September 12, 2017 / THMS Instructional Council Meeting

Location:Badger Room

Time:1:55pm

Attendees:Cynthia Berens, Rogelio Lara, Tamara Larson, Eric Thomas, Martha Reed, Kathleen Erickson, Karla Garcia, Angelica Chavira-Ruiz, Nancy Gutierrez, Marianne Schombert, Alex Callahan, Kira Krupovlyanskaya, Kristina Grebloski, Shawna Rodriguez, Tamela Thomas, Lupita Perez, Carolyn Jones

Agenda:

  • Housekeeping (20mins)

Lupita Perez

Need a referral or email immediately when sending a student out, admin won’t know what the issue is otherwise, send student to grade level admin. Remember to try the cell phone policy – should be teacher managed not admin managed.

Carlos Armendariz (absent)

Interpreters – if requested Spanish speaking needs, forward to Carlos. The interpreter will be in Badger Room so family and teacher would need to meet

New ASSA locks and weekend protocols

Fire drills – sept 28

Tamela Thomas

AVID PD (Google Docs?) – sept 20, oct 4, and oct 18 – presentation of AVID strategies for PD, teachers will have options to sign up for 4 different opportunities, it will be in Google Docs to sign up, don’t have to have a Google account to sign up, 50 minute session with a 30 minute PLC

Assessments (PSAT and Benchmarks) – in bulletin, assessment calendar is attached, working with TTLs and testing coordinators, PSAT test on Oct 25, 9th – 11th being tested, benchmarks lead is Tiffany McClelland, benchmarks start 9/25. COWs and testing labs to be used for benchmarks.

COW locations – September 18 – send Tamela info about where the COWs are located to get ready for testing

  • IC Business (60mins)

Shawna Rodriguez

Accountability Plan

Mission, Vision, and Collective Commitments – due, use of prior mission, vision from prior years. This year will work on it, will be a lengthy process. Will get collective commitments from even classified staff (attendance, security, etc.). Department chairs will then do collective commitment work with the departments and PLCs (it will be on the agenda and minutes form).

Karla – counseling confused about collective commitments, given example by Rodriguez.

Martha – collective commitments could take 6 months, could go on and on. Needs to be whittled down to smaller chunks.

Rodriguez – RESPECT acronym as collective commitments? Vision and Mission needs to be updated and more current.

Examples projected and discussed. Student Centered Collective Commitments as school-wide and Professional Centered Collective Commitments for PLC work. Use of accountability plan to develop commitments.

Review of data from SSL – got 15 out of 17 for College and Career Readiness Indicators. Rodriguez hopeful of a letter grade of A.

Should collective commitments be more in line with how high schools are graded – AzMERIT scores. Remain objective with commitments and include something along the lines of testing and data with at least one commitment in PLC work.

Kira – scores on AzMERIT does not correspond with GPA. Trying to drill down with the data and perform a needs assessment (instructional?, computer?). Asking for help from district with data (semester grades). Will put together an assessment cadre to determine questions, student and teacher samples to interview. Why do we have 17 4.0 GPA students who demonstrated minimal proficiency and a 1.7 who excelled?

Kathleen Erickson – AzMERIT scores are very important to the USP and our magnet status. Need to buy in when we understand how it could potentially effect the budget and classes we offer at THMS. Landscape of the school could be very different if our scores don’t improve.

Edit to one commitment to reflect student achievement as measured by the state letter grade. Need to include something along the lines of commitment to legacy of THMS.

Tamela Thomas (Kira with data)

IC Activity( 6-3-4 ): model for PD on Wednesday – in PLC guide, summarizes mission, vision, and values (collective commitments) to reach goals. Focus on students and student success.

6 – 3 – 4 : frame how to do the work on the PLC, look at 6 essential characteristics, what does this sound like in your department? How do we remain committed but keep our boots on the ground? #5 not content with status quo, needs to be inquiry driven.

3 big ideas: overarching ideas, what are the attributes in each department. Culture of collaboration.

Define norms vs. collective commitments. Norms – how the group will function, commitments – how are we arriving at our goals.

4 critical questions – non-negotiable, what do we want our students to learn (standards based, curriculum 4.0), how will we know they have learned it (formative and summative assessments, activities), what will we do if they haven’t learned it (interventions), what do we do once they have learned it (extensions). These 4 questions drive our work.

Collective commitments need to be on the agenda for the PLC minutes.

Speaking of which…as a professional, there is more content that needs to be added. Some have one word – need to describe. Ex. “What is working?” “Collaboration”. Collaboration on what?

  • Items from the floor

Eric Thomas – SchoolCity training?

Tamela – open lab on a Friday with TTLs, how to pull up data, how to pull up CFAs, will be put in Badger Bulletin

Nancy – bells are still off, 3rd, 5th, and 7th periods have extra bells

Nancy – IEPs and 504s, teachers are unable to attend unless during planning period. Emails with specific questions are great if teachers can’t attend.

  • Homework Due?

Interview questions – consider collective commitments while revising questions, is there a way to infuse them into the process?