Northview High School—School Governance Council Meeting
Minutes—September 12th, 2013 at 4:00 pm
Meeting Type: Regular Meeting, no public comment
Members Present:
Terry Lemons, Jason Weinberger, Jacqueline Royal-Bryant, Ashley Ulrich, Hyejoo Jeong, Susan
Auerbach, Brian Downey, Vicki Templet, Grant Hickey, Paul Brannon (principal—non-voting), Seung
Su Kim (student council rep—non-voting)
Guests Present:
Susan Walker (SGC facilitator); Tim Duncan (CHS principal); Deborah Fulghum (Chattahoochee cluster
LSC)
The following items were on the agenda:
4:00-4:02 Call to Order
4:03-4:05 Approve Agenda
4:05-4:10 - Approve Minutes from August 8th meeting
4:10-4:15- Principal’s Report
4:15-4:35- Request for Flexibility (RFF) Process; Susan Walker
4:35-4:55- Strategic Plan- Review, Discuss, Vote on Approval; Dr. Brannon
4:55-5:00 Announcements and Adjournment
Meeting Notes:
The meeting was called to order by Susan Auerbach at 4:00 pm.
Templet moved to approve agenda, Hickey seconded. Voice vote to approve was unanimous.
Hickey moved to approve August minutes; Royal-Bryant seconded. Voice vote to approve was
unanimous.
Principal’s Report:
Current enrollment hit 1901 students on the first day of school. Hiring for open positions is complete,
with one exception (Assistant Principal). There have been a few concerns raised about the current math
curriculum not having a specific textbook, but there simply isn’t a book that matches the currect
curriculum, so Northview is essentially creating its own materials, which it has been doing for the last 2
years.
Standardized exam results were discussed, and the trend seems to still be strong for our student
performance.
Overall, the year has been going well.
Rebecca Burkley will be the 2nd student representative (elected as National Honor Society president). She
will begin attending next meeting.
Strategic Plan Discussion
Dr. Brannon disseminated copies of the updated strategic plan 2013-2014 and highlighted the three focus
areas (effective student supports, student engagement and leadership, and rigorous and relevant academic
opportunities), as well as the separate initiatives for each focus area.
Several of the initiatives were discussed with more detail, including the hospital partnershhips, the
support courses and additional course offerings around student wellness, creating more relevant
partnership/internship opportunities with the community and local industry, and creating professional
development learning time for teachers built into the school day. Some of these initiatives already have
some early planning started.
We also discussed the possibility of Northview petitioning to become a World Language magnet in Fulton
County, since Northview already offers the most language classes of any school. There is the possibility
that we could add Arabic, Japanese, and/or Italian as additional classes. Templet suggested that we look at
the university level of language class structure to help us create our language focus. This could have
impacts on the rest of our cluster, as student internships for Northview students to teach
elementary/middle school students foreign languages could increase in opportunity, possibly eventually
creating a language immersion opportunity for our cluster overall. Mr. Duncan added that Roswell HS
used to offer Japanese, so that might be a direction to explore for information.
One of the elements we are looking for with the Request for Flexibility is in waiving teacher licensure
requirements. This would permit us to have professionals come in to teach focus classes (ie: an Emory
doctor to teach neurobiology, a lawyer to teach a class on criminal justice). There would need to be an infield experise requirement, and they would not be hired in place of a teacher with a license. The intention
is to capitalize on community experts who can donate their time and mastery to benefit our students’
educational growth.
Class rank elimination will not eliminate valedictorian and salutatorian. The elimination of class rank is
designed to decrease the overcompetitiveness and extreme stress for students. More than 50% of US
schools already have removed class rank. Kim echoed that students would respond positively to the
elimination, as already, students have been over-obsessive about rank at the start of the year. The
possibility is that this may also decrease the issue of cheating at Northview. Duncan echoed the same
sentiment, that at Chattahoochee, the only issue he hears about Northview from parents that move into
their district is the concern of Northview’s over-competitive class rank.
Kim mentioned that a lot of the pressure at Northview from students comes from their parents and their
culture, and that in the past, when Northview showed the film Race to Nowhere, it positively impacted
this pressure. He encouraged us to add more events like that.
The courses proposed to add to our catalog will utilize existing state catalog descriptions and codings,
which will expedite the process to get them added (ie: added for fall 2014); if a class proposed is
dramatically different than any state catalog class proposal, it will take at least one year for that class to
receive approval (ie: fall 2015).
A motion to approve the Strategic Plan was made by Downey and seconded by Auerbach; the motion was
passed unanimously.
Request for Flexibility (RFF) Process
Walker overviewed the process for RFF (a proposal to the Superintendant to waive one or more of the
state laws or district policies in order to implement a school-based strategy).
Key points:
RFF’s must be a part of the strategic plan; be approved by 2/3 vote of SGC; undergo a 30 day Public
Comment period; apprived by the Superintendant.
Next steps are to draft RFF’s through November 11th, 2013, have a 30-day comment period, and then
submit final RFF’s to Area Superintendant by Jan 17th, 2014. Approval of RFF’s are finalized by Jan 31,
2014.
Public comment period details: managed mainly by Templet and the other members of the Outreach and
Communications committee; post a comment box in the front office (or use an electronic “comment
box”/open survey) and hold a public meeting to solicit public comment on the RFF proposals. The RFF
proposal is attached to the NHS Strategic Plan, and that is the document that must be made public (paper
flyer announcements, web posting, etc). After this public comment period, the SGC reviews feedback,
adjusts the proposal if needed, and summarizes the feedback on the final RFF proposal before submission.
Resourses will be available to help with public comment periods. Some tips suggested: have a sign-up
sheet at the site, take comments in order of sign-up, set a time limit per speaker, set a time limit for the
event itself, encourage speakers to provide written copy of their feedback, and do not respond to
comments during the meeting.
Walker is our point-person for all RFF questions and process issues.
Brannon suggests 4 proposals:
1. Waive teacher licensure/certification for foreign language and career pathway courses (ie: health
science)
2. Class size waiver for seminar-style courses (ie: AP Psychology)
3. Seat time relaxation (ie: allowing test-out for classes that don’t have EOCTs)
4. Early release for students to permit PD for teachers (4 days of early release)
Other Announcements
Downey made a motion to set all future meetings for starting at 4pm; Lemons seconded. The motion was
approved unanimously.
Next meeting is set for Oct 24th (moved from 31st).
The public meeting for RFF comments will be held at November 21st at 6pm, 6:30 will be the start of
public comments. The event will allow up to 50 public comments of up to 2 minutes each, with no
speaker duplications.
The December meeting will be set for Dec 19th, where we will review the RFF feedback.
The January meeting will be set TBD.
Downey made a motion to adjourn the meeting; Royal-Bryant seconded. A voice vote to approve was
unanimous. Meeting adjourned at 5:28 pm.