November 1 Meeting: Student / Grade Level Data and

Action Team

Meeting Minutes

11/1/12

In Attendance: Shane Ogden, Donna Starley, Brad Nielson, Drew Neilson, Gordon Geddes, Paul Wagner, Chris Cottle, Jill Lowe, Jim Peacock, Jason Soffe,Curtis Jenson, Mike Mudrow?

Excused: Lacy Fonnesbeck,  Sadie Anderson

Shane:  Please review the minutes that we have typed up from Monday.  You should all have a packet in front of you.  This is information on consensus-From Learning by Doing.

There has been lots of research done in the 9^th grade year.  The alliance for Excellence in Education created a great research tool. If a student has a gap in their education by the end of their 9^th grade year, as each year goes on, is less likely to close and can be traced back to elementary school.  We must be very intentional in the way we are addressing those gaps.  The 9^th grade is a starting point.  We will have this cohort 3 ¾ of the year to monitor and watch their data.  

Drew: the success at Lakeridge was school wide, not just focused on the 9^th graders. 

Shane: Tier three intervention is focused on school wide.

Donna: Is the gap data the only data we will use on this intervention?   Are we assuming that these gaps are due to reading skills?

Shane: Gap data is school wide.  Filling in the gaps can be a more targeted.   Is reading a factor in Social studies?  Science?

Jason/Drew:  Absolutely, reading and writing is huge in my (Jason) class.  I see it immediately.

Drew: It’s not as important in my class.  When we do a school wide intervention, teachers can see what students need to be referred to a higher intervention.  I don’t know that gap data is that important. 

Shane:  Many interventions take place in tier 1.  Special Ed is not a tier 3 intervention.

Brad: We need to get these kids the help they want.  They are going out with a bang because they don’t want it to be their fault, it will be because they didn’t “try”.

Shane:  What are areas of concern?  (Look at data that is provided).  I have also looked through their 8^th grades.  Very similar all the way through middle school.  How many are transfer students?  Explore scores?  Explanation of Explore data scores.  Our 90 students (freshman) are on the losing cycle.  We need to help them start winning.  It’s all students.  Some learning requires more time.

Jason:  The AP kids who are reaching their limits in their abilities.  They don’t have the skills to continue their learning growth.

Shane: Our UCASS data has been released to the school, and our top end students have reached their plateau which marks us very low.  The bell curve is being used. 

Brad:  Our high end kids have no time to implement the help they need.  We need to have common interventions for the whole group. 

Shane and Jim: Discussed our data for Logan High.

Jason:  When I sit with my students face to face in 5 minutes, I can correct more problems in that face to face, than I can writing something on their paper.  If I have more time, I can do much more.  My AP writing scores are going up.

Brad: Time is of the essence….these kids need that time

Paul: It sounds like we are of a consensus.  We need to move forward with now what?

Donna:  We need to be aware of why we are so low and what are needs really are.  We aren’t ready to move forward.  With scores coming out in the paper, we are going to need some PR.

Drew:  We have an intervention here we need to deal with, not PR.  I will get up and leave if this group heads toward PR work.

Shane: We will handle the PR by letting the public know what we are doing to address 90% of our student body with this intervention.  We need to tell our story, the district is not going to handle our PR problem.  Our intervention will take care of this by speaking for itself.

Paul: We need to be able to justify the decision we make.  Not just a schedule change, we need to look at every piece of data to identify clearly what problem we are trying to solve.

Information to all is key.  The board will be approving these elements.  That’s what they are expecting.  We need to identify the reason why.

Jason:  I loved trimesters.  I could teach more content.  However, I look at scores that have increased, I can get more kids into the AP classes.  We need to make sure it’s a whole school thing, not simply a remedial student intervention.

Chris: I need the time to get the help I need, when I stay after class I can’t get the help I need from my math teacher.

Shane: What more information do we need?  We need the drilled down data to help individual students and teachers to work together to meet their needs.  We need a parent here that isn’t in the school that can tell us the data makes sense.  Shane discussed the interventions at Palmer High School.  Mt. Crest and Sky View are having success at the tier 1 level.  We need to be able to stay open to any ideas that may come into view. 

Jim:  We have data that shows us time is a huge missing piece of this. 

Paul: We need a class period during the day to address the issues here and now take the time to address tier 1.

Shane:  We need to be aware of tier 2 and tier 3, so that we don’t get stuck with a system that have time requirements in tier 2 and 3 intervention.  I think we are ready to move onto various steps in the pyramid of interventions.  What are other schools doing and what are we doing that should stay?  It sounds like time to work with our kids.  Please do some research on what other schools are doing.  Go to everythingplc and see what other schools are doing to intervene.  We should all look as homework assignments at what other schools are doing.  Palmer, Lakeridge, and Washington Lee High school in Arlington, VA.