Meeting Date:
Members:
Curriculum / Programs
Board Committee Meeting Minutes
June 04, 2012 @ 4:00 p.m., SSC
Attendance
Denean Adams
Stella Gonzalez
Annette Johnson
Maryann Turza
Dr. Christie Aird
Dr. Marin Gonzalez
Cathy Lattz
Chuck Roberts
Dr. Raquel Wilson
Dr. Jerome Roberts
Beatrice Reyes Childress
Yes _X_
Yes _X
Yes _X__
Yes _X_
Yes _X_
Yes ___
Yes _X_
Yes _X_
Yes _X_
Yes_ X__
Yes_X__
No___
No___
No ___
No___
No ___
No _X_
No ___
No ___
No ___
No___
No___
Stella Gonzales starts the Curriculum Committee Meeting at 4:00 p.m. with a welcome.
1. Technology Update – Chuck Roberts shared an update on Technology. We are making great gains with Infinite
Campus with one successful semester under our belt.
 1st & 2nd quarter attendance has been completed
 Grades for 1st & 2nd quarter have been inputted for the Middle Schools and High School. These were
manually entered due to the need for grade % as well as a letter grade.
 We have loaded all the data into the sandbox for Free and Reduced. While reviewing, we found a few
errors. We are trying to figure out the source of the errors so that they can be corrected.
 We have had issues loading the Health Immunization Data due to bad dates that were given. The dates
given were in the future or before the students were born. This was a byproduct of the AS400 and not
having control of what people entered through data.
 We are working on our telephone dialer.
 Plasco is a tool that they have at the High School and attendance can be taken by scanning the back of
the students I.D.
 SWIS (Behavior Tracking) Data - This is a supplemental to Infinite Campus called Tableau.
 We are also currently working on the Attendance Dialer.
 We are waiting for the Meal Time audit to be done so that we can start pulling the free and reduced
data and pushing it into Infinite Campus. This will be in place by August 2012.
 The prototype for the Parent Portal is being tested at EAMSC and I am reviewing the surveys now to see
what the users thought of it.
 This Sunday we posted the position for the Assistant Director of Technology. I am hoping to offload a lot
of these products on to that person so we can have a point person that can be dedicated to this project.
Annette Johnson adds, “The position was not posted in the Chicago Tribune or ISBE.”
 The next big project we have is the Teacher Computer Upgrade. We have some schools that we are still
working on. We ran into an inventory flow process, but we are no longer working with that vendor. We
will deliver the remaining computer over the summer.

The Network Switch upgrade is a 2 prong project. We had to replace all of the network switches
internally which made the traffic from the SSC to the High School faster. Then if you wanted to go to the
internet, you went back onto the slow pike and out of the building. That should be upgraded this
summer if we get the Comcast project approved with the erate funds. Upon completion of the switch
upgrade project we will have much faster speed within our network. Access to the internet is still slow
due to our speed of internet connectivity. Internet Speed issue will be addressed with Comcast upgrade
(pending Erate authorization)
Annette Johnson asks, “When we encounter these errors, are we trying to load the data manually or just
continuing to use the Blast System?” Chuck responds, “Manually entering is an option, but this is not the path
that we pursed. We thought that we could get the data inputted properly. We had some major issues with
efforts to uploading the data which we are working through. We followed the module that Infinite Campus
proposed.” Annette Johnson requested information regarding the Infinite Campus student data for the next CB
Meeting. Stella Gonzalez asks, “Is the parent portal current?” Chuck responds, “Yes, I was at EAMSC today and
it shows attendance, grades, etc. I will demonstrate the Parent Portal aspect of Infinite Campus at the next CB
meeting.” Annette Johnson asks, “Do we have to wait for the Erate funds? “ Chuck responds, “No, we don’t.”
2. Elementary Update – Dr. Christie Aird shared an update on Elementary.
Music - Christie introduced three of the music teachers: Amanda Chaussey, Mike Morkert and Jennifer
Garcia . The Music teachers worked this year as a Professional Learning Community (PLC) on “faculty
meeting” dates and school improvement days to develop (revise, extend and enhance) a comprehensive
new music curriculum aligned to state standards.
Summer School – We are still in the process of recruiting students specifically for the Communities in
Schools and Family Focus Summer Camps. As of May 25th, we had approximately 2000 students
registered for Summer School and 1400 registered in Academic Programs. Family Focus runs the camps
at Bardwell, Dieterich and Rollins. We have sent flyers home to recruit students for the Family Focus
camps. Student permission forms for all programs continue to be turned in daily. Annette Johnson asks,
“Did we fill up all of the Gifted classroom at Gates?” Dr. Christie Aird answers, “Those were the only
students that we had applied for those programs.” Annette Johnson asks, “How did we advertise for
those programs?” Dr. Christie Aird answers, “We sent flyers home with every student and teachers also
talked about the programs.”
