February 21, 2013: Welcome-layout of work to do

2/21/13

In Attendance:  Shane Ogden, Jim Peacock, Jill Lowe, Joyce Smart, Mike Mudrow, Gordon Geddes, Jayne Hamblin, Lisa Hopkins, Paul Wagner, Kristie Cooley, Donna Starley Student (Diana)

Shane:  We don’t have the representation that we need, but we need to move forward.  However, we still have much work to do.  This process was started months ago.  Our purpose is not to go back and discuss the schedule, it’s been approved by the board.  Our goal here is not to bring up 800+ problems and reasons why it won’t work, but to find the solutions we need to make this work.

Next week we have the opportunity to go on a field trip to look at schools on Tuesday the 26^th.  Viewmont and Granger High Schools.  So, please invite our team and others to come.  We will provide a substitute and lunch.  We have also thought about MC and SV having representatives come to present their interventions.  Please let Mrs. Lowe know if you are going to come.

We want to be done by April 15^th and get this submitted to the board by May 1^st.  We have three main areas: Intervention Specifics, Scheduling Logistics, and Stakeholder communication.  I received an email that USDA put forth recommendations for next year and that basically gets rid of our vending machines unless we sell fruit and veggies only in it.  Between now and April 15^th, we have planned on having two open meetings for the public.  We need to get those dates set.  Maybe the 2^nd week of April or the 10^th and 15^th.

Jim and I had the opportunity to visit with Father Fransico who is a Catholic pastor.  He has a Latino congregation and also a Caucasian student.  There is a former LHS student who went to USU and is excited to be a parted of this.   Father Fransico and Sister Marilyn are excited to be a part of this.  I also got to have lunch with a few business owners who might be able to contribute to our work.  They are excited to get a clear picture of what is going on here at LHS.  We are starting to make some good connections.  Please look at the groups and see where you would like to work.  The intervention group is going to be bigger than the others probably naturally.  There doesn’t need to be equal representation.  We also would like the group to nominate a leader of the group that can speak for them each meeting time to catch everyone up when get together.  If there is an “aha” moment and one group needs more time to present back what they have come up with, they are welcome to take more time.  I see most of the time needed to be about 3 or 4 minutes each meeting time.

Jim:  I see the intervention team being bigger than the other teams. 

Mike:  Is the logistics team looking at Attendance?

Jim:  They should.  Attendance should be tied to this team as well.  We will have the chance to see what other high schools are doing and working. 

Student:  Will we pick different days to meet as a group?

Jim:  No, we will continue to meet on the assigned days.  We will all come together to begin with, and then get to work.  My biggest concern is that if we have an intervention that is tied to lunch, students are going to want to have the hour lunch.  How are we going to make this work?  We decided to make this incentive giving not punitive.  If our freshman come into LHS and set their expectations high, with assigning them a class.

Jayne:  I think we are going to still have the same problem that we always have had-how do we get them to go?

Jim:  I hear what you are saying and I can tell you we need to look at SIS systems that can hold the student accountable.

Jayne:  We are not going to be able to get the kids there.  We need to have the schedule set for them that they know and will want to go.  I am not saying that it’s not a good idea, it’s just going to be hard.

Joyce:  Why can’t we give them credit?  Like a skills class or an advisory class.

Student:  Middle school doesn’t get near as much homework as we do now at LHS.

Andrew:  We have kids now that are in the hallways that don’t have anywhere to go.

Jim:  We don’t have anyone that has shown them where to go, or how to behave.

Student:  A lot of students that don’t come or don’t want to come are not connected to any teacher or adult.  They need to feel wanted.

Andrew:  I have 30 kids that I can’t be stopping everything for one student that doesn’t ever come.  I have a certain amount of time to cover my curriculum.

Mike:  I have the same problem, but if we can slow down for them and allow them to find some success in learning, I can see what our students are saying. 

Jayne:  Our number 1 issue is getting the kids that are the D’s and F’s to the intervention.  They aren’t at school to begin with. 

