March 17, 2008

Site Council Minutes

March 17, 2008 meeting

Attending:  Cynthia Macleod, Dick Cherry, Jay Hoover, Cherie Allbaugh, Amy Spunaugle, Irma, Emily, Michela (joined meeting late)

Two parents, Irma, and Emily came forward to discuss TAG student needs in our building.  They wanted us to listen to the following concerns:

1.      Needs of higher learners in the building are not being met.

2.      Teachers and administration need to make sure that scheduling and curriculum is rigorous.

3.      Are there too many students in each classroom to allow teachers to differentiate for all student needs?

4.      Maybe students could move out of grade level for appropriate instruction.

5.      Maybe schedules could be blocked in order to allow for movement for students of different levels.

6.      Parents are looking for more guidance on how to work with their students at home.  Could curriculum be provided by the school?

7.      The focus at Irvington seems to be on the students who are not meeting the benchmark at the expense of the TAG students.

8.      SIP does not address TAG needs

At this point a discussion was opened up to all members of the SITE council.  Items discussed were as follows:

1. Cynthia mentioned that Jr. Great Books could be used.  We could use parents who are interested to be trained and work with groups.  Someone in the school would have to be appointed to organize the program.
2. Dick spoke to a “Walk to Read” program he has seen work in other schools.  Students move between classrooms to access reading at their own level.
3. Emily – Could we preassess kids and give them the next unit up if they can pass the assessment.  Teacher members pointed out that many units and grade levels are not completely linear so this solution would not work in all situations.
4. Irma – Spoke to the issue of calling high students TAG.  Maybe we should just supply what the students need but not call them TAG.
5. Sustainability of a TAG program.  Volunteers would need to be organized if we were going to offer a complete program.  Could the PTA hire a FTE to work with just TAG issues?
6. Could we use Margaret to train parents to work with students?
7. Emily - Could Saturday Academy work for TAG Students?  Cynthia advised the council that because parents have to pay for the services the program is not conducive to taking the place of public education.
8. Emily and Irma- Parents have spoke to the huge deficient in mathematics.  They feel Investigations is not dealing with advanced students.
9. Emily and Irma – Advised the council Irvington TAG parents have a Goggle group to communicate.

We spoke about our needs at Irvington being three pronged:

1.                Parent education

2.                Scheduling Needs

3.                Classroom Support

We had a quick FTE update – Nothing has changed since the last SITE meeting.  We will be looking for a .5 media specialist maybe in round three.

Space Issues – Cheri brought up the health classes she teaches and she has been thinking about where she will teach those classes next year because there are not open classrooms.

Last updated by jhoover on Apr 21, 2008 at 11:21 PM

All items purchesed from Amazon after clicking on one of the links below help fund Irvington's school programs