Spec. Rafael Hernando Middle School
SIT Meeting – Jan. 26, 2016
Present –
Mrs. Betancourt
Mrs. Fleenor
Mr. Hood
Mrs. Parra
Mrs. Porras
Ms. Bechtel
Mrs. Newport
Mrs. Anaya
Mr. Portillo
Mr. Gamez
Mrs. Dixon
Meeting called to order 3:32pm
Mr. Hernando – Community Member
Direction One - Safe and Supportive Schools
Student and teacher attendance discussed. Student’s attendance was below average for the months of August and November. Campus goals are set to have student attendance at 97%. Even though the student attendance was low, Hernando is still above the District Average and last year’s percentage.
Reminder that frequently absent students' names are to be emailed to Mr. Hood with cc: to Mrs. Betancourt and Ms. Melendez.
Hernando teacher attendance overall is 2nd place in the District despite having a many teachers out for extenuating circumstances.
Mrs. Betancourt stated that she is always very proud of the hard work that teachers do and likes to always celebrate the small successes.
There is no substitute for having the teacher in the classroom. As part of professional etiquette, teachers should remember to call in for a sub as soon as there is an indication that they will be out due to illness or emergency. When we are short subs, Title 1 staff is not allowed to cover vacant positions. Only ancillary staff such as Mrs. Q or Ms. Ramirez might be able to cover, but availability is not always sure.
In critical situations, teachers need to be ready to absorb students into our classes.
February 17 - no school, no makeup day due to Papal visit. Timeclock employees do have to make-up the time or would need to use comp time.
State has issued new guidelines for attendance. Student enrollment is now based on minutes of attendance, no longer days of attendance. The state says that a student must be in school 75,600 minutes; Socorro has students attending for 80,000 plus minutes.
Direction two - college and career readiness
AVID - Mr. Portillo presented that the January 22nd AVID meeting was moved, a future date for the meeting is to be determined. He went on to report AVID Initiatives 1, 2, and 3 have been implemented and are in effect campus wide. A date is to be set for the roll-out of Initiative 4. The next cohort to attend the AVID Summer Institute will be Mrs. Torres, Ms. Bechtel, Mrs. Porras, Mr. Palomares, Mrs. Newport, Mr. Garcia, Ms. Saenz, Mrs. Parra, Mr. Hood, Mr. Portillo, and a teacher from the Fine Arts department. Mr. Portillo shared that Mrs. Chan will be conducting a second fundraiser for AVID. This fundraiser will assist costs for the UTEP fieldtrip. Mrs. Betancourt shared that the next meeting is still to be determined.
Direction three – highly qualified teachers
Faculty meeting will be moved to March due to the February 17th closure. February SIT meeting will continue on as planned. Mrs. Betancourt would like to plan on sending 3 ELAR teachers, grades 6 through 8 to Laying the Foundation training. Mrs. Porras will be looking into registration information. All additional teacher professional development needs to be organized and registered for before Mrs. Betancourt's leave (Pre-AP Summer Institutes). The NCUST visit will be Wednesday, February 3rd. Observers will be present all day. They will be meeting with students, parents, teachers, and staff. Science and Social Studies PLC will be observed. ELAR and Math teachers will meet with them during conference periods. All content-area classes should expect to be observed. They will especially make targeted visits to specialty programs/ classes, i.e. AVID, Read180, Exploring Careers, etc.
In advance of the visit, Advisory walk-throughs will be done by Administration to spot-check classroom structure. Feedback on presentation of classroom will be given to all teachers. Be orderly, first impressions count. Teacher need to make plans to have rooms ready and bulletin boards updated. Take pride in your student work and presentations.
Early Release Staff Development
An adjustment to the agenda will be made to take into account presentation on National Digital Learning Day. This event will occur February 15th. Ms. Baez will discuss ideas that can be used for incorporating digital learning that day. Promote activities happening in the classroom through District social media and hashtag TEAMSISD, and hashtag DIGITALLEARNING.
Lesson Planning
Department Chairs, please make sure to communicate to teachers that if they are submitting a single lesson plan with all teachers' names listed on it, it is expected that there would be complete alignment of lessons from one room to the next. If during walk-through observations alignment is not observed, this may reflect on observation rating. Teachers can put their own spin on the lesson and use varying materials/ texts, however, objectives and outcomes should be on target.
Teachers who serve targeted populations such as ELL and SPED should make evident differentiation in the lesson plans. Remind teachers that instruction should be occurring from bell to bell. Plan for fast data talks to ensure that targeted areas for spiraled learning are addressed in the lesson plans.
Direction 4 - Parent Community and Business Relationships
January's Coffee with the Principal was largely successful. There was lots of parent participation. This will continue to look to get increased community involvement. The next meeting in February is to be determined. Future meetings will target academics and safety components with special presentations done by District Police Services. PTA held their first Family Spirit Night at Bush's Chicken. It was very successful. Future Spirit Nights will occur once a month. The next one will be February 9th at Texas Roadhouse from 4 - 8 pm. Funds raised are being collected to get sunshades from student patio area.
ELAR and History night will be February 24th. Mrs. Porras and Mrs. Newport will be working with the departments to organize stations; theme is to be determined. Pizza and free-dress will be provided as incentives for the community to attend. Ms. Sandoval will also have a booth set up to assist families in the sign-up for the SISD app. Ms. Baez will coordinate for Book Fair to occur during this time as well. Any material requests need to be submitted as soon as possible.
Direction 5 - Accountability for All
All present at this SIT meeting divided up into groups of 3 to 4 to review and revise Campus Improvement Plan. Adjustments should reflect what is actually being implemented campus wide for the 5 Directions. After teams completed review and revision, annotations were submitted to Mrs. Betancourt for finalization.
Meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.