SIT Retreat Minutes - June 19, 2014
School Improvement Plan:
Using PLC to monitor progress:
 Talk about kids once a month (SST)
 If SST not effectively taken care of it can be carried over to an afternoon
 Other three PLC per month teachers bring in data to plan for groups
 This will also help keep grade levels together
 Maybe work in room when possible to be able to access materials
AIG- meet when possible
More minority teachers hired:
 Effort made, but teachers were hired to best fit position
 Trying to hire a male if possible
Reduce number of out of school suspensions by 10% each year
 We had 46 referrals
 Suspended for 64 and ½ days
 Last year in second half of year there were 135 days
 Suspensions included 25 total students (mostly 5th grade)
Decreasing teacher turnover rate
 Will go over TWS
 Can’t help wanting different grade level, life change, or getting a degree
 Healthy Schools
 Continue to do Fit for Motion
 Running programs
 And will get Fruit and Veggie program
Bullying Incidents will decrease
 We didn’t have and incidents of bullying by OLWEUS definition
Increasing Parent participation by 10% each year
 Making face to face contact with parents helped get more parents in building
Unofficial Test Data:
3rd Grade Reading
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3rd Grade Reading proficiency significantly went up
We had highest percentage of growth
This year’s kids have had Literacy First since Kindergarten
Now What:
 Celebrate success
 Keep doing what we are doing, which is working hard
 Jump on skills sooner
 Introduce main idea and other comprehension skills earlier and go more in depth with those so
the skills are taught earlier
 If we have delays make sure to get good literacy time in afternoon
4 Grade Reading
 Kids that left third grade last year at 17% proficient made it up to 30s
 No one went down in reading
th
Now What:
 Plan together more
 Go ahead and start teaching the skills
 Work on the comprehension skills more and vocabulary
 Have younger grade levels learn to go back and look into passages and be able to write answers
 Help children be able to write comprehension answers instead of just being able to verbally tell
them
5th Grade Reading
 We did have small growth
 If we look at actual group of kids they went down
Now What:
 Have someone there to plan with
 Not feeling alone in teaching
 Have another year of knowing Literacy first and ELA will help
5th Grade Science
 We went up!
Now What:
 Create list of materials that we don’t have and ask if other grade levels have them
 Maybe set up a wish tree for materials we would like to have
 Let younger grade levels know what types of things 5th grade will be teaching so they can teach
them too
3rd Grade Math
 We went up about 6%
 Longview went up due to new text book
Now What:
 We may look at not buying back TA
 Go to NCATT for research and development session to help with math
4th Grade Math:
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Our fourth graders made growth from their 3rd grade proficiency to their 4th grade proficiency
Tutoring that happened in May significantly helped
We may look at doing a tutoring schedule again this year, possibly more than just a month at the
end of the year
5th Grade Math:
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There was not growth in grade level
There was small growth from last year’s fourth graders to this year 5th graders
NCATT Survey
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The staff really enjoyed and grew from going to NCATT
We may look at having two different R and D teams attend next year
We would like our 3-5 team go before k-2 team we can do vertical growth
Book vs. R and D at NCATT
Pulls community
Helps with vertical alignment
Book will need to be explored
Common Core could go away and book may not be useful
We can look at how can we organize resources for longevity purposes?
