Webster Magnet Elementary

Site Council Minutes – Tuesday May 1, 2007    Corrected and Approved 5/15/07

Members in Attendance:

Carrie Asmus, Felita Barber, Bob Blat, Salim Butler, Heather Fry, Tom Peterson, Patty Prifrel, Renee Ransom , Jane Shoffner, Lori Simon, Doug Stone, Rebecca Wade

Non-Members in Attendance:   Robin Abel, Eleanor Clemmons, Diane Craig, Colleen Fridlund, Julie Lay, Sheila Martin, Monroe Walker

Members Absent: Eilene Bowland, Shelly Fountain, Kristi Johnson

The meeting was called to order at 6:00 pm.

Check In

All in attendance were asked to introduce themselves.

Approve Agenda

A Motion was made and seconded: Approved the agenda as distributed. The motion was passed unanimously.

Approve Minutes

A Motion was made and seconded: Approve the April 24th meeting minutes as distributed. The motion was passed unanimously.

Principal’s Report – Staffing Changes

In the past couple of weeks a couple of staff members who had indicated that they would be leaving have decided not to leave. There could be more of this sort of change but at this time it looks like Webster will be looking to hire the following teachers:

2 - kindergarten, 1 - 2^nd grade, 3 – 4^th grade, 2 5^th or 6^th grade (depending on looping decisions), 1 learning center team lead and 1 learning center counselor.

The funding for the band program will be cut to a 0.75 position, the district funding for band programs is being cut across the district. There has been some discussion about cutting the band program to 5^th and 6^th grade only, experience has shown that many of the 4^th graders are not really ready for the extra challenges of band participation and many have not been successful.

Lori has received support from the district that we will get to interview and choose from the available teachers for our openings.

She has already received some good leads for teachers that would like to be considered.

Principal’s Report – Information about Budget

Many changes that will be implemented for next year at Webster will be moving Webster towards a collaborative model. The school district has indicated that Webster needs to provide for at least one literacy or math coach while the district will fund another. Lori then presented a series of slides that detailed the following changes in staff and focus:

• The Reading Specialists positions that we now have will be eliminated. In their place we will have Literacy Coaches, one each for grades 1-2, grades 3-4 and grades 5-6. The staff members that have been our Reading Specialists will be able to apply for the Literacy Specialist positions if they want to, get or have the District required training and go through the District pre-screening interview process for all classroom coaches.
• There will also be an additional position created for a math coach. This new person will work with our current coordinator to determine how to split up the task.
• Lori indicated that we needed to remember that there are many kinds of giftedness, in particular that there was traditional academic giftedness and giftedness in arts and literacy. She indicated that the current Gifted and Talented (GT) Specialists we have are for academic giftedness and that she wanted to shift the focus, therefore one GT specialist position will be cut and in its place there will be a new position of Arts and Literacy Specialist. Lori also mentioned that she had discussed this with the current GT specialists and they were behind this change in focus.
• There will be a new Educational Assistant to focus on attendance, Lori emphasized that this position would not be a teaching assistant.
• There will be a renewed emphasis on training staff in differentiation in instruction in the classroom.
• The transition for students into kindergarten will continue to be a focus.
• There will be more focus on teaching students the things they need to make a successful transition to junior high.
• Lori will be investigating whether we can start offering after school activities with the students using the buses that we already have coming to the school for the current after school ALC program. Many possibilities for after school programs could be considered, additional enrichments, student leadership and service learning were mentioned. In order for this to happen we would need to get agreement from the district.
• There will be a new look at the effectiveness of the teacher study groups. Professional groups at the grade level will be considered.
• There will be focus on the Responsive Classroom climate. There are two teachers on the staff that will be receiving coaching training to help with the implementation here at Webster.
• The Schoolwide Positive Discipline Plan will be implemented.
• There will be an exploration of the use of Love and Logic Resources. Lori indicated that this program has lots of resources that work really well with students.
• Some additional school climate aspects that will be considered include; leadership and service learning, conflict resolution strategies and explore alternatives to dismissal and suspension.
• There will be a new education assistant to deal with behavior issues in the west building. Lori would like to eliminate the line of students waiting in the office to meet with the APs.
• The 0.5 time social worker position that has been working on attendance will be changed to focus on family outreach and support.
• There will be some changes to make for a more welcoming environment, starting with new paint in the entry hallway and the main hallway by the office.
• The capital improvement request for opening up the office to the entry hallway is being considered.
• The office area will be changed to make it more organized and welcoming, this will happen if the capital improvement gets approved or not.
• All the bulletin boards in the school need to be maintained.

Restructure Enrichments

• There will be a cut in the number of enrichment specialists by one.
• The enrichment specialists will be: 2 Science, Music, Art, Reader’s Theater and Chinese.
• A five week cycle for classes is being considered.
• There are grant possibilities that we be pursued for the Chinese program.
• The woods program will be discontinued. The current teacher is retiring and finding a teacher for woods at the elementary level would probably be very difficult if even possible.
• There will be two physical education teachers.
• The physical education program will not be run as an enrichment class it will be ongoing for all students throughout the year. The schedule is not yet determined.
• It appears that the gym time will be an additional prep time for the homeroom teachers. This may be an opportunity for collaboration time or to make sure other tasks are completed.

