Shane:  Did anyone see or research anything else?

Brad:  Brighton High School is a standalone school with a trimester where the rest of their district is on a block.  Complications they found were with AP classes, they tried to cut them back to two tri’s.  They had to leave them at three tri’s.  Brighton is on a 5 period trimester.  They said as long as they were scheduling their AP classes for 1^st and 2^nd, not 2^nd and 3^rd.

Shane:  I spoke with Darrell Eddington from Box Elder.  They were moved from a 5 period to a 6 period trimester.  Seniors are graduating early and taking away money from the school. 

Brad:  I called Spring Lake High School in Michigan.  I talked to one that had gone back to a tri.  They were focusing on the common core.  Schools all over Michigan are switching to trimesters.  ACT scores were averaged at 23.  I called Homestead High School.  This was their first year back on trimesters with a 7 period day.  They were positive because of their options.  They had 83% Caucasian.  There is lots of good stuff, we need to make the best decision and plug our intervention in.

Paul:  Causation-it doesn’t mean that because they move to a trimester, that math scores are going to be affected.  Regardless of the system, schools can go to a tri and raise their academics.  We need to pick the best schedule that will work with the intervention.  With a trimester, it limits electives when involved with music programs.

Lisa:  I had two students that took band, it doesn’t give them flexibility.  It hurts those kids who are upper end kids trying to do AP, music, etc.

Brad:  We can be creative..

Mike:  Kids cannot take any electives as a junior if they take music.

Lisa:  Kids that are staying after for sports can’t do anything else after school, so it’s hurting them.  The kids that

Drew:  We need to do a better job getting our younger student’s, AP should not be the driving factor. 

Paul: We need to take into consideration-the seminary factor that outside of Utah schools don’t worry about.  Our parents support that.

Lisa:  If we took seminary out, a 5 period tri would work.

Brad:  Sky View worked with the seminary issue and opened it up during lunch.  We can work a balance-work a brown bag seminary.  What happens after AP exams?  Maybe we open electives during those last weeks?

Lisa:  Some classes really don’t need to be all semester long.

Shane: staffing becomes an issue when we design something extra. 

Brad:  the faculty buy in will be everything

Shane:  As long as we can develop a time, right now in our current schedule we don’t have the time to address the needs of our kids.  All schedules have negatives and other things that we will have to go without.  It will all come down to how we use that time to make it effective.  We need to know next Monday what our schedule is looking like.  Next Wednesday, we all need to be up front and be prepared to make the recommendations to our staff for consensus.  We don’t want it to be a gripe session.  We have heard the concerns and regardless of what we do, someone will feel like they have been left out.  All we can say is that I am sorry, it’s been a great process and we have looked unbiased at different ideas and no one has tried to push their thoughts onto anyone else.  We are really trying to do what’s best for all of our students.  I would like to establish parameters for Wednesday.  It’s not going to be a vote, it will just be a presentation.

Paul:  should we all say how we are leaning?

Brad:  Let’s look at our parameters

Drew:  Are some of these schedules going to cause staffing issues?

Gordon:   At the end of the day, whichever way we go, we are here to help students, not teachers.

Donna:  I think of it as having enough teachers, class size.  This is a multifaceted issue.

Drew:  I don’t think a few more students in the classrooms is going to matter.

Shane:  John Hatty came out with a book.  It’s a metaanalysis of 800 studies.  There are 40 other elements that effect learning before class size.  Schedule is another.  The number one factor is students’ self reporting.  That includes self flagging, setting up their objectives, etc.  Do you guys want to gage where everyone is at?

Brad:  We will have to be creative and put things into our schedule that these don’t have.

Shane:  Everyone do your research for next week.  Something to support how you feel.  It should be an interesting day.

Mike:  It would be useful to have a graph /table with our motivating reasons and how each schedule fits into that.