After School Tutoring Program – I have shared a matrix that shows the various after school programs
and tutoring opportunities offered to students during the 2011-2012 school year. Talking with
Principals, it was my understanding that a lot of students started the program and then it just kind of
dwindled down to a minimum number of students. I’m not sure of the cause of that. Annette Johnson
suggests Dr. Christie Aird contact Communities In Schools and find out why the students didn’t stay in
the program before we renew their contract next year. Annette would also like to see the input from
the principals.
3. Education 2020 Program Update – Dr. Raquel Wilson shared an update on the Education 2020 Program. There
were 108 courses completed by seniors this year for a total of 1260 courses. Nicholas is currently going through
every Senior’s current grades and transcripts. These numbers do not include the new courses that were added
to Adult Education. Annette Johnson asks Denean Adams for a detailed analysis report on showing how many
students do we gain with credit recovery for the next board meeting or sooner. Dr. Raquel Wilson provided an
updated report that shows 587students were gained with credit recovery.
4. High School Update – Shelia Conrad shared an update on the High School.
 Community Service Organizer Proposal – Next year will be the year in which Community Service as a
graduation requirement takes effect. We are looking at the volume that has increased every year in the
community service overall program and organization. Currently, there are no staff member(s) at the
high school who oversee(s) the community service activities or program. Organized community service
activities for students are organized by club and activity advisors for students in their respective clubs.
The specific type of activity is left up to the faculty advisor. We are asking for an overload for one
person to oversee the community service program. With approval from Curriculum Board Committee, I
would like to move forward to the next finance meeting. The Curriculum Board Committee approves.
 Summer School Update – We are currently enrolling students for the Credit Recovery Course. We had
389 students sign up for the first session which will begin on June 18, 2012. The other program that we
are currently recruiting for is the Catskills Program. This program is scheduled to begin on June 11,
2012 at 8:00 a.m.
5. Bilingual Update – Beatrice Reyes Childress shared an update on Bilingual Program Modifications. We have
proposed four major changes in the program.
1. Language of Instruction – Currently we looked at our ACCESS Literacy Scores only to determine
what language our students will receive. With the new model we will look at the ACCESS Literacy
Scores and the student’s grade level /years in the program. Kindergarten through first grade will
have the Part-Time Program option if they score a 3.5 and above. We will add an IPT assessment in
English and in Spanish as a safeguard before we make the decision if they are Bilingual or General
Education. The rationale for the change is that it allows us to teach more subject matter in English.
We had 89 2nd graders qualify to exit from Bilingual this year. These students had their entire day of
instruction in Spanish, and yet they scored high enough on the State test to exit the program. We
have added a piece in there so that they will stay with an ESL endorsed teacher as we prepare them
to go into General Education. This way we will not have these students go from Spanish all day and
straight into General Education without any support. We are also changing Math instruction for all
Bilingual students from Spanish to English. For the students that are below the 3.0, we may
continue supplements in Spanish, but the whole group instruction will be in English. (All Math in
English and the development of 2nd Grade Sheltered)
We have 1/3 of the 2nd grade students (248 out of 665) that qualified for the sheltered program. I
have met with all of the Elementary building Principals, and it has all broken out very nicely.
For 3rd grade, the sheltered criteria is a 3.0, previously we had it at a 3.5. Regardless of ACCESS
scores, all 3rd graders will receive their Language Arts and Math in English. Most of the interventions
that exist are in English. It is very difficult to find Interventions in Spanish. We expect for our
students to perform on State assessments, and if we don’t switch their language over then we will
not know where their deficiencies are and if we are able to fulfill the deficiencies.
We have 1/3 of the 3rd grade students (237 out of 639) that qualified for the sheltered program. The
remaining 2/3 will still fall on the bilingual side but with us switching the language, we will be able to
do some interventions early on.
For 4th and 5th grades, we are looking at English for all subject areas (ALL Sheltered). The students
will remain with one of the Spanish speaking teacher to support any new comers.
2. PE & Music Integration – Currently there is very little or no integration between our Elementary
Bilingual and General Education students for extra curriculum subjects. The new model creates
common schedules for PE and Music to mix bilingual and general education students across grade
levels starting with K – 2. (ISBE School Code 23) This change will help students with their oral English
proficiency and will also help with climate issues between bilingual and general education students.
The building Principals have been instructed to schedule as many of these integrated classes as they
can and we will later assess the number of classes that were integrated and how many are
remaining.
