Minutes - October 15, 2014
Certified Staff Advisory
October 2014
The Certified Staff Advisory met Wednesday, October 15, 2014. Members present included:
Teresa Furr, GRES; Charlene Little, CES; Sabrina Gooch, TES; Mandy Brown, PSE; Caleb Rushing, WMS; Phillip Spivey, WMHS; Janet Deaton, EMHS; Heather Griffin for Jackie Baldwin, EMS; Laura White, SES; Melissa Shields, MGES; and Ericka Shaw, MLA
Dr. Ellis welcomed those in attendance, and reviewed the purpose of the advisory committee – to keep individuals informed and to answer questions schools may have.
21st Century Grant
· Received $1.6 million ($400,000 per year) to develop afterschool programs for our elementary schools, which will focus on mentoring and tutoring.
· Businesses as well as the community will be involved with the grant – around 40 different partners
· Plan to involve families
· Will serve 220 kids across Montgomery County
· Will partner with Montgomery County, the library, and CIS to develop summer component
· Continue to look for grants to assist with learning for Middle and High School students – have applied for i3 grant and awaiting response in November.
New State Grading System
· Elementary and Middle School indicators
· High School indicators
· Calculations will be based on a 15 point scale for the first year. Next year the data will be based on a 10 point scale.
· New report card timeline. Scores will be released in January 2015 to principals and February 2015 to public.
· Outright proficiency is weighted much higher than growth in determining scores. Change to common core has affected proficiency negatively. Now planning to move away from Common Core.
Strategic Plan 2017
· Involved school staff and community in the process
· Received 89% agreement on the strategic goals
· Focusing on 5 main areas with the following goals for each – graduation rate, state AMO targets, READY expected growth, achievement gap (new goal), teacher satisfaction, teacher attendance rate (new goal), ethical values, OSS suspension rate, teenage pregnancy rate, grants (new goal), parental contacts, adequate fund balance, adequate facilities and technology resources
Questions
1. Could you explain why personal days and sick days are considered to be the same under the new attendance policy? It doesn’t matter what the day is – it still is a day that the teacher is out of the classroom and students are losing instruction time with the teacher.
2. Will Dr. Ellis be available to answer questions people may have regarding the attendance policy? Policy states: All employees are expected to be present during all working hours. Except during illness or extraordinary circumstances, employees must provide notice of an intended absence at least ten days prior to the absence. Requests for such absences must be made to and approved by the employee’s immediate supervisor. If the request is denied, the employee may appeal the decision to the person who supervises the employee’s supervisor. All staff members must have permission from the principal before leaving school during the school day. Absence without prior approval, chronic absences, habitual tardiness or abuses of designated working hours are all considered neglect of duty and will result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.
3. I saw on news. NC Board of Education decided to change the grading scale back to 10 point scale. 70-79 C, 80-89 B, and 90-100 A. Wondering when this would go into effect. This will change students' possibilities of being on the A and AB honor Rolls. Goes into effect next year. Will discuss if should be implemented in middle school too.
4. Our grade level was discussing benchmarks today. We have heard rumored that we may only have 2 rounds of benchmarks this year. 5th grade would love to have Predictive Assessments and have them at the end of the first three quarters. We like the idea of having the students interact with a test that will look similar to their EOG, and it gives us more one more piece of data for intervention. Who makes these decisions? And, why does the procedure keep changing? Information comes from assessment committee, which met and came up with the assessments which was based upon informational feedback. Teachers should start conversation with principals and IFs. Will address with specific school.
Attendance concerns
· Being a single parent and having to deal with sick children and being out of the classroom
· Privacy issue about doctor note – who will be seeing it? Principal should be the only one who knows. Should not be something that is shared if employee does not want it shared.