Student: I fell behind because my teachers couldn’t meet before school, I had practice after and during the day was the only time I could meet.  More kids can use that time.

Jayne:  We are going to get the higher end kids that are going to want to go, we might get some at the lower end, but what about all the kids that don’t come?

Mike:  Let’s get our kids to make some good choices and allowing our kids to get a taste of success.

Jayne:  We are going to hear about two preps, and our PLC time on Wednesday mornings.

Shane:  We did run the numbers, and if we reduced the preps to one and class sizes will go down by only 3 students.

Jayne: Parents also don’t like the late start on Wednesday.

Student:  My parents love the late start.  We can all have a little more time together.

Jayne:  My one big concern is that after sitting through all the meetings.  My biggest concern is getting the teachers to do it.  I hear comments from our meetings and other places is that we have 2 preps, and half of the teachers aren’t doing anything anyway.

Mike: Most teachers are doing their jobs, and the ones that don’t ruin it for the rest of us.  That’s not ok to be 6 weeks into the semester and there are no grades in.

Lisa: having the grades updated and available to students and parents is a huge part of this conversation.  It was a big problem last year.  We can’t help our kids if we know where they are at.

Andrew:  what should I anticipate during intervention?  Will there be 1 kid or 30 kids there?

Mike:  You will have the say as the teacher with grades for who needs to be there.

Jayne:  We talked about all teachers in each department being on the same page with what they are teaching.

Shane: This has to do with PLC’s.  It goes along with a shared vision and common assessments.  They are doing well with working together to make that happen.

Jim:  I can see departments working together to make decisions on what their department intervention would look like of Math 1 or Biology.

Andrew:  I can teach an extra after school class with USTAR.  They can remediate them or add to their skills.  I have something prepared for them to do when they come in.  I imagine intervention being the same sort of thing.  They come in on their own, it’s regular, and they receive extra credit.  Let’s have every kid put down a deposit…

Jim:  Our kids need to learn how to work.  That’s what we are missing.

Joyce:  What I see is that we have Freshman and sophomore that have to do this.  For math we would have our math department, some can do enrichment and the others can work with the rest of the students that aren’t ninth and tenth graders.  We do also have other teachers in other departments that could help out.

Shane:  We also have other kids in Math 1 that can’t read a number line.  A very basic skill, kids that are going to need a lot of foundation work, is the next level of the Tier.  If we can provide that, it’s great, but this is Tier 1 level only.  Research tells us that we need to teach 90 minutes a day to remediate two years.  This intervention is certainly not a cure all for our students, it’s a building block.

Mike:  One Tier 2 intervention could include peer tutors.  My students love to work with each other and are more comfortable to work with each other.

Shane:  I love Palmer High School’s intervention.  They include their peer tutors and training time for them to be in assisting students.  It took a lot of growing pains and training to get it to where it is now.

Jill: I spoke with a teacher at SV who absolutely loves their intervention time and can’t imagine the time without it anymore.

Shane:  As a parent, I absolutely am excited to have my 9^th grader who must attend the class, not as an option.  I can see USU students coming to tutor during the lunch hour.

We have fantastic teachers and students here that are working hard and trying hard to do their extra work or overcome the big class sizes.  I know it’s not an ideal world, but coming from Wyoming where class sizes cannot be over 25, our kids are out performing them.

To come full circle, we all need to bring 2 more people with us.  Bring everyone, so that each department has one person on each group.

My lunch date today was with my old college friends, they brought up a good point when they told me that they had never seen me as excited as I was (except when I was going to marry my wife) and I was talking about our students and all of the good things happening.  We have fabulous teachers and students.  The school culture is the most important part of the students life.  We need to tell the story, don’t allow someone else tell this story.  Thanks so much for coming.