3. ESL Intervention Teachers – Currently, we only have one ESL Intervention teacher at Allen due to
the fact that we have students of other languages other than Spanish. I am proposing that we start
to pilot ESL Intervention teachers with the thought of long range goals. These teachers will be
funded through the Title III grant to service students who do not need full time bilingual services.
There are students who are entitled to services but who only need ESL support.
4. Increase Pre-K ESL Minutes – Currently, Pre-K has 20 minutes total each day allocated for the
following:
 Early Reading and Early Writing Development (Spanish)
 ESL Curriculum (English)
 Vocabulary Development (English/Spanish)
 Phonological Awareness (Spanish)
 Written Message (Spanish)
The new model increases Pre-K minutes for ESL to 30 minutes per day.
Annette Johnson congratulates Beatrice for putting together a great plan!
6. Special Education Update – Cathy Lattz shared an update on Special Education.
1. RtI –We have interventions in place for grades 3-12. When we look at identifying students, that K-2
group is usually the bulk of the students that we identified for special services. This is an area that
we need to look at in terms of interventions.
We need to define an intervention. When we talk about an intervention, an often time there is
confusion as to what an intervention is and what strategies are. An intervention is explicit
instruction that is systematic, sequential, and research-based. We also need to consider some of
the layers of intensity. The size of the group, time allotted for intervention, the frequency of the
intervention and the duration of the intervention. We are really trying to define it so that we all
have a common language across the district. I think that this is something that we all felt that we
needed across the district.
Rti Framework Design -The layers of RTI Interventions and Assessments that progress for general to
specific:
Layer 1 - We start with the triangle and care instruction
Layer 2 – We identify the specific, district-approved tiered interventions and add on minutes of
intervention.
Layer 3 – We prescribe the more intensive interventions in detail with links to resources and add
minutes to students’ day.
The Rti Process: The process that staff will go through from implementing the core curriculum,
using data to identify students in need of intervention, going through the problem-solving process
to referral for a case study evaluation. Once we get this document into place, everyone will be held
accountable for the same standards.
We have an Academic and a Behavioral side to the Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions using PBIS
and where the problem solving fits between the 2nd and 3rd tiers. Interventions will be listed by Skill
Deficit (Academic), Performance Deficit (Behavioral) and when the Intervention should be used.
A detailed explanation of all the interventions will be provided including specific detail as well as
external links to intervention information.
2. Extended School Year – In 2011, we had 199 students and 76 staff members. This year we have
added 60 students and 25 staff members. We have also added 2 Early Childhood classrooms
(students formerly served at Hope Wall), 1 High School classroom (students formerly served at
Waubonsee Community College and 1 structured learning program) (High Needs Autism).
7. Curriculum Update – Denean Adams shared an update in Curriculum.
Supplemental Educational Services - We are looking to implement a Summer School proposal at the
end of July hopefully to attract more students in our Summer School efforts. I know Dr. Christie Aird and our
building principals have worked extremely hard to get a number of our Elementary students identified and
working on a variety of Summer School Programs. Because we are a district in improvement status, we are
obligated to set aside 20% of our Title funding (a little over 1,000,000.00 this year). We have spent $591,000
thus far on the number of students that have taken part in our SES Programs. Unfortunately, we are not able to
reallocate those funds in Title. If we do not utilize these funds, the State could take them away from us. DiAna
Helvie (SES Coordinator) and I would like to propose a Summer Initiative. DiAne adds, Dr. Christie Aird and I
worked out a plan where we could perhaps serve 800 students with our SES funding. We had 809 parents
request services and all 809 students were offered the opportunity to have tutoring. However, due to
transportation, sports and parent work schedules we ended up having 499 students finish up their 30 contracted
hours with our providers. Denean and I thought since there are so many summer programs at the beginning of
the summer, perhaps we would have a program the last week of July through the third week of August. We
would need to meet offsite so that we do not interfere with the custodians getting ready for the Fall school year.
We have a provider that contracted with Aurora Christian School on the West Side of Aurora. We have sessions
there on Saturday mornings from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Parents would bring them over and they were free to
visit. I have come up with a list of off-site locations depending on the number of students that we will be
servicing. This program would start with students that did not receive SES services during the 2011-2012. We
also spoke with Principals to see if there are students that they would recommend. I have met with the football
coaching staff and they have reassured me (by sharing their schedule) that they will remain flexible with the
students.
We have 19 approved providers who have contracts and they are all documented on our District 131 website.
We will send out a letter to parents explaining the program and opportunities and we will also mail them a list of
providers. Annette Johnson asks, “How will you recruit the students now that they are out of school?” Denean
answers, “DiAna will start with the list from the Fall of the 809 students. We only serviced 499 students so we
will look at the 310 remaining students on the list. In addition to this, we have asked the Elementary and
Secondary Principals for additional students that will be eligible for this program. We will make sure that they
have not received any portion of the PPA as they can only receive it once.” Annette Johnson suggests working
with Clayton Muhammed (Director of Community Relations) to get the word out about this program.
