Oct 15 2007

Irvington's Site Council reconvened for the new school year with new and familiar faces: Cynthia MacLeod, principal; Dick Cherry, Amy Spunaugle, Cherie Allbaugh, and Deborah O'Kelly representing teachers and staff; Kris Anderson, Erica Rosser, and Jay Hoover representing parents; and Michaela McMahon representing the community.

Kris Anderson was selected as the chairperson for 2007-8, responsible for organizing the agenda and facilitating the meetings.

 K-8 transition - Cynthia provided a brief status report on the 6/7th classes: while the start of the school year has been smoother and more organized for students this year, the staff continues to work on finessing the schedules and instructional time. Discussed how to share information with school families on the developing K-8 program. Decided to start by surveying 5th-7th grade students, and their parents, about what kinds of information they want and tailoring a community meeting to fulfill those requests. Cherie and Jay will draft the survey in November, with a goal of distributing and collecting them in early Dec. Community meeting(s) will be held in mid-late January. Also discussed whether Site Council should write a formal letter to the school board (and superintendent) to communicate concerns with the K-8 transition, specifically, the lack of resources and leadership being provided at the district level. Kris and Cynthia will work on a draft letter for site council to discuss, edit, and approve.

 Kindergarten class size -  There was general agreement that two classes of kindergarten are not likely to be sufficient to accommodate incoming neighborhood students next year. Several factors complicate the search for a solution to the large K class sizes: many/most incoming kindergarteners enroll in August, making it difficult to predict class sizes; principals must declare open transfer spots prior to receiving their staffing allocations for the year; our building does not have enough classrooms to hold 3 classes per grade as a K-8; blended (mixed grade) classes require special teaching skills. Cynthia will create contingency options prior to Kindergarten Round-up (Feb).

TAG support - Last spring, Site Council discussed increasing TAG support by utilizing Saturday Academy' LEAP program (TAG students would participate in accelerated coursework for a limited time during the school day). Discussed testing one or two SA classes this year. Because unused classroom space is already scarce during the school day, we decided to further explore space availability for next year and Sat. Academy's flexibility in scheduling before undertaking a pilot program. Kris will contact Sat. Academy re: flexibility in scheduling. Recent State/Federal test results/scores - general discussion around recent media coverage of test scores with many media references to falling elementary scores but almost no mention that the elementary benchmarks had been raised significantly.

Portland Leadership Collaborative  Cynthia, Dick, and Karen Barker are participating in the Portland Leadership Collaborative, coordinated by the district and Univ. of Washington. The overarching goal of the leadership collaborative is to help leaders develop new ways to understand the obstacles to achievement and new tools to boost achievement.

School Counselor project  Each year, school counselors are required to develop and undertake a project designed to help a targeted group of underachieving students. Cherie provided an overview of the results of her project last year and welcomed ideas from site council for future projects.

Last updated by jhoover on Mar 19, 2008 at 12:50 PM

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