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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-10-2014 Minutes Work SessionDr. Charles J. Shackett, Superintendent 3497 North Ammon Road, Idaho Falls, Idaho, 83401  (208) 525-4400  Fax (208) 529-0104  www.d93schools.org Board of Trustees  Annette Winchester  Kip Nelson  Amy Landers  Brian McBride  Jeff Bird Bonneville Joint School District No. 93 is an Equal Opportunity Employer Marjean McConnell, Deputy Superintendent Work Session of the Board of Trustees September 10, 2014 6:00 PM I. Call to Order Chairperson Winchester called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. II. Roll Call Those Board members in attendance were Chairperson Annette Winchester, (Vice-chairperson Kip Nelson arrived at 6:40 p.m.), Treasurer Amy Landers, Trustee Brian McBride, and Trustee Jeff Bird. Others in attendance were, Superintendent Chuck Shackett, Deputy Superintendent Marjean McConnell, Director of School Improvement and Technology Scott Woolstenhulme, Chief Financial/Operations Officer April Burton, Director of Curriculum and Instruction Michaelena Hix, Director of Human Resources Shalene French, Director of Operations Todd Hicks, Director of Elementary Special Services and Federal Programs Rex Miller, and Board Clerk Valerie Messick. III. Welcome Visitors and Delegations Chairperson Winchester welcomed Tom Hunsaker to the meeting IV. Items for Discussion A. Enrollment Numbers - Shalene French Chairperson Winchester asked Dr. French to discuss current enrollment numbers with the Board. Dr. French distributed copies of the enrollment numbers to the members of the Board. She discussed the worksheet showing the number of staff at each location and the number of students as well as the average number of students in each class. There was a question regarding whether there is a maximum class size. We as a district feel 25 is the maximum in kindergarten and first grade. When we hit the number 23 in a kindergarten classroom, we will hire an overflow para to get some help for the teacher. The maximum numbers go up as the grade levels increase. There are notes on the worksheet for Dr. French indicating where the special programs are located in the district. When looking at the number of classrooms in a school, you need to take into account the needs of special programs that may not be able to have the maximum number of kids in a classroom. Sometimes a special education teacher will only have six or eight students at a time in a classroom. So that space is not maximized. Dr. French talked about the secondary breakdown. There is total by grade level and then divided by the number of teachers in the building but is not reported by subject area. Bonneville has 1400 students and Hillcrest has 1483 as of today at noon. The numbers change hourly. Bonneville Online School has 241 students in K-6th grade and 77 middle schoolers. The Bonneville Online High School has 24 freshmen, 13 sophomores, 21 juniors, and 35 seniors for a total of 93. Technical Careers High School is only showing the full-time students who take their core classes there. There are a total of 739 students who take classes at TCHS. The total in italics is the class average for the secondary schools. Again, that number is not the actual the numbers because a choir class may have 60 or 70 kids in the class, and the special programs classes may have six or seven. Dr. French runs a standard deviation to look at how close each school is on their class averages. If a school is an outlier, she will then decide who needs an additional FTE. There is a problem with open enrollment, because people don’t understand the process. Our 2nd grade class is huge. Principals may suggest that parents try a different school that may not have as many kids in a certain grade level. We had in increased enrollment this year at the middle schools. They received more teaching staff right before school started as a result. Dr. French is not sure what the impact will be for us now that Odyssey’s Charter has been revoked. There were 200 students enrolled at that school. Odyssey students can take credit recovery at the eCenter. If they know the information, they should be able to go through that quickly. They can take the end of course assessments at the schools or SAT scores for the specific classes will suffice or they can put together a portfolio showing the work they have done. We will put together a district committee to make sure students have met the standards. Our preference is credit recovery with Nova Net either at the eCenter or the high schools hopefully before the second semester. The Charter Commission is well aware of what our expectations are. We need to do the best thing for the kids and place them where they will be successful. Dr. French updated the Board on our teacher certifications. The state feels they can get most of the certifications out to us by October. So, we will accept those certificates up through November 1st and pay teachers the $300 reimbursement. She asked that the Board waive the requirement included in Board Policy #5015 that certification must be in by September 15th or the teacher will be placed on long term sub pay or dismissed. This is not the creation of the teachers but, by a backlog at the state level of about 10 weeks. Dr. French asked that the Board work with the administration on this concern and allow the teachers to turn those in without any penalty to their salary. Everyone who needed to, has requested recertification. The policy requirement was set so we could report to the state through ISEE so we can receive funding. Teacher’s certificates expire September 1st so that is why the policy is written in that manner. If teachers got their stuff in in a timely manner, they shouldn’t be penalized. Maybe we should consider requiring postmarks. Hopefully people will remember in January that their certificate will expire in September and act in a timely manner. B. Professional Development - Michaelena Hix Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Hix to report on professional development. Mrs. Hix talked about the professional development that has been offered. Teachers are generally required to pay for credit from the Universities. The District pays for the JPAS credit because it is tied to our teacher evaluation system. We also pay for credit for Tools for Teaching for our teachers. Mrs. Hix will also in-service hours for teachers. They need 15 hours to receive one (1) in-service credit. They need three (3) in-service credits as well as three (3) university credits to recertify with the state. The MTI class is no longer offered in the District but has gone to the Universities. She gave the Board copies of the Professional Development schedule showing what was offered during the summer as well as future offerings. None of our teachers pay to take these classes but, they do pay for the university credit. Teachers in our District who teach these classes are certified to teach the classes for credit. They are compensated at the rate of $800 per credit. If they team teach, they split that amount. If they develop a class, they receive $250 additional pay the first time the class is offered. Mrs. Hix has locked down the Singapore Math classes and will not allow out-of-district teachers to participate because of lack of room. She put together the Best Practices Institute at the end of July where teachers from across the whole region participated. It was structured around the Idaho Core shift. Teachers really like that Institute. Some new classes teach strategies on