School Board Minutes 9/11/17
- Call to Order- Welcome
- Kendell
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Adoption of Agenda
- Robberts, Hatt - Passed
- Public comments
- None
- Consent Agenda - Minutes, Bills, Human Resources Report,Travel and Gifts
- Vickstrom, Robberts, no discussion - passed
- District Positive Accomplishments -CHAMPS Program - Mr. Cradic
- Took 5 staff ot Portland in July last year with the intent to provide more supports with the increase of more challenging students. This is for all staff. Used a quote showing that staff has the control of how the classroom feels with common respect with students. Sets of expectations in the classroom for students and staff. When we provide clear expectations for students, the students should know how to behave. Consistent and calm in corrections of misbehavior - brief corrections. Might need a buddy room so a student can get a break. Purple Marker - give student a break and let them go run an errand. Volume level - level 1-6 - silence - 1 to 6 outdoors. 3 - 4 in the classroom. Charts for assemblies and classrooms. This has reduced office referrals - have dropped 70-80 students which is about 20ish%. During the conference they would spend an hour or two to discuss what they learned and how can they apply to the school. Plan on using at Aldo, and Mr. Taylor use at North Hill.
- C- Conversation - with who, how long, is it appropriate
- H - How to get help?, expectation about asking questions
- A - Activities - What are students engaged in right now, what do we hope to accomplish
- Movements - walk around the room
- P - Participation - how are students fulling participating
- S - Success
- Vickstrom - this is heavy on staff and will only work if if there is buy-in. Cradic - that is why I took a team. Focused on this at the beginning of the year with. Every activity needs to have a CHAMPS list (set of expectations). Coen - have seen CHAMPS sign in the bathroom. Courtney - I see kids sitting and talking, but not about academics and they come and go and there are students are roaming the halls. Cradic - that is what CHAMPS is trying to address because it give a clear set of expectations. Teachers should do this ahead of time so students know the expectations - need to be clear and consistent. Focus the first four weeks of school on the expectations and reminders throughout the year. Courtney - what do you do in the office when kids are sent there for misbehaving? Cradic - it depends. But my goal is to build a relationship so I can understand the kids better and find out what the student is trying to say through the behavior. If it is a frequent flier, then the relational piece will shorter and go straight into the discipline. Kids will have consequences, like holding back from lunch or recess. Suspended here and there. More discipline questions from Coen and Courtney. Hatt - Buy-in? Had good buy-in, there are some struggles and it could be better, but it is going pretty good. It provides the framework for structure that helps to lead to good classroom management. Kendell - Thank you.
- Student Representative Report
- Dream Catcher - accepted another dream last night - elderly woman who loves to dress up. Dream was to go to a spa and get professional makeup. National Honor Society. Some sport thing. Softball played in the Dome and got 2nd place. Burlington may host the Leo Club Convention.
- Superintendent's Report
- Last week - attend a meeting. All city band concert - great display of talent. Mr. Flaherty screamed amazingly. Watch the little kids and their awe watching the older kids. Mark something - met with ISEA about insurance to do what is best for our employees. (internet break) Something about safety plan. Radio show - kindergarten roundup and strings concert. Freshman night is tonight, school calendars, negotiations, value of fine arts education, and how the district will deal with contract and master agreement. Met with Board Presidents - Bross wants more round tables. Attend Our City Listens training - you might see me nicer and kinder. ISBA - Sheet on what should happen every year. Will pass them out when I get them off my desk. Laci should share with you our notes from our cabinet meetings. Most school do not have what we have - we are year round with summer school and other programs like what Mrs. Butler does. Rightsizing - hopefully we don't have to do this for another 5 years. Bettendorf cell phone policy is similar to BHS. Coen says CHAMPS works. Handbook and scheduling. Link from NEA and Mennonite - Articles about trends in high school. Teamster president - issues with the BHS parking lot - police should increase patrols - students were just needing a place - so trying to work on it. Can’t close the gates, fire marshall is against it - no sprinkler system - every minute is going to count so they don’t want anything slowing them down. If we start renovating the building we have to make everything up to code. Associate principal interviews this week. We need to support something about abuse legislation. Wall of honor at bracewell. Future teachers.org - teacher shortage looming and need to encourage people to get into the profession. Participation in track has increased over 100% and thanked coaches. Courtney - cell phone policy? Not to have them on them and not in room in test, use office phones? Are we doing this? Coen - Keane will talk about it in his talk. Robberts - Pepples - is there plan to get information out to get people to support pepple? Coen - we talked about it and will get it out on our social media. Strategic times - it is not a tax increase, and is very important. Kendell - hope that the staff will go out and vote - legally think they can tell people when and where to vote, but can’t ask them how to vote. Hope they know the importance.
- Items for Discussion
- Contract/Rental Agreements with Girl Scouts cam L-Kee-Ta
- L-Kee-Ta - Butler - In 3rd year for doing middle school summer camp - provides us the opportunity to see us in different light and let students experience things they might not have experienced before. Cradic- Trust me - we will be using CHAMPS (inside joke all meeting) - very unique opportunity to go out in nature and not a school setting and some walls come down quicker and we see huge growth in the students and the sense of community is awesome to watch. It's fun and you should come out and see. Coen - coordinate visit with pancake breakfast? Hatt- Grades? Butler - incoming 6th, 7th, 8th. Cradic - this is the first year 6th graders will be there - Butler - students are grouped into teams and are competitive and are fun. Work on skills that students don’t naturally bring to the table. 80-100 students hope - and staff are hired for this. Kendell this is great and we need to vote on this. Cradic - the staff is amazing - lots of energy, high tension at times, but the growth is amazing - passed.
