Attending: Cynthia Macleod, Dick Cherry, Kris Anderson Jay Hoover, Cherie Allbaugh, Amy Spunaugle, Linda Garrison, Deborah O’Kelly, Erica Rosser, Michela McMahon (joined meeting late)

Saturday Academy Pilot (Computer Animation Class)– Just finished the class and we will debrief on how it went.

Kris – How will we debrief and decide if the class was effective and if it worked?

Dick – Should we do a survey to families?

Kris – Should we survey Margaret to find out what she thinks?

Jay – If this was successful should we bring this up at PTA or to TAG parents for payment for these classes if we have positive feedback.

Kris – Was the Saturday Academy successful?

Margaret – There was a 4^th grade group working with inventions and creating inventions with magnets, marbles, and ice cream. The teacher had to take medical leave that put a glitch.

The 5^th grade group worked with computer animation. Margaret did get the mobile lab so that the class could work during testing. The kids used Scratch to create their own animation. The students each created their own piece of work and some are still doing it at home.

I feel it was very successful. The kids loved the subject matter and were very interested in the work.

Jay – How many kids are using the program?

Margaret – 12 kids for each class

Kris – Scratch is a free downloadable program so kids can keep using it. Kris has heard of another group who “Portland Wiz Kids” is a little more lenient with the amount of students they service. We may be able to get up to 20 kids into a class.

Cynthia- In trying to staff TAG we do not really have the staff to cover it. Saturday Academy is a program that is not taught by district teachers so this could be a problem with the district.

Kris – Can we talk to the district

Cynthia – Yes but we don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves because sometimes we don’t want them to come down with a cut and dry answer.

Kris – If we can get the money from the PTA can we use this model to enrich the TAG curriculum? Is it worth it for us to discuss this and bring it up?

Cynthia – We will be looking at one class for each TAG student throughout the year.

Margaret – We could be servicing about 80 students in TAG next year but it always changes depending on movement of the families and students.

Kris / Margaret – We probably want to look for classes that are 1 hour long instead of 1 1/2 because it fits into the schedule better.

Action: We do need to figure out if we want to do this so we can approach the PTA for funds. Parents would like to see a list of items that might work for our TAG students. The school should offer these things and the parents so they can choose. Many parents would like to see things offered during the school day instead of after school programs. They may be willing to pay if it is a quality program and the teachers feel it is good curriculum.

Cynthia – Until the middle grades scheduling is complete we can’t really move forward with the TAG plan for next year.

Kris – We will collect and have information available on classes so we can present this to the PTA in May, Can we figure out how many sections we will need to service all of the TAG students?

Margaret – Will put together list of students and grade levels so Kris can present to the PTA.

Cynthia – Asked for block schedule to be defined. The definition presented was all teachers teaching a certain subject at the same time allowing for students to switch to appropriate level class.

Cynthia – We do have a problem with special education being able to service all of their students if all students in the school are in reading or math at the same time.

Kris – Maybe we could get around that problem by grouping different teachers together. For example

Group A Group B Group C

3^rd Grade A 3^rdGrade B 3^rd Grade C

4^th Grade A 4^th Grade B 4^th Grade C

5^th Grade A 5^th Grade B 5^th Grade C

Each group could work together to block their own groups schedule so not all teachers are teaching the same subject at the same time, yet students could still move to a different ability level if they needed to.

Jay – Are there any certain grades that this could work better in?

Dick – We could also do this within grade level and just ability group among all of a certain grade level.

Jay – In seems to be the K/1/2 parents that are the most concerned with this issue.

Cynthia – The lower grade teacher are the least likeliest to give up their kids to a program like this because of their teaching philosophies.

Cynthia – Ability grouping and student movement don’t’ always work because of social issues in the school.

Cynthia – In staff meeting Cynthia will present what the TAG and SITE has been talking about so we can start a conversation about grouping.

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Portland Leadership Collaborative Update

Dick – Our team decided, using the data from last year that we would focus on math this year. We looked at the school and the students and tried for figure out why the students of color are scoring lower than others. We focused on culturally responsive teaching. We are going to be spending 45 min to 1 hour working with the staff using “Courageous Conversations” to have discussions about lead how we are going to change our practices to meet out students needs.

Cynthia – Expressed that we need to look at race and the issues around that to address the needs of these students and help all students achieve.

Dick – Nike funded this leadership collaborative and they will be doing so next year also. More schools will be joining in next year also.

Jay – What dose the research say about having us working with families?

Dick – Yes families will be part of the process.

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K-8 issues

Cynthia - The principals group came up with a list of what all 6-8 kids need. But staffing doesn’t match what principals want for their students.

Kris – Has been attending the district meetings but is very frustrated with the slowness of the process. Recommendations for the K-8 are to be presented on June 1^st. All of this will mean nothing if there is no money to back up the ideas. Ideas were tossed around to save money but nothing came to fruition. New funds could be coming in through Multnomah County. Parents made it very clear to Zeke Smith that the only way to fix the K-8 problems is additional FTE.

Kris – A new parent group is starting that is much more action based. It seems their goal is to dismantle the K-8 model. This group is meetin+g at Humbolt on May 3^rd.

Next K-8 district meeting April 29^th Same night at the TAG Meeting with the district.

Cynthia – Scheduling for the K-8 is coming along. All students will have the basics every day, reading, math, science, writing, and social studies. Students will have a choice between art classes and SBS. There will be no Spanish available for 6^th graders because our Spanish teacher is only 1/2 time.

Cherie – Career education will need 1 term for at least 20 hours to complete curriculum.

At this time there is no FTE for media specialist.

Kris – How much impact on the K-5 are the changes in the 6-8 causing?

What about Kindergarten?

Cynthia – We still only have only 2 teachers with no assistants being provided by the district.

Kris – What if 80 Kindergarteners show up.

Cynthia – We will still only have 2 classrooms. I am holding .5 just in case we need assistants.

Kris – Two kids of 30 kids will not work for Irvington.

Cynthia – If the district gives us .5 more we can use our .5 for a media specialist. In the K-5 the TAG and math support will mostly disappear. The counselor will not be in the K–5 classrooms. We are also hoping that we will still have 2 sessions of PE for the students in K-5.

A tentative schedule is attached but this is a work in progress.

Jay - Testing is complete the third Friday in May. Once all testing is complete we will look at data.

Kris – We want the SITE council to stagger the different 2-year terms. At this time the terms are as follows:

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April 21, 2008

K-8 issues

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