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 2nd 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.