Action Team preparation for presentation

Action Team Re-convened

1/31/13

In Attendance:   Mike Mudrow, Jim Peacock, Jayne Hamblin, Jill Lowe, Student, Drew Nielson, Brad Nelson, Gordon Geddes, Curtis Jenson, Paul Wagner, Jason Soffe, Shane Ogden, Toph Cottle

Shane:  Discussion on what’s happening now, what our call is for next week.  Jill has been working with BATC on getting it coordinated with our new schedule and students will probably only be going in the mornings only.  Jim has been working with the bussing issue and we do have some issues with other schools, so we decided to just shorten our classes and keep the original start and end times.  We now will have to present next Wednesday to the public our presentation.  Can everyone commit to this next Wednesday at 6pm?  What are the key elements we want to present?  Everyone can be there but Jason. 

Minute taker stepped out of the room….

Paul:  Can we make this schedule improve the academic success of our students?  I want to keep fighting for our 60 minute classes.  I would rather have an intervention time than 60 minute classes.

Curtis:  I really can see where the middle school is coming from, but we aren’t going to get this right the first time, we need to be realistic.  I’m hopeful that we can get something done in the next few years.

Brad:  I’m not so optimistic that a year from now they are going to work with us.  We have seen this before, we all have.  I don’t see that they are willing to work with us now or then.

Paul:  If the middle school would extend their school day as well, ours would work.

Curtis: We need to revisit and make more changes, it’s a must.

Jim:  after the board approves the schedule, we need to continue our hard work and get this movement going.

Shane:  I have had conversations with people about some of their interventions that are going on and great things they are doing.  But I won’t go and tell Mike how to run his middle school.  The element of a continuous intervention from elementary on up and alignment, I just don’t see it coming in from the outside.  Some of the responses coming from the middle school were offensive to me and I don’t want to turn around and say similar things back. 

Paul:  I would like to propose we make every effort possible that we preserve the original schedule as we had decided.

Drew:  We average 44 minutes a day with.

Minute taker stepped out of the room….

Shane:  I am hearing that we want to make our Plan A work, or head back to the drawing board.

Jason:  I’m already on Plan C; I don’t want class time cut.

Brad:  My personal feelings are that we need to start over if our original plan doesn’t work out.

Jim:  I called Mike and we are going to meet with him tomorrow at 11:30.  Paul, can you come with me?

Paul: I can come..

Curtis:  If we don’t get our way, then what?

Brad:  I say we meet on Monday and battle it out.

Donna:   I think we need to show the gap data that we have to explain what the need for an intervention is real.  That’s important for our public to see.

Shane:  I don’t want to throw any department under the bus, with the data that we have, because that information didn’t change at the semester.

Jayne:  I want to know the info, but not muddy the waters.  I would rather have my student getting their help during school, rather than before or after school.

Shane:  Maybe we can have Scott put together a video for us a-a life of a failing student?

January 24, 2013: readings review & update

1/24/13

In attendance:  Shane Ogden, Jim Peacock, Jill Lowe, Joyce Smart, Gordon Geddes, Paul Wagoner, Curtis Jenson, Drew Nielson, Jayne Hamblin, Lisa Hopkins, Donna Starley

Excused:  Mary Morgan

Shane:  There have been a few changes since we met last.  The school board feels like we need to have a community involved meeting to discuss the possible schedule changes.  This will happen on February 6^th at 6pm here at LHS.  We need to reconvene our Action Team to discuss how the team would like to present this to the public.  The board also has another schedule that would leave start time later, that we can use as well with 55 minute class times.

The school board will meet and vote on this on February 11^th.  I feel that our school board will back us and support us, but there is always a chance that they may not.  I don’t want out work here to be in vain, we just might not be getting this implemented next year.  We will have 20 minutes to present which will be hard, because to discuss our process could take that long.  This will be a regular board meeting that is being advertised through the newspaper, I have also put it on Twitter and Facebook.  I also will get the Robo-caller out to parents.

Jayne:  What is the worry about earlier?  Is it just kid’s need the sleep?

Shane:  Many parents having a hard time getting kids to school as it is, but it will be even harder with 10 minutes earlier to start. 

Lisa:  I am wondering why our board wants a month later to look at this issue and do a meeting.  Why didn’t they ask for this in December?  Now we are another month behind.

