AT MEETING
IN ATTENDANCE: Shane Ogden, Jill Lowe, Mike Mudrow, Donna
Starley, Mary Morgan, Gordon Geddes, Curtis Jenson, Toph Cottle, Lisa Hopkins,
Sadie Anderson, Paul Wagner, Brad Nelson, Drew Neilson, Lacy Fonnesbeck, Jason
Soffe, Sharilee Griffiths
EXCUSED: Jim Peacock
Shane: Intro
Jill: Review of minutes
Shane: Let’s start with the traditional schedule. The blog has also changed slightly; we have
added a new side area with documents and data.
TRADITIONAL (modified schedule)
Paul: (Handout), this
is what we have right now, just with the intervention built in. This gives you the option to front load math
classes for the first couple of class periods that would meet every day. Some classes meet every day, some classes
don’t. Initially, students can have
difficulty to know where they need to be when, but they get use to it. It gives less passing time (in the halls).
Mike: There are a lot
of good things and flexibility with this schedule which is why we switched in
the first place. The contract day is the
exact same time, that doesn’t time. We
are just shuffling around time to meet with kids after school. All three schedules you get 4 days contact. Changing schedules isn’t a magic bullet. We will have to adjust to what fits our
needs.
Brad: The schedule
doesn’t drive the success of the students.
There is not a perfect schedule for teachers and students. We are running our semester broken. We never gave it a fair shot. This schedule requires the most money.
PROS: able to front load (math classes), increased
student time, minimum of 4 day contact, longer periods, RE: GPA highest in
semester school, endless options for flexibility, 30-35 minute intervention
time,
CONS: remember what day and class they have, intense
workload for kids, teacher preps, cost (requires more staff), 1 teacher
multiple sections (has different sections on different days), complexity of
modified.
Mary: All the
schedules I viewed, the schools start later.
Is there a chance we can start later?
Shane: The research
out there is supportive of the start time being later. Then it interrupts the athletics, etc.
Mike: We need to be
careful of a back to back prep periods, which on certain days, might be tricky.
Shane: I have seen
something called Walking to Read. The
teacher does the whole group instruction, then students split up to get the
extra help. If you have longer periods,
certain teachers can take a group of students and work with them.
Mike: We could also
allow different departments to assign homework on different nights, not all
classes and each night. We shouldn’t be
teaching students that they can pass 5 AP classes with sports and other things.
Paul: We can agree
the student workload isn’t a deal breaker.
We can work through that.
Shane: Regardless of
what we do, next month, we will have a lot of hard work to get through, the
homework piece being a good point.
What items directly affect our intervention: -Complexity (mod), -student workload, +daily
contact, +flexibility, +allows electives, +longer class periods,
“THE KELLY”:
Gordon: We have heard
much of the arguments for this because we have gone over much of this
previously. We could start earlier and
end early, or go later. Kids with
extracurricular would go early, if they didn’t, they could go later. Teachers could choose to start early or late.
Sharilee: This is a
pain for a parent, it’s too complicated.
Shane: This is a
modification of what we just went over, just tweaked.
PROS: flexible with early and late options, increase options
to take classes, daily contact,
CONS: Teacher=early or late, need to adjust (FLEX/lunch),
What directly affects intervention: -Lunch dependant on
intervention (never know #’s),
Brad: It’s hard with
the data that shows kids need to start later.
We as teachers might like to start early, but kids struggle.
Lisa: Sky View had a
great idea with an open lunch room for kids to go and get food and take it
anywhere in the building during their FLEX time.
Shane: Did any
schools with open lunch time have their intervention time during lunch?
Brad: Just Sky
View. Mtn. Crest was another class
hour. We would need someone to take over
watching kids and their F grades. Once
students had the same lunch hour, kids didn’t bunch together into groups so
much.
Shane: For Lakeridge to close their lunch, they had to open
the school. They looked for people to
come and spend time during their personal lunches and give the kids something
to do that they would want to do at the school.
Paul: How do our
students feel about lunch and being at school?
Toph: We had thought
about getting a survey together for the student body.
Sadie: If I am too
far from the lunch room, I don’t eat. I
just bring my own lunch. It would be
nice if we had longer and have enough time to eat.
