December 4, 2014 LSAT Minutes
- Enrollment Projections: Mr. C and Ms. Fuller were not able to attend tonight so the committee was not able to discuss this topic. Beth and Sabrina will follow‐up with the administration to determining the timing of establishing projections for 2015‐16 school year.
- Behavioral Support: Last year discussed having a behavioral specialist but was too late in the budget cycle. Staff reported that there has been some progress this year on behavioral challenges even without a programmatic change. Having a dedicated Special Ed Coordinator and full time social worker is helpful. It was noted that it seems as though the school does not have as many kids with severe behavioral challenges this year as previous years, but there do remain some challenges. The Responsive Classroom (RC) program is very helpful for classroom management.
Several staff members attended the Responsive Classroom leadership conference in Chicago the previous weekend during which they attended a very helpful session addressing behavior. Tomorrow, the RC committee is presenting four different sessions to the staff during the professional development day. Is it possible to get an RC consultant or an instructional coach for RC on staff part time? Currently, it is believed that RC is not fully implemented at the school. As a rough estimate, approximately 75% of classrooms are doing morning meeting well. Only a handful of teachers are capable of adhering to RC’s guidelines on teacher language/responses. The RC committee has discussed with Mr. C doing a parent information night dedicated to RC, tentatively in Spring 2015.The committee discussed possible options for investing further in RC. Due to turnover there is a continual need for additional RC training. We discussed the possibility of focusing on RC as part of the Paddles Up portion of the live auction. Lisa and Lauren agreed to work together to identify the specific training needs of the school and the cost. How does Fairfax County support its extensive investment in RC? How do Janney, Mann, Maurey, and Key keep their teachers trained?
- Topics for Future meetings: Due to time limitations, our discussion of topics for future meetings was limited. We agreed to have a Basecamp discussion about what is needed for the January meeting. Some high priority topics include:
- School data -‐Consistent with Mr. C’s previous suggestion, we will look at school data in January after next set of unit testing. Committee would like to review last year’s CAS scores, including subgroups, as compared to prior years. [Beth/Sabrina to ask Mr. C to provide at January meeting.] iReady data also would be helpful to review. Sabrina will request Fountas and Pinnell data.
- Assessments -‐ Are we doing too many assessments? Which ones are the most helpful for educators? There was some discussion of whether teacher created assessments produce more reliable data, but they are more difficult to gather and compare. There is a parent information night on Assessments scheduled for Dec. 9, and there will be a separate night on the Parc later in the year.
- Feedback on Current staffing Model/Enrichment -‐There were alot of staffing changes this year and it will be helpful to gather feedback on how it is going. With the large number of support positions, students are being pulled out of class alot. Staff committee members agreed to poll the staff before the January meeting to ask what positions are they finding the most valuable this year. At that point we will discuss how/whether to poll parents. One option is to modify the school satisfaction survey from last year.
- Aides -‐ There were discussions last year of deploying aides in a more instructional capacity this year. There has been no top-‐down direction this year on implementing this change. Some aides are doing enrichment as part of their own initiative, but not as part of Ms. Presnik’s program. Each grade level decides how to use its aides.