ThinkLink Data – Yocelin Zavala shared information on ThinkLink Data. I am going to share the ThinkLink
Data for the 2011-2012 School year using Discovery Education Assessment. We had 3 administrations in grades
3-8 and all schools overall Reading scores increased from Test A to Test C. When we do a breakdown by grade
level, we find that Hermes and Johnson schools showed the greatest growth in 3rd grade Reading overall. All
schools increased scores in 4th grade Reading overall. Test A was administered in the Fall and Test C was
administered in the Spring.
Most schools increased in 5th grade Reading overall scores between Test A (Fall) and Test C (Spring). In grades
6th – 8th, most scores increased in Reading overall between Test A and Test C. Grades 3, 4, 5 and 8 increased in
Math overall scores between Test A and Test C. By school, Johnson and O’Donnell 3rd graders showed the
greatest increase in Math overall scores. Krug, Johnson and Oak Park showed the greatest increase in Math
overall. Most schools increased scores in 5th grade Math overall.
8th grade students increased in Math overall scores between Test A and Test C. Grades 9-11 showed growth in
Reading between Test A and Test B. They showed growth in Math as well. 9th and 10th graders took “College
Readiness” for the first time. (This is similar to PSAE)
We are waiting for Final ISAT/PSAE for 2012! Annette Johnson asks, “How do the ISAT scores in the past
correlate to the data that comes out?” Yocelin responds, “We have to break it down by grades then by schools.”
Denean adds, “When you look at last year’s ISAT scores compared to ThinkLink, there are some buildings where
it did not hold true. This is one of the reasons that we have to dig deeper to see if it’s just certain buildings or is
it all buildings.” Stella Gonzalez asks, “What tests are surrounding school districts using as predictors? Denean
responds, “A lot of districts utilize MAP Assessment. When we adopted ThinkLink, we had the options of
ThinkLink and Map. We chose ThinkLink for various reasons, but the main reason was finances. We didn’t have
the resources to support the MAP Assessment to the extent that we could with ThinkLink. At that time they
were selling us Thinklink because it would provide the same information as MAP. We had to work through
testing information in order to get to this point where we are able to see if there is a correlation. Whenever you
implement something across the district, you have to have time to refine the procedures in order to figure out if
it is testing irregularities/procedures or test issues.” Stella Gonzalez adds, “This is our 4th year, so this is the
moment where we should have results.” Denean adds, “The ISAT scores that you have now are the preliminary.
This preliminary data is going to change.” Annette Johnson asks, “Do we have to test three times a year?”
Denean responds, “No we don’t, but we test three times because it gives us building data three times a year.
Remember, this is the only data that we have across all of our buildings throughout the district that is
consistent. If we don’t have this, we really don’t have a measure for what is going on in the buildings
throughout the course of the school year.”
Interventions – 15% of our population K – 11 was served by Title I Interventionists during the 2011-2012
school year. A great variety of interventions based on students’ needs were provided. The most common were
Guided Reading, Harcourt Intervention, Phonemic Awareness, Read180/System44, etc. All school with Read180
showed growth in Lexiles. 80% of all students enrolled in Read180 showed average or above average growth in
DEA. 30% moved from Below to Meets. Most of the students enrolled in System44 moved in SPI proficiency
level. 87% of all students enrolled in System44 showed average or above average growth in DEA. This does not
mean that they are meeting or they are at grade level; they are below 28% moved from Below to meets. Some
of the students in Expert 21 moved Proficiency levels. 73% of all students enrolled in Expert 21 showed average
or above average growth in DEA. Annette Johnson asked, “Will we have System 44 operating in all of our
buildings next year?” Denean answers, “We will have a very comprehensive Literacy plan for our July meeting
that will outline all the details.”
8. Middle School Update – Dr. Marin Gonzalez provided a handout on Summer School/Encore Update that Denean
shared with the committee. Annette Johnson asked, “Are the computer classes being offered for the summer?
Why are the numbers low for the STAR program? These questions with be forwarded to Dr. Marin Gonzalez and
the responses will be shared at the next Curriculum Board Committee Meeting on July 02, 2012.
9. Curriculum Board Committee Dates for 2012-2013 – The Curriculum Committee has agreed to continue
meeting on the first Board Meeting Monday of every month at 4:00 p.m.
Meeting adjourned at 5:40 p.m.
The next Curriculum Board Meeting is scheduled for Monday July 02, 2012 at 4:00 p.m.