Action Team Re-convened
1/31/13
In Attendance: Mike
Mudrow, Jim Peacock, Jayne Hamblin, Jill Lowe, Student, Drew Nielson, Brad
Nelson, Gordon Geddes, Curtis Jenson, Paul Wagner, Jason Soffe, Shane Ogden,
Toph Cottle
Shane: Discussion on
what’s happening now, what our call is for next week. Jill has been working with BATC on getting it
coordinated with our new schedule and students will probably only be going in
the mornings only. Jim has been working
with the bussing issue and we do have some issues with other schools, so we
decided to just shorten our classes and keep the original start and end
times. We now will have to present next
Wednesday to the public our presentation.
Can everyone commit to this next Wednesday at 6pm? What are the key elements we want to
present? Everyone can be there but
Jason.
Minute taker stepped out of the room….
Paul: Can we make
this schedule improve the academic success of our students? I want to keep fighting for our 60 minute
classes. I would rather have an
intervention time than 60 minute classes.
Curtis: I really can
see where the middle school is coming from, but we aren’t going to get this
right the first time, we need to be realistic.
I’m hopeful that we can get something done in the next few years.
Brad: I’m not so
optimistic that a year from now they are going to work with us. We have seen this before, we all have. I don’t see that they are willing to work
with us now or then.
Paul: If the middle
school would extend their school day as well, ours would work.
Curtis: We need to revisit and make more changes, it’s a
must.
Jim: after the board
approves the schedule, we need to continue our hard work and get this movement
going.
Shane: I have had
conversations with people about some of their interventions that are going on
and great things they are doing. But I
won’t go and tell Mike how to run his middle school. The element of a continuous intervention from
elementary on up and alignment, I just don’t see it coming in from the
outside. Some of the responses coming
from the middle school were offensive to me and I don’t want to turn around and
say similar things back.
Paul: I would like to
propose we make every effort possible that we preserve the original schedule as
we had decided.
Drew: We average 44
minutes a day with.
Minute taker stepped out of the room….
Shane: I am hearing
that we want to make our Plan A work, or head back to the drawing board.
Jason: I’m already on
Plan C; I don’t want class time cut.
Brad: My personal feelings
are that we need to start over if our original plan doesn’t work out.
Jim: I called Mike
and we are going to meet with him tomorrow at 11:30. Paul, can you come with me?
Paul: I can come..
Curtis: If we don’t
get our way, then what?
Brad: I say we meet
on Monday and battle it out.
Donna: I think we
need to show the gap data that we have to explain what the need for an
intervention is real. That’s important
for our public to see.
Shane: I don’t want
to throw any department under the bus, with the data that we have, because that
information didn’t change at the semester.
Jayne: I want to know
the info, but not muddy the waters. I
would rather have my student getting their help during school, rather than
before or after school.
Shane: Maybe we can
have Scott put together a video for us a-a life of a failing student?
For this intervention/enrichment hour you should enlist the help of the students who don't need the intervention to be tutors for the students that do. You could pair up tutors with the students and give the tutors extra credit or some kind of distinction that they could then put on their transcripts/resumes as they look forward to applying for university education. This would be a win-win-win-win situation. Win #1 - the students who are getting tutored will likely see their academic performance improve. Win #2 - the tutors will have an enriching and rewarding experience. Win #3 - the teachers will have all the assistance they need during the enrichment hour. Win #4 - by pairing the students up you will be creating a more tolerant and empowering atmosphere at the school. Thus everyone wins collectively.
ReplyDeleteThank you,
Arthur Caplan
arthur.caplan@usu.edu