how to teach vocabulary that is tied to the Idaho Core. There are technology classes offered by our Technology Department as well. During the October In-service, there will be more math training for both elementary and secondary teachers as well as for special education teachers. Students are enthused about the new style of math strategies. There will be a keynote speaker on formative assessment to help us in developing assessments tied to our units, our curriculum, and the new standards. There was discussion regarding the NEOs and whether we have enough of them. The numbers are tight but, we should have enough for 1st through 6th grades. We also have a supply in the middle schools that we can pull down to offset our growth as needed. Next week on September 17th we will hold a parent university to help understand Math in Focus. Andy Clark, one of the authors of Math in Focus will be available to present an overview. He will give advice on how parents can support their children with the new program. On the same day at 2:30 p.m., our elementary teachers will be able to meet with Mr. Clark and ask questions. C. Test Scores - Scott Woolstenhulme Chairperson Winchester asked Mr. Woolstenhulme to give an overview of assessment results. He began with a discussion of STAR Assessment Scores. We are now looking at scores in terms of achievement and growth. Achievement is sown on the y axis and the growth is shown on the x axis. He showed results of the STAR math assessment. Data is available at the school, classroom, and student level. Teachers can pull data out regarding their students and chart their kids in the same way. The bottom left square shows low growth and low achievement. There are no schools in that quadrant. If teachers have students in that quadrant, they will know to provide supports to them immediately. Typical growth and average achievement is shown in the middle of the chart. These are reported in percentiles and a school on a normal distribution should be looking at the 50th percentile in both growth and achievement. All of our schools except for Telford and Lincoln are above the 50th percentile. Lincoln and Telford students are some of our lowest students that are isolated in those schools. Schools with a more typical sample of kids are all above the 50th percentile. Eight of our elementary schools are high achieving schools with growth and achievement above the 65th percentile. The average student at those schools is growing and achieving at the 65th percentile. He then showed the STAR Reading chart which looks a little different than the math. It only goes down to the 35th percentile in achievement where math went down to the 20th. There are more schools concentrated in the typical range and only a couple in high achieving and high growth schools. The difference may be because we have a very tight math program and reading is a little more flexible. There is a strong correlation between achievement and the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch status in the school. That is almost insurmountable. We see higher achievement and growth in our elementary schools than in our secondary schools because of the tighter curriculum focus in elementary schools and a more diffused focus in the secondary schools because of elective choices. It is the same test in both elementary and secondary. This test gives teachers data on their kids three times per year. Teachers have much more useful information than they ever have before and they are really using that data to help them with instruction. Mr. Woolstenhulme then discussed IRI scores. They looked at these in terms of growth as well. Vertically is the percentage of students scoring at a 3 and horizontally shows growth. The test is different in kindergarten and first grade. Kindergarteners show how many letters they can recognize in one minute and how many sounds in one minute. First graders show how many letter sounds in one minute and how many words they can read correctly in one minute. Second and third grade just show reading fluency or how many correct words a student can read in one minute. We have had great growth from fall to spring in reading fluency. All of our schools are getting great growth and are doing really well. IRI shows fluency and STAR shows comprehension. These two tests are critical for our early reading programs. With our SAT scores, we now have three years of data so we can start to identify some trends. With both SAT and ACT we are looking at the percentage of students that are college and career ready. SAT defines that by the number of students who are scoring at 500 or better. He showed graphs of reading growth for both Hillcrest and Bonneville students over the last three years. The difference in growth has to do with the difference in the number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch status at the schools. The graph also compared the high schools with the state average. Last year we significantly outpaced the state and this year the state’s growth paralleled ours. Writing shows a downward trend this year. It happened at the state as well. Mr. Woolstenhulme is not aware of the reasons for this. Math shows great growth from the first to second year and then leveled off this last year for Bonneville. Hillcrest has stayed pretty consistent. The state had a dip this year as well. For ACT scores, Mr. Woolstenhulme put the results on a 100 percent vertical axis in order to see a comparison between the four different tests. This report is only for the District and the State. We don’t get individual school scores at the District level. We started out at or below the state level beginning in 2005. Over the last four or five years we have started to outpace the state in our growth and achievement. ACT has done a lot of work to find out what scores students need to have to be able to get a B or better in college level classes. We have been high and stayed there with English. It drops a little in Algebra this year but there has been tremendous growth from 2007. There was discussion regarding the reasons for the growth. Social Science is a reading test where students need to comprehend nonfiction and more technical text. We have had a steady climb in results of this test as well. Biology is really fascinating because there was a huge jump in scores back in 2012. There is not an explanation for this jump. ACT also shows the number of students that are college and career ready in all four subjects. This drops a little but we are above the state level. There was discussion regarding what these numbers tell us. It shows that we have made improvements in our instruction and have started to outpace the state. We can do some comparisons of different schools in the area if the Board would like. These results have helped us as a district to define our focus to be college and career readiness. We have looked at other states and their scores. Massachusetts and New Hampshire are the two states that lead in SAT and ACT scores. So as a district, we should be able to increase our student’s capacity to do well on these tests. D. Registration Information for ISBA Convention and Region Meeting - Valerie Messick Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Messick to discuss information regarding registration for ISBA and attendance at the Region meeting after the Regular Board Meeting. V. Recess Chairperson Winchester called for a short recess at 6:55 p.m. before moving into the Regular Meeting. APPROVED: _____________________ Chairperson ATTESTED: _______________________ Clerk Date: ____________________