Budget Planning

A handout was distributed with two budget proposals. It was stated that everything not noted in the proposals would remain the same next year as it is this year. It was also noted that the special education budget, that is funded directly from the school district, has not yet been announced.

Budget Proposals

Option 1			Option 2
Current	07-08		Current	07-08
Science	Science		Science	Science
Science	Science		Science	Science
Music	Music		Music	Music
Art	Art		Art	Art
Art	Gym		Art	Gym
Gym	Gym		Gym	Gym
Woods	Reader’s Theater		Woods	Reader’s Theater
Spanish	Chinese		French	French
French	EA – Attendance EA – Behavior 4-6		Spanish	EA – Attendance EA – Behavior 4-6
GT	GT		GT	GT
GT	Art/Literacy Collaboration		GT	Art/Literacy Collaboration
Reading	Literacy Coach		Reading	Literacy Coach
Reading	Literacy Coach		Reading	Literacy Coach
Reading	Literacy Coach or Math Coach		Reading	Literacy Coach or Math Coach
.5 SW Attendance	.5 SW Family Involvement		.5 SW Attendance	.5 SW Family Involvement
	Literacy or Math Coach (District)			Literacy or Math Coach (District)

Questions/Discussion

One member spoke in favor of collaboration but questioned whether time would really be made available in order to make it work.

It was stated that the Chinese program would make Webster unique among grade schools in the district. It was noted that there are junior high programs for Chinese in the District, also noted that Chinese is important in the world today.

A number of members expressed support for after school programs and a number of ideas were presented. It was agreed that the transportation with the current after school ALC buses would be a key in making it work.

In answer to a question it was indicated that as the budget numbers have come from the district there is not the need to cut as much money from this year’s total for next year as we had been planning at the start of this year. It was noted that the federal Title I allocation for the school increased over last year and has nearly made up the loss of the integration funding. No numbers were presented.

One member indicated that after school programming for some in Kindergarten would be beneficial even though they are not currently part of ALC.

It was noted that the Mayor has mentioned his support for after school programming in the schools so this may be somewhere to go for support.

The current Reading Specialists are going to visit Battle Creek Elementary to see literacy Coaches in a collaborative environment that has had some success. They will also get the Readers Workshop training.

It was made clear that they only difference between the two options presented was option 1 had Chinese and option 2 had French.

A Motion was made and seconded: Approve Budget Proposal Option 1. The motion was passed, no one voted against it.

It was noted that a number of members present did not vote.

SCIP Planning

A SCIP was distributed to the members. There were a number of changes since last month but the changes that would be made before being submitted were not compete.

The Description of School Program was changed to one based on the description used in the school choice catalog this year.

The Data Analysis and Conclusions section was rewritten to include a section on the number of teacher’s that have had the different level of training in the various Workshop courses from the District’s Project for Academic Excellence. Another section reports on the office referrals, suspensions and dismissals compared to the year before. It was decided that the table describing the Discipline Suspension by Ethnicity and Gender would be eliminated.

The Status of Previous Enrichment Efforts section was not yet filled in.

The Three Outcomes (used to be called Goals) are on the topics discussed last meeting.

Outcome 1 – For the MCAs, the index rate will be at or above the state-defined index target or the state-defined safe harbor target in Reading and Math. Specific subgroups will be identified after the 2007 test results.

Outcome 2 – The number of office referrals for all students will decrease by 20%.

Outcome 3 – Increase family involvement and improve family outreach.

It was noted that at out next meeting there would be an opportunity to place some benchmarks on these Outcomes.

Strategy 1 (used to be called Initiatives) – The Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop model will be implemented consistently.

The subsections under this strategy were complete and it was indicated that the others would be completed using a similar format before being submitted before the May 4th deadline.

There was some discussion about how and what benchmarks would be in place for some of the steps.

Strategy 2 – Support Full Implementation of Everyday Math

Strategy 3 – Webster will begin its second year of Responsive Classroom (RC) implementation. Beginning in the Fall of 2007, two staff members will have completed RC coaching training, and their rooms will serve as model classrooms. By the Fall of 2008, all licensed staff will have successfully completed Level 1 RC training.

The subsections below the last two Strategies were just getting started.

A Motion was made and seconded: Approve proposed changes to the SCIP to prepare for submission. The motion was passed unanimously.

Meeting Dates

It was decided that our next meeting would be May 15^th, 5:30 – 8:00 PM.

Two agenda items already proposed for that meeting: The Schoolwide Discipline Policy and Setting Bench Marks in the SCIP.

There will be a meeting Tuesday August 28^th at 6:00 to get started for the next school year.

Members were asked to look at their calendars for next school year to see if the second Tuesday of each month will work as a meeting date. This will be discussed again at future meetings.

The June meeting/celebration will be Thursday June 7^th, 6:00 PM at the Wild Onion on Grand Avenue.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 pm.

[Back]