School Community Council Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
2:30 pm, Staff Room (near front office)
In attendance: Harmony Pearce, Darrell Robinson, Rachael Shober, Alisa Didenhover, Audra Armstrong, Tanya Eagar, Becky Dall, & Jodi Stewart-Browning.
Missing today: Heather Shay, Hollie Pelch, & Robyn Jackson.
Also in attendance: Yvette White (PTA President)
Agenda Items:
· Introductions
· Discuss Roles & Responsibilities –
o Training @ Herriman High Atrium on Oct. 29th @ 7:30-8:30pm
o Members of the SCC atch the two videos as the link is distributed electronically.
· Overview of SchoolLandtrust.org & BCE’s SCC page-
http://www.butterfieldcanyonelementary.org/community/scc/
Agendas & minutes will be posted on the website. Names, email addresses & phone numbers of all SCC members are shared for the community’s use to contact members. General information about expectations & responsibilities are listed.
www.schoollandtrust.org is the site where information about individual School Land Trust Plans are located for anyone’s perusal.
· Mr. Robinson asked if the feeder systems coordinated plans. Mr. Hansen responded that he hasn’t seen that done in the past, but it is something that could be done. Our BCE School Land Trust monies are used for people to meet individual student’s needs in small group settings in reading & mathematics.
· Technology access at our school- BCE has opened a 2nd computer lab, a laptop lab. Some grades have iPads (2nd grade will have 5 iPads in each classroom; 3rd-5th grades have iPads carts) & 3rd grade has a set of “Neos”, a keyboarding computer-like device. Document cameras are installed in each classrooms. Mr. Hansen suggested that at some point a Needs Assessment could be developed, distributed & studied to determined what teachers need.
· Elect a Chair and Co-Chair for the Committee
o Chair responsibilities were discussed.
o Harmony was selected to serve as Chairperson with Audra as Co-Chairperson.
o Jodi was selected to serve as secretary to take & distribute minutes. She will need someone to take notes in December; she will be off-track. One of the other teacher members will take notes in her absence.
· A question was raised about PTA & SCC working together, which Yvette addressed. Her PTA council chairperson had suggested that PTA was closely involved. Yvette’s name was nominated as an additional member of the SCC, which was seconded & unanimously positively supported.
· Review Current Land Trust Plan & Progress towards School Goals
The school has two main goals, for at least 85% of students to be on-grade-level in reading & mathematics. Mr Hansen shared this year’s data for each grade level for the first two months of school. Targeted help is being provided for all students below grade level in reading &/or math.
Yvette suggested that the reading data should be shared with parents as the new “Battle of the Books”, BOB, is introduced to parents. BOB is to encourage more reading at home at students’ individual reading levels. Mr. Hansen felt that idea was great & will be done.
· SAGE Testing
Parents should be able to access student scores on last spring’s SAGE testing, which replaced the previous CRTs in grades 3-12. The new SAGE test evaluates what students know & can do with the new standards outlined in Utah’s new Core Standards. The standards are more rigorous to better prepare students to be college & career ready. The new standards are more process-based, students must be able to able the skill in various situations & support their answers.
The new SAGE is interactive, students must do much more than choose the correct answer; students have to manipulative the test question.
The SAGE test questions were carefully screened by groups of educators & parents before it was rolled out last spring.
Tanya stated that she would like the opportunity to see the test to better understand what her children were doing during testing. Nick responded that to keep the test valid & reliable the SAGE questions must be kept confidential. There are sample tests that anyone can access on the SAGE website- sageportal.org.
There is an informational meeting scheduled for Friday, October 24th, 4:30 & 6:30 pm to better inform our parents about SAGE testing. An email will be sent home to parents. A recommendation was made to record & post the presentation for parents who are unable to attend. A slide show is available that could be posted on our school website.
Students will receive a scaled score of 100-900 rather than the previous CRT percentile score. Sage scores will be reported in scaled scores & a proficiency level scores 4, 3, 2, 1 with 4 being highly proficient.
SAGE & CRT scores should not be compared. A different, more rigorous, curriculum is tested with a different, more challenging, assessment.
Students scores will appear lower than what we have seen in the past. Our District averages are in the 30-40 percent range of student meeting a 3 or 4 proficiency standard with Butterfield Canyon’s range between 40-50.
An individual student report will be distributed by teachers in grades 4-5 at upcoming Fall Parent Teacher Conferences. A parent information booklet will be given to each parent with more information about how to interpret the results.
· Community Input
Discuss a safer option for walking students to cross at Gina Rd (north of the school) An email was received by a patron from the new street. Those students must walk nearly a block further to cross on the existing crosswalk.
Principal Hansen showed some screen shots of the map with existing crosswalks marked.
A potential crosswalk could be painted by the city where the school gate is open for students to funnel out. Pros & cons of this crosswalk were discussed. Currently, many parents are U-turning at this spot, which is dangerous.
The decision was made to request that the city paint an additional crosswalk. They could also place a flashing sign to alert drivers to students crossing the street. The mayor’s office has been contacted; they are aware of the situation and are awaiting our recommendation.
· The meeting was adjourned at 3:50 pm.