Jim:  We just need to be prepared to answer questions on our process and schedule.  I would really like us to do a good job and articulate what’s been done up until now.  Not many of us want to have to continue if we feel that we aren’t being supported.  I know how you all feel.  We should just do a good job describing the process, so we just need to make sure all questions are answered.

Lisa:  It sounds to me like there are just some parents that would like to know what process we have gone through in coming to our conclusion.  Our school board seemed very supportive of an intervention time.  Many people don’t understand the components that went into it.

Shane:  Will we have people attend?  The more people we can educate about our schedule the better.  We have always been very transparent.

Jayne:  I am hearing from my students that are coming from their teachers, that they either are actively opposing the schedule or sending out wrong information.

Jim:  So we will meet next Thursday instead of this team.

Lisa:  Parents just listen to what kids and neighbors are saying, they don’t read the blog or Facebook.  A lot of parents want to hear from us.

Shane:  I think we will get out intervention, I believe we can make this intervention work, it might not look exactly like we need it to, but it could happen.

Discussion on reading:

Shane goes over questions that were asked:

Drew: I like this first one about the Adlai Stevenson model.  The expectation that all students were going to succeed and then walked through how that was going to happen, that we need to be effective teachers, and then there were supports in place that would help us achieve that.  There definitely has to be a mindset.  I wasn’t sure I liked the first paper I read, because it was unrealistic, I can’t be everything to everyone.  I like the mindset of finding ways to help our kids that are in front of us, not trying to figure out ways to get kids out of our classroom.

Shane:  I like the simplifying article on RTI.  It starts with the PLC’s.  I have read the whole book and I liked that one the best.  I like the functioning PLC idea.

Paul:  What should a teacher be doing as opposed to what the article is saying?

Drew: I didn’t like the RTI article because it talked about learning as a set of skills.  If you came to my class, it’s not just a set of skills.  I want to be able to teach in a robust way that isn’t always easily measured.  If you can solve a problem in Physics, does that mean you can do and understand Physics?  I want to have more time to help students understand.  How do I get differentiated instruction done for my 45 students?  In the Adlai paper, it talked about success coming from students as well, not just the teachers.  When I was at Adlai, the teachers had high expectations that their students met.  If we reduce everything to numbers on paper of what their grade is, then I think our kids lose out and we can miss a lot of.  I am not really sure if our students have a deep understanding of what I’m teaching.

Paul:  If we do the same thing with each class, when you have 5 10^th grade classes that need a quick method of assessment.  Is it my flaw for giving an assignment that isn’t helping my students?

Shane:  Do we have uniformity in our English department?  In math?  We have to have viable curriculum. 

Curtis:  It’s hard to feel like we aren’t measuring what we need to measure.  We can get some, but it’s not enough.  The burden of the teacher needs to be spread to the intervention team (attendance, etc.).

Paul:  Public Education is on display right now, and the whole nation things we are failing.  I here that it’s a teacher’s job to convey knowledge and develop a detailed safety net for each student.  We have to be masters of our craft, we are professionals and we should be able to master what we do. 

Drew:  We can’t collaborate once a month, it’s redundant.  You guys (administrators) should be able to do that work.  Like attendance.  Adlai’s departments meet once a week and work on curriculum.  We just don’t get the chance to meet like we should.

Shane:  So is it more than just the time? 

Joyce:  We are unproductive.  It’s too far and few.

Drew:  We never have been trained to work like that.

Shane:  I have a success story for you from my last school.  We sacrificed all Professional Development for one whole year that we wanted to be trained for one year and no one went to any conferences, or any training.  The next year we allocated half of our money to send the teachers that missed some of the training to a weeklong training and finally we had enough of us that knew what we were supposed to be doing and it started to work.  For one whole year that was all we talked about.

Curtis:  My group is focusing on professional development.  The feeling I get from my team is that we would all love to go to something like this.  Our teachers want this. 

