School Improvement Team Meeting – Open Session

October 22, 2013

Members Present: Jennifer Bailey, Shannon Biggs, Tina Whitten, Melissa Landreth, Brook Turner, Karen Belton, Jessica Trent, Debbie Smith, Jessica Scrabat, and Joyce Almstead.

Meeting was called to order at 3:05 by Karen Belton.

Shannon Biggs read minutes from the last open meeting. Tina Whitten made a motion that we approve the minutes from the last meeting. Jessica Scrabat 2nd the motion.

Curriculum-Tina Whitten

There will be no Collaboration Sessions on November 19th or March 18th. They have been cancelled. However, Karen and Tina still have to offer staff developments. We have to have two before Christmas and one after Christmas.

1st November 12 2:45-3:45 Higher Order Thinking

2nd November 19 2:45-3:45 Wixie

The sessions will consist of one hour of training. A product will also be assigned that will take about one hour to complete.

3rd grade teachers and Mrs. Smith will be holding a required Read to Achieve parent session on November 4th. This session is specifically for 3rd grade parents to inform them of the new Read to Achieve laws. Jessica Scrabat and Brooke Turner volunteered to “entertain” students while parents met with teachers and Mrs. Smith. Thank you Brooke and Jessica! The session will be from 6:30-7:30.

The new PEP link is now up and ready to use for current PEP’s. Debbie Smith has all the instructions we need to enter PEP’s. As of now, PEP’s now need to be online. If you have any trouble, please see Debbie to get instructions. Tina will email the link to teachers. She said it is very user friendly. We will not have a formal training session for PEP’s.

Tina needs to meet with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers on Thursday, October 31st for about 15 minutes. This meeting is regarding writing/progress monitoring for Reading 3D. This will be a very short meeting.

The link is up from the state board where NC has approved cut scores for reading EOG. Tina will send the link to staff members. 3rd grades must have 93% accuracy rate to get a level IV. 3rd grade students can only miss 8 to get a level III--82% accuracy rate. This is much higher than in the past. Tina is concerned about the number of students we may have in summer school.

Fitness Activity for Staff – Karen

Karen Belton mentioned that it was brought to her attention that it would be nice if we had an after school fitness activity for staff members. We will meet one day a week on the track at 3:00--weather permitting. Otherwise, we will meet in the gym. We will meet each Wednesday. Tina made a motion to put Jennifer Bailey in charge of this activity. Brook 2nd the motion. Jennifer accepted. This would be a wellness activity for our staff. Debbie Smith reminded everyone to make sure they go online and complete the Health Insurance Enrollment process.

School Improvement Plan-Debbie Smith

Debbie had previously sent out a survey asking for input on the School Improvement Plan. We discussed comments made for each goal. However, each grade level did not submit ideas. Debbie wants input from each grade level so she can type it up and have it ready by Monday. Anyone who did not complete the survey and submit to Debbie, please do so ASAP. Use the link at the top of the email from Debbie so it will go through to her. Don’t complete it in the body of the email. We will try to vote on the SIP Monday or Tuesday.

Debbie has a meeting soon with RCS Technology. New Vision needs to re-launch as a school of Science, Math, and Technology. Debbie is meeting to discuss our needs for technology to make this happen.

Thursday is an early release day for students. Debbie reported that we will have collaborative planning and work on long range plans as well as Common Assessments. Several people will be attending workshops and will be out of the building that day.

Other Concerns:

Mandy Rowland, Rebecca Daniels, and Cheryl Martin were voted by PTO to be parent representatives on SIT for the 2013-14 school year.

Joyce Almstead reported that some teacher assistants do not get a lunch time. If an assistant takes a 30 minute lunch time, they must work that much time over in the afternoon. Teacher Assistants may talk to their teachers about taking a few minutes for a break to eat lunch (or D. Smith).

Anyone wanting to submit something anonymously to be put on the agenda for SIT, may put items in Karen’s box the day before each SIT meeting. Karen and Debbie will review the items to see if they require administrative attention, or if they need to be discussed at SIT.

Joyce reported that another school in our county is using Strawbridge to create student cards with lunch numbers, passwords, etc. This is a service that Strawbridge does at this school instead of providing staff photos. Debbie Smith will check on this.

Karen made a motion to move to closed session at 3:55. Jessica Trent 2nd it.

SIT came back in to Open Session at 4:09 p.m. There were no other items on the agenda.

Meeting adjourned at 4:09 p.m.