November 9 Meeting: Review of other school's intervention systems

AT MEETING 11/5/12

In attendance: Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Jim Peacock, Mike Mudrow, Lacy Fonnesbeck, Donna Starley, Drew Neilson, Gordon Geddes, Paul Wagner, Curtis Jenson, Jason Soffe, Sadie Anderson, Chris Cottle, Brad  Nielsen, Sharilee Griffiths

Jill: Review of minutes

Shane: reminder of Action Team Norms.  Data is all over the place.  The number one priority is getting student’s help that they need.  Tier 2 and Tier 3 require 90 minutes in a day of intervention.  Difference in Tier 2 and Tier 3 is that they stay in their regular English class with an additional 45 minute intervention.  A Tier 3 would have the students out of their core class and put them into a specialized class to look and build their skills.  Review of handouts. Let’s review the schools that were looked at for our homework.

Please look at your handout-Rawlins High School.  Every student was looked at with this pyramid.  Discussion of pyramid…Teacher watch, Counselor watch, office watch, alternative placements, or other options…finally if no progress made, learning disabilities were looked at lastly.  We also wanted to look at students who transferred in.  Also look at Wasatch High School’s bell schedule.  They are on an A, B roll over schedule.  Any student who has an F, that student must stay for the intervention time.  If there are no F’s, the student can have a 30 minute passing period (extra time for lunch).  This reduced their F’s and zero’s to practically nothing. 

Drew:   who did the mandatory tutoring at Rawlins?

Shane: Teachers got prep periods one for themselves and one to do tutoring.

Jim:  I looked at Palmer.  They are on a modified block schedule.  I looked at their SPED dept...  I called Jeremy from Palmer.  He emailed me back.  They run a robust tutoring hall that serves all subjects.  On occasion he provides instruction to the staff.  It sounds like he was a master teacher who was put in charge of all at risk kids.  All periods are on M,H,F.  Tuesday is half schedule and other half on Wednesday.  They do PLC’s on Wednesdays.  They have fully functioning PLC’s and a tutoring center that all freshman and sophomore have the homework hour.  Two teachers (math and English) run the tutoring center and train some of their peer tutors to work in the tutoring center.  They also run ACT prep or AP test help and preparation.

Paul: I looked at Lakeridge and their pyramid of interventions.  One for all students and one for math.  They have FLEX which is extended lunch period.  Lots of interventions listed on their pyramid.  Level one is learners, level 2 is failed learners, and level 3 is intentional non-learners.  Summer school, intensive math support, sheltered classes, and 5 levels of interventions at tier 3.  The Good Friend program is an adult who is a good friend who makes contact with the student.  The adults are assigned through the student response team.  The strength of Lakeridges intervention is their strong PLC’s.  Within 48 hours issues were solved.

Drew:  I visited Sky View.  They are on a trimester with an hour long lunch.  They first tried staggered teachers lunches.  There was 35 minutes built in every day with the choice to go to get help.  They made it mandatory with two F’s that they attend this intervention time.  The better students would be able to use the time.  If it’s mandatory, the students will go.  Teachers would give a referral, and contact calls were made if they didn’t go.   5 period Trimester.  The 3^rd period was a little longer in order for a teacher to check their homeroom class (80 minutes vs. 65 minutes) grades.  They scheduled all assemblies during their 3^rd hour.  Rock hour… This school kept most of their academic day with this Rock Hour.  Assemblies would just shorten the hours-all hours.

Jim: Citizenship grades (behaviors)would be taken out and it would make students ineligible to attend events or be part of athletics.

Brad: Vinemont.  They have citizenship grades.  Any truancy is an automatic U citizenship grade.  Pyramid looks like the following:  Brad shows the review of the pyramid.  PLC’s are at the base of the pyramid. Study, Remediation, and Collaboration time is in the middle of pyramid.  Students have to apply for the SRC period, and may get a scholarship.  There was a big emphasis on rehabilitation. 

Paul:  Liked Vinemont because it sent out the U on the report card and students need to get their U off their transcript and worked closely with the adults in the building to get this mark off your report card. 