- Trimester Updates -
- Cory Johnson - Elementary don’t see much difference
- Butler - middle school - able to introduce 21st century skills which is awesome. No registration problems since they don’t choose classes.
- Keane - Increase in number of A’s - of course there are more opportunities, but % of As have increased, # of C and Ds are decreased. Dip in grades during the winter trimester - maybe breaks, activities. Happens at other schools. Increase in the third Trimester. More credit opportunity, Bigger increase in credit increase - lots of students were taking a full load. Unexcused absence are a huge problem - excused absence - kids don’t make up their missing work. Disportionality in unexcused absence. Healthy choices class, and saturday school help, but freshman tutoring has helped tremendously. Kids don’t make up absent work. Attendance and achievement are linked. Freshman team have worked really hard. With them Fs are more linked to absence. There are inappropriate behaviors in classroom and we are working. Courtney - what about truancy -Keane - parents gets prosecuted, but some can move to homeschool to avoid. Keane - Wants an attendance policy with a leave slip and are then forced to talked with the teacher. 6th unexcused absence (and leave form not followed through) - credit would be be pulled from the course. Students need to make up the work. Consequences to not showing up. This is to hold students accountable for missing time. Will need to make up - list of stuff. Other Things we have done. PLCs- Cohort (UbD, Assessment practice). Professional Development - common focus on grading policies. NGSS, Social Studies, Math, all going inquiry. English working on power standards and more. We are a work in progress - collaboration is key and is built in the schedule. We are working on building professional capital. Robberts - Attendance - have we ran any policy by legal counsel to see how it works. It has been implemented in other schools I have been at - it is not to be punitive but more to give responsibility when they are absent. Some issues have to do with grades, seniors last year were better attendance than current freshman. Issue just skip a class or two and not all get caught. Vickstrom - registration problems improved? Keane - we will find out, I hope they do better this year, we try to involve parents. If we can get kids to sign up in a timely fashion then it will be better.
- American Program Bureau, Inc. Speaking Agreement for Teacher Quality Event
- Conscious discipline - researched based program used nationwide - not new or different - another shot in the arm how we do things, next step on the path with the training we have done. Funded from TQ, 21st Cent grant and after school program - maybe open to other districts. October 11th. TQ committee have reviewed this, stipend day. Kendell - $12,000 - where is that money going - Johnson - 3 people, two focused on secondary - Teacher and student paring for this with and elementary person and will do ½ day for all general info, and break to elementary and secondary training.
- Dragon Boat agreement
- Review of our yearly - at big hollow - Kendell - it is a well attended even and great to see kids passion - passed.
- Aid & Levy Budget Proposal
- Greg - publish information for public hearing for some time in April 8. Auditing for school. We are proposing a decrease in property taxes $0.83. Other information - he has such a quiet voice and says big words related to taxes (sorry). Post the information for it - Robberts - hoping the pepple will pass at $0.67 passed.
- BHS Handbook Committee Update - info
- Keane - asked in the fall 10 parents, 10 staff, 10, parent and 10 others. to provide feedback - passed out handbook and compared to other schools and look through the portion they were given and asked to provide feedback. Did not get a lot back - lots of discussion, but not strong decisions. Going to call them back in April to get better - hard to get consensus from all people. Cell phones and chromebook only for academics if refuse - get to office and if decline get sent home. Robberts - wants to look specifically on attendance and cell phone. Contact parents through social media? Keane - it is hard to get consensus and people don’t show up. Robberts - wants feedback on what is working. I don’t want to create more work on teachers. Kendell - Teachers should not spend more than 3 minutes for phones. Too much. My point is employability - what will happen in the workforce and wants to mirror that in the school. Vick - what is the best learning environment? Keane - the teachers should have the choice. Vick - what if everybody does it different? Keane - I don’t see the problem with staff choosing what goes on in their room. Hatt - teachers should have flexibility , but there needs to be consistency as a whole. Keane - Gets as much complaints about chromebooks about phones. I will do whatever you say we do. But have a hard time getting consensus from the staff and it is polarized. Kendell, let talk about it in a month and focus on one policy like attendance. Concern is recording things they shouldn’t need to be recording - we need to protect our staff and their privacy. Courtney - Cell phone policy at the school? Teachers say we don’t have one. Coen - article refers to loss in instructional time. Look at it. Kendell - if listed as agenda item we might get the feedback. Cradic - similar cell phone policy in elementary and middle school - but will see more of it in older grades. Hatt - need to short concise and consistent.
- Board Communications
- Vickstrom - been unconscious for two weeks i have nothing to say
- Courtney - I said enough today
- Hatt - nothing
- Roberts - Thank you high school teachers for helping the registration process - and looked good and staff was very helpful - looked smoothly run - all city choir on thursday at 7. Thanks for gifts and grants. Update of staggering of start time for students? Coen - it has been done and will brief on it. Get out and vote on April 2nd. It will keep 13 teacher jobs.
- Kendell - Nothing about 20 minutes for the extended day have not complained and gone smoothly - course handbook looks nice. And it has more options and it is amazing. The opportunities are exciting and should be bragged about.
- Adjournment - passed around 8:48 pm
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