Shane:  We went to split time between RST’s, and departmental meetings because no one could get anything done in their RST’s.

Curtis:  A common prep would also be nice to have times to meet as a departmental.

Lisa:  It’s also frustrating when students have a different teacher the next semester and a concept hasn’t been taught by the last teacher.

Curtis:  That’s why training is so important.  We need to know how to have these things happen.

Shane:  Is this an important enough item that we need to have this in place before we can have the intervention work?

Paul:  I don’t think any of us know.  We shouldn’t be afraid to fail and fall down.  I am happy to support whatever we decide.

Gordon:  We need to pick one thing and do it well.  We can’t do everything.

Drew:  If we have the intervention time, it gives me some context to want to work with my colleagues.  We can all work together on helping kids.

Paul:  I need to see instant progress.  Like with my new year’s resolution.  I see an intervention time not being really effective if we don’t know what we should be doing. 

Drew:  If I had an intervention hour, it would be helpful to me to have assessments to have an idea what students need more help, I don’t see PLC’s being much help to that. 

Paul:  If we want to be a Blue Ribbon School and we know what year 1 looks like and year 2 and so on.  We have to be honest with our scope and sequence, with our students and faculty. 

Lisa:  I have seen a real shift in student expectations and school pride in my younger kids from what it was with my older kids.  There is a real shift.  Its parents, teachers, and students.  The expectations are definitely lower.

Curtis: I feel that it’s important to be honest up front.  Letting teachers and students know that they are going to be frustrated with it the first year and its ok to wait until next year for more good things to happen.

Paul:  I feel that many of our teachers here at LHS are just waiting for it to fail.  I like the way Curtis termed it with feeling frustrated.

Curtis:  I think we need to have more problem solving skills, instead of just identifying the problem at hand.  That doesn’t help.  I see the intervention time as cultivating the need for PLC’s.

Shane:  I feel like the piece of being honest is a great product from this team.  Just being honest about what roadblock and frustrations we can see as happening.

Jim:  As people better understand RTI, a teacher can be part of a collective responsibility for kids.  The most important factor in education is a guaranteed, viable curriculum.  Kids learn at different rates.  We need to be prepared for those learners that learn slower or faster so that they can get the same curriculum.  If we could look at our numbers and population and see that it isn’t the same as it was 5 or 10 years ago then change our curriculum to meet those needs.

Shane:  This is a responsive school team.  We are a team and are responding to needs of students, parents, teachers and the school as a whole.  We are addressing the five areas that need to be addressed twice a week already.  I will address that.  But, what do you do in department meetings then?  Its’ back to that earlier question.

Drew:  why not ask our teachers to make common assessments ahead of time?  We have too many professional developments that should have happened before school time.

Joyce:  We need to have more frequent checkups and see where we are.

Lisa:  As we moved to semesters, we thought it would be easier scheduling when kids have different math or English teachers that aren’t really aligned.

Paul:  Broke into song….the music man.

Shane:  we have talked about all aspects of the responsive school teams.  We are hitting all of the elements of it. 

Jill:  We have discussed the transition piece as well.

Shane:  We have had good by products from this meeting, even though we didn’t get all of our questions answered.  We will meet Monday, but the original action team should be here.

January 14, 2013-Process, Norms, Criteria, Timeline

In Attendance:  Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Gordon Geddes, Lisa Hopkins, Joyce Smart, Toph Cottle, Jim Peacock, Paul Wagner, Jayne Hamblin, Drew Nielson, Donna Starley

Excused: Curtis Jenson

Shane:  We need to discuss the following items so that we remain transparent:

Process

Norms

Purpose: belief, desired outcomes, school wide systems, professional development, measurement means

Timeline

It’s hard when people are popping in and out because it feels like we don’t get as much done because we have to cover what they have missed.  However, people are always invited to attend.  The only norm we broke regularly is that we started and ended on time.  We want to establish norms to start out.  We want to talk about things that make or break a meeting. 