Curtis: I looked at Washington Lee.  Most things I found were the same as what everyone else has stated.  They had a 7 period day with a  block day a few days a week.  General’s period provides students rehabilitation time or excellence time once they are there.  Common Assessments or the net that catches the kids seems to be very well developed.

Shane:  Palmer, Lakeridge, etc. have very well developed PLC’s.  They also have common assessments that are very well developed.  All teachers teach with the same vocabulary and timelines.  Teachers called each other out on what they hadn’t done.

Chris: We found 6 schools.  I looked at Ogden High.  They are on the block schedule.  During 3^rd hour, grades are looked at its decided if a student can do extra lunch time or do remediation time.  Boise had a schedule like ours is on Wednesday, but it’s from 6:50-7:55 before school every day.  They charge to attend this.  Pendleton High School does a 35 minute intervention schedule between 2^nd and 3^rd hour everyday built in.

Sadie: Mt. Crest is on Trimesters and has 5 periods with a FLEX period after 1^st hour.  You can’t have a first hour FLEX period or at the end of the day or before and after lunch.  With an A, B schedule, you still have that many hours of homework.  We need a FLEX period during the day to help us do homework or catch up with something you might have missed.  Mt. Crest also starts later with the FLEX period, they start at 8am and get done 10 minutes later. 

Brad:  Mt. Crest’s FLEX period also shifts around each trimester.  The shifting makes it hard to control with not many built in rewards.

Jim:  They can also earn credit during this time.  Students can go to seminary or intramurals and clubs.  Remediation and enrichment.

Shane:  Lakeridge does that as well.

Paul: Some of my students struggle with grades and they do like clubs so it’s an incentive to work hard.

Gordon: Blue Valley High School has similar demographics as LHS.  They have an advisory class with one staff member and 20 students that meet 45 minutes each week.  That advisory class will be together with that advisor their entire school career.  Students can get assigned to one time slot if they are struggling.

Mike: My wife teaches at North Cache with the early out Fridays.  I have some colleagues in Davis where they have a time period on Fridays where students can look at their grades for the week.  Citizenship is a huge piece that can be helpful if it’s enforced.  In Wyoming, we check grades once a week.  We need something that is mandatory.

Shane:   I also looked at Baltimore public schools.  They have chosen to address the intervention piece with the online world.  Teachers are trained and taught online with APEX.  Students were identified and put into an online setting.  I am not sure online is the best way to address these students.  Another school in Canada, with 900 kids in the school, where they focused on everything was offered in the classroom and put everything in one basket.  If they used all minutes and didn’t miss any class time to teach and use for learning.

We have 30 minutes left and now we need to start getting information out to our departments.  Are we ready to get this information out on Google docs?

Mike:  I don’t think we are ready to share much yet.  We don’t have any hard information.

Shane:  We need to be transparent and at least communicate the process, the timeline, and interventions looked at. 

Drew:  It would be nice to share if there are common themes in the interventions we have looked at and then get that out to departments.

Jim: Please have our students report to the Student Senate, The House of Reps, and Student Body Officers.

Shane: Wayne Dodd our community council president would like someone to report to our community council.  Paul Wagner will be going.

Items that are common in our interventions:

-Daily, timely identification, Mandatory-entrance and exit criteria (if referred), during school day, incentive, Interruption (other activities at the same time), citizenship program with teeth, simple, common assessments (identification)-goes with need criteria, credit recovery (systems question), faculty (strength to support), protection of instructional time, network of resources (peer tutor, etc.), support up the food chain, enrichment opportunities, avoid punitive,

Paul: Lakeridge is doing common assessments that students take 2 a year and they are quick and can help identify students.  The purpose of common assessments is to identify skill gaps.  Not just have kids quickly make up assignments.

Brad: What about credit recovery?  Is that something we should be including here?

Drew: I think we are already fragmented.  We need to reach 90% of students.  What direction are we going?  We shouldn’t be trying to create a wish list that is too broad.

Paul: it’s good to see what we could get with different systems.

Curtis: Let’s just prioritize a year by year or semester by semester approach.