Toph: I can get more
food from the dollar menu than I can here.
Shane: Let me address
that-we had some big changes this year.
If a student went to talk with a teacher, you are going to be last in
line, but still have 7 minutes to eat.
Numbers are still the same as it was the beginning of the year.
Lisa: There is just
not enough food (amount) given at lunch.
Paul: Regardless,
lunch would take some consideration.
Shane: Did anyone see
or research anything else?
Brad: Brighton High
School is a standalone school with a trimester where the rest of their district
is on a block. Complications they found
were with AP classes, they tried to cut them back to two tri’s. They had to leave them at three tri’s. Brighton is on a 5 period trimester. They said as long as they were scheduling
their AP classes for 1st and 2nd, not 2nd and
3rd.
Shane: I spoke with
Darrell Eddington from Box Elder. They
were moved from a 5 period to a 6 period trimester. Seniors are graduating early and taking away
money from the school.
Brad: I called Spring
Lake High School in Michigan. I talked
to one that had gone back to a tri. They
were focusing on the common core.
Schools all over Michigan are switching to trimesters. ACT scores were averaged at 23. I called Homestead High School. This was their first year back on trimesters
with a 7 period day. They were positive
because of their options. They had 83%
Caucasian. There is lots of good stuff,
we need to make the best decision and plug our intervention in.
Paul: Causation-it
doesn’t mean that because they move to a trimester, that math scores are going
to be affected. Regardless of the
system, schools can go to a tri and raise their academics. We need to pick the best schedule that will
work with the intervention. With a
trimester, it limits electives when involved with music programs.
Lisa: I had two
students that took band, it doesn’t give them flexibility. It hurts those kids who are upper end kids
trying to do AP, music, etc.
Brad: We can be
creative..
Mike: Kids cannot
take any electives as a junior if they take music.
Lisa: Kids that are
staying after for sports can’t do anything else after school, so it’s hurting
them. The kids that
Drew: We need to do a
better job getting our younger student’s, AP should not be the driving
factor.
Paul: We need to take into consideration-the seminary factor
that outside of Utah schools don’t worry about.
Our parents support that.
Lisa: If we took
seminary out, a 5 period tri would work.
Brad: Sky View worked
with the seminary issue and opened it up during lunch. We can work a balance-work a brown bag
seminary. What happens after AP
exams? Maybe we open electives during
those last weeks?
Lisa: Some classes
really don’t need to be all semester long.
Shane: staffing becomes an issue when we design something
extra.
Brad: the faculty buy
in will be everything
Shane: As long as we
can develop a time, right now in our current schedule we don’t have the time to
address the needs of our kids. All
schedules have negatives and other things that we will have to go without. It will all come down to how we use that time
to make it effective. We need to know
next Monday what our schedule is looking like.
Next Wednesday, we all need to be up front and be prepared to make the
recommendations to our staff for consensus.
We don’t want it to be a gripe session.
We have heard the concerns and regardless of what we do, someone will
feel like they have been left out. All
we can say is that I am sorry, it’s been a great process and we have looked
unbiased at different ideas and no one has tried to push their thoughts onto
anyone else. We are really trying to do
what’s best for all of our students. I
would like to establish parameters for Wednesday. It’s not going to be a vote, it will just be
a presentation.
Paul: should we all
say how we are leaning?
Brad: Let’s look at
our parameters
Drew: Are some of
these schedules going to cause staffing issues?
Gordon: At the end
of the day, whichever way we go, we are here to help students, not teachers.
Donna: I think of it
as having enough teachers, class size.
This is a multifaceted issue.
Drew: I don’t think a
few more students in the classrooms is going to matter.
Shane: John Hatty
came out with a book. It’s a
metaanalysis of 800 studies. There are
40 other elements that effect learning before class size. Schedule is another. The number one factor is students’ self
reporting. That includes self flagging,
setting up their objectives, etc. Do you
guys want to gage where everyone is at?
Brad: We will have to
be creative and put things into our schedule that these don’t have.
Shane: Everyone do
your research for next week. Something
to support how you feel. It should be an
interesting day.
Mike: It would be
useful to have a graph /table with our motivating reasons and how each schedule
fits into that.
