AT minutes
11/8/12
In Attendance: Shane Ogden, Jim
Peacock, Jill Lowe, Sharilee Griffiths, Mike Mudrow, Jason Soffe, Drew Neilson,
Jason Soffe, Mary Morgan, Curtis Jenson, Donna Starley, Lacy Fonnesbeck, Toph
Cottle, Gordon Geddes
Excused:
Sadie, Brad Nielson
Shane:
Please report back on your experience from Wednesdays department meetings
Curtis: I had a good experience in the English
building. Some are skeptical about the
change actually happening. We need to
keep moving forward.
Jim: There was a reason that things were shut down
last year. It’s nice that Shane has
outlined the process and the timeline for us to follow. There were lots of questions but not much
conversation.
Gordon: The math department had a similar
reaction. Teachers are glad that we are
working towards this, but much skepticism.
Some concerns with scheduling and the logistics of it. We did talk a little about interventions and
what they would like to see an in-school-suspension type place for students who
are disruptive continually. Teachers
would like to see more than an advisory program like they have at Mt. Logan or
time for kids to just sit. Teachers are
glad to see the process and all agreed that we need some intervention.
Drew: Most were on board and our conversation focused
more on a study skills type class. I
think most people feel that we need a daily intervention. We also talked about a freshman skills class. We didn’t talk much about the process.
Shane: That
conversation included great discussion on the “middle of the road” kids.
Jason: The
Social Studies has much skepticism. They
feel that it is very separated from the faculty and our norms we have just
decided on that will suit us best. They
feel that we don’t have the staff to implement something that will work-due to
the fact of how much LHS has been “gutted” with cut-backs. If we implement something half-way, they will
be upset with a loss of time.
Mike: My group was similar. They are very skeptical about changes and
loss of their courses. They feel like we
shouldn’t be bending over backwards to help students that don’t care. I’m trying to talk them out of being
skeptical.
Lacy: The CTE discussion was great. My department is very excited about our
discussions. I went through and grouped
our talks into sub-groups to help our cause.
Mary: SPED has talked about it off and on. We have talked about this, and our Wednesday
morning time. We know the value of the
time that it would take, and our student’s need something. Sometimes it’s as simple for our students as
moving them to another seat.
Donna: I had a couple of comments from my
group. They are concerned about
interventions been based on inaccurate data and using that effectively. Mt. Crest’s principal came and talked about
what happened there when they changed and what the manpower would look
like. Citizenship is a big can of worms
and shelved and tackled later on after this.
Toph: I have talked with a few of my friends about
this and the ones that stay on topic really would like something.
Sharilee: I wasn’t at the last meeting, and did talk
with one parent about this. The parent
was very positive.
Gordon: The Math dept. was in favor of the creation
of a Google doc for all to have access to.
They would like a chance to see what’s happening and communicate their
thoughts as we go along.
Shane: I heard from about 3 different departments
with high levels of skepticism. What can
we do to alleviate the skepticism?
Jim: I've had the same skepticism; however, we brought this worry up with the Superintendent and showed him our process and what we have been concerned about. The Superintendent endorses the process we are going through, therefore what we are doing will be received by the school board.
Shane: I asked Marshal if we as a team come back and
decide that Trimesters is what is decided on, we need to have looked at
everything that will be affected by it.
That also goes into credits and graduation requirements. We would need some serious discussions on how
we were going to address those things.
We need to make sure that we are addressing what resources we have.
Mike: When the semesters are put into place, we
were told we needed to move to that in order to fit everything in.
Jim: We can keep our requirements the same and
still have a different schedule that would work.
Shane: In a lot of these schedules we talked about
intervention time being at lunch.
However, our lunchroom cannot hold one of our lunches, let alone two of
our lunches. We need to look at all
implications and be prepared to explain what we find and decide. Is most of our skepticism that we don’t have
a good representation of our faculty?