Norms: Start/end on time, side conversations, shared air time, not personal, open minded (see all sides), objective for each meeting/agenda, keeping to timeline

We will operate on consensus.  It’s the feeling or direction in the room that most people can sense, even if you don’t agree with it, the group will move forward.

As we talk about our beliefs, do we need to look at our current belief system is vs. what it should be?  Is there something out there that we need to overcome?  Where are we about a belief system and an intervention?

Paul:  I think that all students can learn…I have found myself not really able to believe that. I had students that didn’t care, and as soon as I decided that the student didn’t care, I stopped trying.  Students have the mechanism where they do just enough to get by, and being happy with a D-.  As teachers, we are all too often ready to just not let them learn.

Drew:  I think in some cases, we don’t have the resources to help that student.  All students can learn, I agree with Paul.  I can think of one student in particular that hardly comes and I wonder why they even are there; they aren’t going to do the work.

Lisa:  with so many kids in a class, there is only so much you can do.

Shane:  how do our parents feel?

Lisa:  In our music classes we have an expectation for those students.  That expectation isn’t present for all students.

Jayne:  It comes from attendance.  Those kids don’t come.

Lisa:  We have such huge classes; these kids fly under the radar and don’t raise red flags.  Our higher end learners have that expectation that we know they will perform.  I have a friend who wants to transfer from the county even though they like the FLEX hour.

Toph: 

Paul:  I agree with Toph.  I am looking at the website and our DRSL’s.  Is that our belief?  We don’t measure that.  How was our citizenship, lifelong learning? 

Toph:  What about a school constitution?

Lisa:  I think some of those critical things have gotten lost-expectations, visions, what we all believe.

Paul: I did some research for my MS degree.  I looked at Adelei Steveson and a survey all their students of why they were at school.  Once the students held the same belief of the faculty, behavioral issues plummeted. 

Drew:  I like the idea that they earn their educations, by being here every day and learning.  Everything those students do had a purpose (passing a quiz).  Kids that pass their math classes know their math.

Jim:  I am hearing that kids were identified right away, and failure isn’t an option.  The change in demographics has been so severe, that we haven’t been able to keep up with it.

Lisa:  The school system has changed

Jim: There has to be a way for those students that don’t get it, get the extra help and flagged daily if not weekly. 

Shane:  Jim Dufour is the chancellor at Adelei Stevenson.  He said that their program was 15-20 years in the making.  No one can just take the program and make it fit theirs.  What school of thought or you as a teacher?

Charles Darwin:  All students can learn based on their ability.  Aptitude is fixed and therefore we as teachers have little impact on that.

Pontius Pilot: All students can learn if they elect to put forth the necessary effort.

Chicago Cub fan:  We believe all kids can learn something.  They can experience this in a warm nurturing environment. 

Henry Higgins:  We believe all kids can learn and teachers never give up meeting the individual needs.

I have always thought in my head which school I am going into?  Wouldn’t that be great if we all had a Henry Higgins point of view?  It takes more than just the normal to get it done, it’s whatever it takes.  Is that crazy to have that belief?

Drew:  I don’t think we could have anything less.  All students at Adelei Stevenson bought into the program.

Lisa:  What about those parents that don’t value education?

Drew:  If this really worked, I don’t think I would be working more, I think I would be working less.

Shane:  If we could create a collective system to where everyone is a partner in the process.  What part of the system has changed?  We want to hear the perspectives from our Latino students on what they need to succeed and how we can help them.  We can’t have our young Latino girls come after school because they have other family commitments, or the kids going to sports, etc.  I am excited that we are at this point; it’s a lot of work.  Are we committed to being a Henry Higgins school?  If so, how do we get this culture to spread?  The culture of the school is going to be dictated by those who are telling the story.  It’s like hearing a story that is incorrect or telling a lie.  Soon, we hearing thing that are completely untrue.  So, it’s created a culture that really isn’t what it is.  We need to tell our story so that we can create the culture we want.  What does it mean? 

