High School ELA Department Chairs
Leon High School, Room 303
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
High School ELA Department Chairs in Attendance
 Mike Rychlik, SAIL
 Alyssa Maige for Kat Spradlin, Godby
 Mark Williams, Lincoln
 Yookyung Lee, Success Academy
 Angela Madden, Rickards
 Sherri Winsett, Chiles
 Angela Berg, Second Chance
 Stacy Fabrega, Leon
 Donna Weisman, Leon Virtual
Upcoming Dates:
 First Nine Weeks ELA Assessment Window: October 5-15
 Second Nine Weeks ELA Assessment: During Mid-term Exam
 Joint MS and HS Meeting: Tuesday, October 27 at 4:30 (Cobb Media Center)
 Secondary Reading Coaches’ Meeting: Friday, October 23rd – 8:30-3:30 Howell
Reading and Language Nine Weeks Assessments
 Bill Cunningham reviewed procedures for generating scan sheets for the nine-weeks ELA assessment. All
support documents telling how to use Data Director are available on SharePoint in the department chairs
folder for September 22nd.
 Department chairs are encouraged to get with their colleagues in biology and algebra to locate the scanner
and determine the best approach to generating student scan sheets. If support is needed with this task,
contact Kathy and she will assist.
 Per our discussion last year, we have developed standards-based assessments for each nine weeks.
 We have revised Collections assessments to reflect the rigor of the FSA and the item types. However, texts
from the Collections assessments are used in the revised versions, so please encourage your ninth and tenth
grade teachers to refrain from using the Collections assessments at my.hrw.com.
 Discuss with your departments the importance of keeping collection assessments secure, even collections not
on the pacing guides.
 Schools will have a two-week window in which to administer the first nine weeks assessment; however, we
encourage you to develop a school plan to administer within a smaller time period.
 Biology and Algebra teachers have been doing this for a while. Reach out to your colleagues.
Southern Shakespeare Festival
 The Southern Shakespeare Festival (SSF) will be performing Comedy of Errors in Cascades Parks from
April 15-17.
 SSF would like to get into classrooms to work with teachers and students who are reading Shakespearean
works. Contact Kevin or Phil to arrange school visits. Kevin can be reached at
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kevinmatthewcarr@gmail.com.
SSF has a youth performance group called The Bardlings. Auditions for the company will take place on
October 17th from 10-12 at Meridian Point. There are openings for 20-30 students. SSF will send
information soon.
Plans are in the works for a sonnet contest. Winners will perform during the Southern Shakespeare Festival
in April and be published in the Democrat. Stay tuned.
Sonnet Man will be coming back. He performs Shakespeare with a HipHop approach. More information
will be coming, but if you are interested in bringing Sonnet Man to your school, contact Kevin at
kevinmatthewcarr@gmail.com.
HMH Digital Concerns
 Please direct all of your teachers to log in to my.hrw.com to see if there are any issues with their passwords.
If there are issues with teacher access, please let Kathy know right away. The log in information follows.
 Student:
o User Name - Lcs_100065972 (Lcs_ Student ID)
o Password - K!B!1999 (First Initial ! Last Initial ! Birth Year)
 Teacher:
o User Name -entire email address
o Password - Lcs37_zatorisc
Achieve 3000 Updates
 Slowly but surely, the issues with Achieve 3000 access are being resolved. Thank you for your patience.
 When a new student is enrolled in your class, allow 24 hours for his or her name to appear.
 Teachers and students can no longer be entered manually at the school or district level. Contact Help Desk
for support first. If you are unsuccessful, contact Cara to facilitate the process.
Progress Monitoring for Writing
 Schools are now in charge of oversight for progress monitoring for writing.
 Department chairs need funds for substitutes for scoring days.
 Please send Kathy an email informing her of your school’s plan for progress monitoring for writing.
 Calibration sets for both modes and all grade levels will be released in November. Schools will be notified
once they are released.
 Cara and Kathy will continue to provide resources to support schools.
Level Setting Updates
 The results of the level-setting process will not be made available until January. Level setting results must
undergo review by Legislature, Commissioner, and State Board.
 In the meantime, department heads are encouraged to work with their teachers to make sure they understand
the expectation of the standards:
 Teach a wide range of texts across all disciplines, including older foundational documents and literary
texts.
 The range of texts should include varied organizational patterns, some of which cannot be characterized
with a term like cause-effect or chronological.
 Teachers should teach any academic vocabulary referenced in the standard, i.e., irony, faulty reasoning,
irrelevant evidence, etc., and expect students to identify and demonstrate conceptual understanding
through application.
 The language skills are very specific. If a standard for a grade level says, “Students must know how to
teach colons,” teachers should address it. If the standard says that students should know how to use
participial phrases, then that should be addressed. Kathy will provide weekly warm-up language lessons
in a PowerPoint slide show and periodic quizzes in FSA format as a resource. Please share with your
teachers.
 Teachers should regularly work with audio and video clips and ask students questions about content in the
multimedia.
 Teachers should use the terms informative and explanatory in writing assignments as either could appear
on the actual assessment.
 FSA scores for ELA will be provided in three parts: reading, writing, and language. The reading part will
be broken down by cluster: Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Integration of Knowledge and
Ideas.
SharePoint Access
 The Secondary Language Arts SharePoint page may be accessed at
http://www2.leon.k12.fl.us/sites/reading/default.aspx.