Drew: I think lots of teachers would like to work
this out over a faculty meeting. Many
just say whatever they feel, which isn’t always productive. If we could open this up in a Google doc,
that could help solve many concerns and keep this transparent.
Mike: The faculty thinks no one is listening to
them.
Sharilee: How would we use Google docs? I love them, but how do we see using
them? I also think Facebook is a great
resource. I am hearing that the teachers
would like some input, maybe some combination of the two?
Curtis: We
have many options for Google docs and ways we can use them. The District Office is very skeptical of the
open comment boards.
Shane: Getting this to our parents and students is
another huge area of concern. What if we
posted our minutes in a blog? The
moderator could do that.
Sharilee: Won’t parents want to see everything?
Shane: We would want to sensor and not open it up to
everyone, moderate it.
Donna: Are people skeptical that we are going to
make this happen or is it more what the intervention is?
Gordon: There is skepticism on many levels. One is that we will get this done, what the
intervention will look like, etc.
Shane: I hear that we need to address the
skepticism, and validate that we understand why people are skeptical, yet still
move forward. While moving forwards, we
need to be able to allow teachers to voice their concerns and move forward. Is everyone good with a blog? I can set that up tonight.
Jason: When I showed my department the work, they
wanted to see the research. They don’t
want the answers; they would like to see the data and work that is out there.
Shane: We can post the links and resource sites on
the blog.
Mike: It’s not a popularity contest, we as a
committee need to do what’s best for the school. Previous administrations haven’t made the
decision that they needed to.
Curtis: We also can let our faculty know that in the
end, the administration will make the decision.
Our team is to help look over research, etc.
Shane: Let’s look at what we talked about on
Monday. Discussion of the list….We
talked about these non-negotiables. Does
anyone disagree with these?
Lacy: Talked about what listing she put together
for sub-groups. Overall, these are
things we have to have to move on:
Overall, Schedule, Who is to attend, already mastered, long term
goals. Each is a subgroup. See attached.
Donna: The difference between having it weekly and
having a daily intervention is the schedule change?
Shane: Not necessarily, I think it would be easier
with a different schedule, but it’s not mandatory.
Drew: We don’t want to cut instructional time.
Sharilee: My son did have a comment about the
schedule. He doesn’t believe there is
time to put less time in the classroom.
The kids have too much to fit into the classroom currently (more info
than time).
Shane: I would like to see us prioritize these, but
Lacy has put together a nice list for us to use. Let’s use this list to push things out.
Jim: We need to put the citizenship in place
because it’s such a huge item. We will
need to look at this eventually at another time.
Shane: Prioritizing activity. According to us staffing is most important to
us, then incentives, protecting instructional time and networking
resources.
Jim: If kids are going somewhere to get math,
science, or whatever intervention they need-like beginning science and the AP
science kid?
Shane: Interventions for all students (even a B
student).
Mike: Sometimes students who are in the fine arts
need intervention time to practice their instruments.
Jason: All student need the time to go up…. No
matter where they are at.
Donna: We don’t want to do any harm to any
student. Maybe that’s where it got shot
down, was that our upper end students couldn’t get help they need.
Lacy: Coming from the middle school, students get
locked in a whole year with teachers that can’t or won’t help the student. We need to have the staffing to support this.
Shane: It seems like we are putting the cart before
the horse with the staffing concerns. We
are starting to think trimesters before we really need to. We need to look at something outside of the
box where all students are still getting their intervention time. I had an opportunity at a conference to
listen to Elliot Maronbloom. He has done
the meta-analysis on scheduling. Please
look at these chapters from his book on things that have worked and haven’t and
his guidelines to building a schedule for our school. Please use the next twenty minutes to look
through these chapters. Please continue
to talk with everyone about what we are doing.
Talk to everyone we see about what we are doing and our story. I will work on putting a blog together for
this. Get it onto Facebook and Twitter
to let others know what’s going on.
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