We will also look at keeping a live binder to share and keep resources
Stakeholder Engagement Plan:
Stakeholder Survey done
Review of TWC
Only things we went down on we had no control over
Time:
(areas that went up with big jump)
 time to collaborate with colleagues
 Non-instructional time
 Minimize paperwork
Suggestions:
Make PLC more productive
R and D at NCATT
Facilities and Resources:
(areas with a big jump)
 Access to office equipment and supplies
 Reliability and speed of internet connections
 School environment is clean and well maintained
Suggestions:
Set up wish tree for materials
Community Support and Involvement:
(areas with a big jump)
 Community members support teachers, contributing to their success with students
 Parents and guardians given useful information about student learning
Suggestions:
Continue rotary
Church involvement
Managing Student Conduct
(areas with big jump)
 School administrators consistently enforce rules for student conduct
Teacher Leadership
(areas with big jump)
 Teachers are recognized as educational experts
 Teachers are relied upon to make decisions about educational issues
 Teachers of school improvement team are elected
Suggestions:
Continuing NCATT
School Leadership
(Areas with big jump)
 The faculty and staff have a shared vision
 Teachers feel comfortable raising issues and concerns that are important to them
 The school leadership consistently supports teachers
 The school leadership facilities using data to improve students learning
 Teacher performance is assessed objectively
 Teachers receive feedback that can help them improve teaching
 The procedures for teacher evaluation are consistent
 The faculty are recognized for accomplishments
Suggestions:
Penny
Parent shout out in Newsletter
Teachers need to let Jenny know parent acknowledgements
And Parent Penny
How can we get staff to be able to raise concerns that are important to them?
SIT rep can go to SIT chair to principal
You can also go to any SIT rep
It is important to bring up your concerns so they can be addressed don’t hold back
If we don’t know problems they can’t be fixed
Professional Development
(areas with jump)
 Teachers are encouraged to reflect on their own practice
 Professional development is evaluated and results are communicated to teachers
Suggestions:
Using NCATT
Assessments
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Curriculum taught in this school is aligned with common core standards
Teachers work in PLC to develop and align instructional practices
Provided support
Teachers are encouraged to try new things to improve instruction
Teachers have autonomy to make decision about instruction delivery
Suggestions for other Concerns:
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Charitable Fund Raising
Give an explanation and face to the services we are getting involved in such as purple pinky,
math madness so kids will have more buy in
We can also look into a concern or charity they are more familiar with
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EC services have to be given for what the IEP is written for
35 times per reporting period averages out to 4 times a week
This time cannot be gone over and allows for absences from teacher or student
At the beginning of the year a schedule will be set up for 9 weeks
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PTA asked for a lot of money last school year
Some are concerned we may have gone a little overboard
Receipting money for change collection took away from instructional time (Ask Amy if we have
to receipt individual child or to classroom)
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Teachers please make sure you hang on to your receipts for reimbursement because auditors
really frown on that you can make a copy of your receipt to safe guard yourself
Chair Nominations for SIT team
1. Cori Newman
Accepted and voted unanimously
Title One Money:
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Make Brown more flexible
Limit the number of field trip Brown can be used for
If Query or Adams EC classes go on field trip White or Herman should drive bus so we don’t pull
Brown
Tentative plans for Title I funds
 If held harmless by budget we would have 4 TAs
 If we don’t hire a TA
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If we are not held harmless and have to buy back a TA we could still use leftover 30,000 to buy
one back
Buy Anna and other Teacher (Morales/Wilson)
We would have 60,000
15,000 for NCATT for 20 teachers
10,000 for online resources (discovery ed, reading AZ, Raz kids, iXL, Brain Pop, Pebble Go,
Tumble Books, NC weekly 3-5 and Science weekly 4-5?)
5,000 matching funds /PTA will give us the other 5,000 (Do we want to look at buy carts of
laptops to add to our computer number) extra iPads can be checked out in K2 grades to make it
fair
30,000 not encumbered
Mrs. White will do Volunteer Orientations and guidelines for next year
August Date for SIT is tentatively set for August 19th 2:00 (this is optional workday) at Kathy Eckard’s
Pool!
Ways to Save Instructions Supply Money
Items needed: (see if we can’t get donations from businesses or churches)
Pencils
Notebook Paper (wide rule)
Composition Books
Glue Sticks
File Folders
Copy Paper
Sharpies
Expo Markers
Index Cards
Construction Paper
Crayons
Card stock
Tape
Pencil Top Erasers
Minutes submitted by,
Elizabeth Rollins and Kim Heckler