Leadership Team Meeting Minutes

Leadership Team Meeting Minutes

October 7, 2014

Martin McDonald, Principal

Ileana Herrera, AP

Rose Pate, Media (Chair)

Jessica Kimrey, English

Megan George, CTE

Manda Bass, Math

Sabrina Beasley, English

Melody Dark, HPE

Elizabeth Deaton, Social Studies

Matt Fry, Fine Arts

Robert Dainton, ESL

Cynthia Bredenberg, World Language

Justin Tillett, Science

Victor Knight, Parent

Heather McCrory, English

Jonathan Davis, EC

Margaret Grayson, Counseling

Tori Mazur, Technology & Testing

Internet droppage: McD said he’s heard lots of problems this year. Talked with Keith and Chad. As we see problems, note time and location, and communicate to Chad and Keith. Note by doing a tech ticket that specifies time, location and problem.

1. EOC Results by ethnicity

Reviewed EOC scores by Ethnicity report for Math I, Biology and English II. Now have five levels, not four, and 4&5 are college/career ready. Significant achievement gap in all three subjects.

Comments:

McCrory: Black/ AF Am most struggling. Is root cause poverty as much as ethnic group? Students in poverty have greater stress and limited exposure to enriching experiences and standard English. If some ethnic groups are more likely to live in poverty, perhaps that should be our focus.

McD: Two biggest predictors of success socioeconomic status (70% FRL) and parent education level. Poverty affects all ethnic groups in our school. What can we do to address these concerns about poverty?

Tillett: Asked about if outside class assignments aren’t getting done because of scarce resources, including time because of work and babysitting.

McCrory: Stress has anegative affect on learning because stress brings on the flight or flight mode, but there are some techniques we can do that can help kids pay attention.

McD: Said he’s having the greatest challenge reaching our Af/Am population, when looking at discipline referrals, subject failures, etc.

Tillett: In looking at cumulative folders, in K-8, often says “placed” not promoted, which impacts later academic success.

McCrory: Says average literacy levels in her English 9 classes are 5th and 7th grade.

McD: Our large special services populations are off grade level when they arrive, and hit the wall when challenged with greater literacy requirements. And we have no support specialists for reading at the high school level. ELA teachers are not necessarily reading specialist trained. Serving some EC students with the Hillwrap program, but can only do with IEP kids. Asked If we had lots of money, what could we do that might help?

Beasley: Add reading specialists

Mazur: At elem/middle school, kids have instruction in small groups at level, so they are “placed” but still receive services to help them catch up. Part of the reason it takes so long to bring kids up to grade level is diagnosing the real problem with reading. What happens with students who are not served by EC or ESL is they are kind of out there floating, which means many Af/Am students end up not getting served. Also, where is the reading level data for our 9th graders?

McDonald: We end up with lots of less efficient learners in the same classes, which creates more disruption in the class. Just about every standard level class is overwhelmingly ESL/EC. Learners develop their idea of what’s normal by looking around them.

Pate: And this impacts honors classes by students wanting a better learning environment and going into an honors class unprepared for the pace of instruction.

McD: Think about these issues. Jot a list to McDonald, he will put that together. We have moved away from our concepts levels of English and Math because what ended up happening there was mainly just an extension of the curriculum throughout the year instead of targeted instructional help.

1. SIP Goal 4 Update (Pate)

Revisited suggestions for improving communications goal we generated during summer retreat to see which we still committed to, and generated others. (Plan appended to the end of these minutes.) One with much support was to hold report card parent pickup for first six weeks, with teachers available for conferences. McD wil ask Dr. Jordan if that’s possible.

1. 10 Point Scale/GPA weights

Next year’s freshmen will be on a ten-point grade scale, not seven point scale. Will we go school-wide? McD will bring this up at principal’s meeting. Also beginning with that class, honors .5, AP 1 extra weight.

1. Announcements

McD: TV announcements are cool, but people are asking all day long to make announcements. Do we need to do announcements, too? No way to read a lot of text in seven seconds—people are putting too much text.

Discussion followed. Agreed to explore ways to post the announcement slide show to school website as well. How to achieve? Sabrina, Heather, Rose will find a way.

1. Honors Cords

CCCC asked if any interest in having students who complete two or more number of their classes to have honor cords, being eligible to wear an honor cord? Do we have to pay? What color will it be? Will it be in the program? Uncertain….McDonald will take our questions back to the CCCC folks.

1. Lap Top Jail (Mazur)

Sent screen shot of currently policy. She tries to alert other three teachers if a student laptop is turned in to her. Herconcernsare that we are not consistent with district-wide procedures, and that by taking away a computer for a week in all classes we are denying access to textbooks and other critical learning tools.. A week is a really long time to be without the laptop.

Offenses include listening to music, watching videos, etc. She said we can limit access to various applications, or access for a particular student through using Lan School. Is it an issue of training, or a just a pain?

What do we recommend? Can we close laptop jail? Decided to focus on Lan School training. Tori will offer it to any teachers requesting it.

1. Staff industry visit on October 24th

CCCC is doing industry visits, want to know if non CTE teachers are interested in going out to the solar farm (Stratus) in east Chatham to tour this facility. If anyone is interested, please see Mr. Heesacker.

1. Food for Thought Articles

McD says we are coming up with good articles. What about every other Thursday? Seemed to be a good idea. Same order of Lead Team members choosing articles, but limiting the “homework” aspect, and keep it low-key. Shorter is also better.

1. Supervision after school

Athletes waiting for practice? May not be the issue, since football players are required to report to the weight room.We have sent ent alert messages home reminding families not to allow students to remain on campus unsupervised, but having a double bus route can cause problems—students would rather hang round here than go for the long ride.

Tabled discussed because of time.

