November 12 Meeting: Intervention Plans

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 3^rd 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