Paul:  I think most of us can identify with those schools of thought.  Very seldom am I the Henry Higgins guy.  I try to help them.  Pep talks here and there…there are some students that it would take me 80+ hours a week to help learn.  Some students I have to remind a student every day to take out his pen and paper.  I feel a lot of backlash..like why are we even trying.  Because we don’t have kids that want to learn.  I think our school culture is more of the Pontius Pilot school.  We will show up as teachers every day and do our job, if they want to learn, they can.

Jim:  What are the criteria we need to establish Tier 1? 

Paul:  Will our efforts be in vain if teachers don’t buy into it?  Do we force it down their throats? 

Jim:  Do we do Math, Science, English?

Drew:  We should do every class if we have a system that can do that.  Every class is expected at Lakeridge.  We will have teachers that don’t buy into everything, but we keep going and try to get all onboard. 

Gordon:  As we experience success, others will want to get involved.  It takes time to buy-in.

Joyce:  Of course we care about kids.  Because we do care, we will do these things you are asking us to do.  Tier 1 instruction is about all of that. 

Shane:  Toph what are your thoughts on the teachers you have had in the past?  Where do they fit (no names)?

Toph:  I am selfish and like the whole “take what you can get”.  I see lots of different things with teachers.  Mr. Semadeni will take you over to the computer to check your grade and let you know that you need to make up some assignments.  It would be nice to see teachers trying to make sure all students pass.

Shane:  In your mind, if it truly was all of us working towards this high expectation?  Is there any benefit if all kids are working towards this? 

Toph:  I don’t know of a class where everyone is trying.

Drew:  Those kids tend to all be serious about understanding what’s going on and dialed in.  Kids challenge each other.

Shane:  If that were the case and everyone was actively learning, you would have more time to not do the reteaching.

Drew:  That’s why we have teachers that are drained.  If we have a system that catches kids before they fail, we can save them before they lose.

Paul:  Tier 1 models are built around the 85%

Lisa:  it’s hard when our elementary kids aren’t up to par.

Jayne:  I don’t think it is like that anymore, students are required to pass certain tests.

Shane:  It goes back to why assignments are due?  If the student can master a skill, that’s what really matters.  I think we have some work to do on our belief.  If we can come up with the words for that, we can infiltrate that into our system and allow it to impact our system.

Paul:  Let’s just say that from now forward, we are a Henry Higgins school.

Jim:  I think if we proclaim it like we say and provide assistance for those teachers that need it, they will get on board or segregate themselves. 

Shane:  when Adelei Stevenson changed its beliefs, there was quite a bit of turnover, they told the faculty what the plans were, and many jumped ship.

Jim:  I appreciate our DRSL’s and the effort that goes into making our students hold to that.

Paul:  How do we know that we have reached those outcomes?

Jim:  the middle school evaluated for those DRSL’s every quarter.

Joyce:  Let’s include the DRSL’s in our beliefs.

Drew:  I don’t think we have a choice on our beliefs.

Shane:  All students can learn and will, and at a high level.  That’s our job

Paul:  We should make all college and career ready (no matter your SES, language, other issues).

Shane:  I think it’s great, we need to also look at our EXPLORE data, and have other criteria that we can use for celebrations.  We need to use common assessments, easy CBMs and get a good baseline, and as we start identifying kids that need weekly progress monitoring. 

Joyce:  Allow them a taste of success.

Paul:  Allowing students to see their grade immediately (immediate feedback).

Toph:  I took a test before the break and didn’t hear how I did until after.  It ruined my break.

Lisa:  It is hard for kids to know where they really are at if teachers don’t update.

Shane: I won’t be here Thursday, but, I will provide some good reading material for that day.  The next Thursday we will set up the criteria.

Drew:  What students do we want in this?  Then we can design.

 TIMELINE:

1/17-readings

1/24-criteria/reading review

1/28-criteria

1/31-pyramid

2/4

2/7

2/11

2/14

2/21

2/25

2/28-Final Product

Other items to think about: Logistics, automated system, staffing, PD, organization, student priority, safety net, attendance, intervention pyramid