1. Durham Visit on Oct 9th

This Thursday. 9-12, BLS students greeting, McD touring and presenting. Let’s stay heads up…

1. Hispanic Heritage Night

Potluck tomorrow. Ingredients labeled. Showed Los Jets episodes yesterday, finishing tonight.

1. Leadership Challenge

Modeling the way: McD shared thoughts from chapter on clarifying and sharing values. Completed reflection activity.

1. Next Unit :Enable Others to Act

Proposed Goal 4: Increase efforts to strengthen communication with students, families and the community.

Possible strategies/timeline:

Create staff committee to develop plan (by Oct. 15)

Develop plan and share with entire school staff (by Oct. 30)

Create and publicize contact information spreadsheet for parents (currently on website)

All written communications to families bilingual in English/Spanish (ongoing)

Use multiple information channels for regular communications, e.g., YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter (ongoing)

Schedule conference time at the end of a semester’s first six weeks for parents to pick up report cards, with teachers available for conferences (pending district ok)

Jordan-Matthews Social Media and Communications Plan, 2014-15

Current Social Media Status:

Active Facebook / Active Twitter
Jordan-Matthews Jets. Maintained by SGA president. Created and administered by Kendal Stone. 583 likes. / JETS LIVE @JMHS_Live. The companion to the Jordan-Matthews Jets Facebook page. Most posts on that Facebook page originate as tweets from this account. Maintained by senior class president. 462 following
JM Arts. News and events on arts classes and JM Arts Foundation activities. Maintained by Rose and Chip Pate. 295 likes. / Martin McDonald@mcd0718. Mr. McDonald’s personal Twitter feed that he uses for school announcements, events and photos. 207 following
The Aviator Newspaper of Jordan-Matthews High School. Maintained by Journalism Class. 193 likes. / Jordan-Matthews DECA @JM_DECA. Good example of a club Twitter feed. In fact, after talking with his students, Mr. Nicks made the decision to use only Twitter, not Facebook, since that’s what most students check more frequently. 253 following.
Jordan-Matthews High School Yearbook.
Created and maintained by Sabrina Beasley. 34 likes.
Jordan-Matthews Basketball Camp. Open public group. 97 members.
Jordan-Matthews Spain Trip 2014. This is a closed group, and a really good example of how Facebook can be used for a short-term event or project. It’s now a great archive of the trip. 84 members.
JM Jets Volleyball. For team members and parents. Public Group. 22 members. Information about practices, schedule, games, and other team info. Created/maintained by Mona Hanner and Rahkie Mateen-Mason.
Jordan-Matthews FFA. Created by Andrew Atwell. Don't know who's currently maintaining. 66 likes.

Facebook recommendations:

• Review/revise the current Jordan-Matthews Jets page. Maintain its focus on student activities, including a name change that reflects this emphasis. Include a statement that it is not the official school page, but is student-run. Give admin controls to at least one adult staff member. This already has many followers, and has generally been well-run, but having students maintain the official school page is a lot of risk for the school and for them.

• Create a new official school Facebook page. Should be a Page (Other: Community), not a Group. This means people can get updates merely by liking, not joining. Settings should be comments off and only admins can post. Admins should be adults; there should be several. NOTE: This page can then “like” the student activities page (and other student group/activity pages), and selectively share those posts.

• Differentiate Facebook/Twitter in purpose. The Facebook page is the ‘front porch’ for the school’s image, and should include a wide range of aspects of school life, including academic as well as athletics and other activities. Care should be given to balance the overall picture of our school.

Posts for the new official school page could include the following types:

School operation announcements, such as “Homeroom tomorrow” or “Remember, you must turn in your signed laptop agreement before you can get your new MacBook Air.”

Daily Announcements Available, with the link to YouTube channel with the day’s announcements. (can we make this happen?)

Student Spotlight, highlighting student achievements.

Window in the Classroom, focusing on learning activities

JM Old School, with quick historical notes about the school, using old yearbook photos.

In the Community, service opportunities and community events.

Teacher Trivia, a question about a staff member such as, “Which JM teacher hiked the Appalachian Trail?” followed the next day with the answer.

Now in the Media Center, with featured books or displays (prepared by media assistants).

• Create a “Social Media” tab on the left menu of the JM website that has links and descriptions to all JM Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages/feeds, including the official school page, the student activities page, and other clubs and organizations.

Twitter recommendations: Twitter should be used for quick, timely news items reminding the school community about events, deadlines, etc.

• Restructure the JETS LIVE feed, clearly labeling it as student-managed. This important feed has lots of followers, and should be maintained, with a focus on student activities.

• Keep on keeping on, Mr. McDonald! But because you are a busy guy…

• Establish a separate official school feed, with multiple people that have access. (e.g., Sandy, Mona, Nancy, Rose) Encourage students and parents to follow, for “breaking news.”

• Consider encouraging clubs and student groups to use Twitter, as contrasted with Facebook, which has a broader user base (more parents and community members).

Other recommendations:

• Subscribe to HootSuite, so many posts can be entered ahead of time, and so supervising adults can proofread and approve both Facebook and Twitter posts.

• Keep trying to connect the video announcement system to the main website. This keeps all school stakeholders up to date about activities, leaves the main webpage free for short features about student life, and helps us put our best foot forward on the “front porch” of our digital communication.

Facebook Inactive (no posts in at least a year):

Jordan-Matthews High School. A "place" page. Cannot determine who created it or when. Should see if we can get it taken down. But 1,567 likes!

Jordan Matthews. This is a “school” page with absolutely no content at all. We should try to get it taken down.

JM Jets Superfans. Not an official school site. Created by Kendal Stone. Last post in 2012.

There are some similar inactive pages/groups for other clubs or teams. There are also many alumni pages, mostly for specific classes that are trying to plan reunions. These are outside the scope of what we can manage.