BAMIT College and Career Readiness Council
January 21, 2015
4:30 – 6:30
Rockford Public Schools Administration Building – Board Room
Purpose: Communicate successes and address needs and barriers of Academy Teams and
Academy Support Teams
Present: Michele Mehren, Bridget French, Andrew Reynolds, Katy Haun, Karl Arvidson, John Torrence,
Shane Siner, Tony Blaine, Richard Fernbaugh, Dave Smith, Gina Caronna, Mason Osbourne, Roxann
Garner, Jay Larson, Amish Shah, Timothy Bushaw, Kari Neri, Chris Magee, Judy Gustafson, Lynn
Stockton, Bill Rose, David Carson, Sheila Schmitt
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Update from Executive Director of College and Career Readiness
 RPS is in process of updating the Strategic Plan (now has been approved)
 Annual Report is available on the table. Overall review of RPS District 205
 Newsletter
o RPS and Alignment Rockford partnering for all sophomores to have a site visit.
ITP is available through Feb 6 on Alignment Rockford website. Visits will be the
end of March. Challenge is how to make this a meaningful experience for
students and business. How to prepare students and follow up after.
o Academy Awards will be held this year. Looking at the first of June. Please let
Sheila know if you are interested in hosting or helping plan the event.
Approximately 200 people.
o Capstone Project – a planning team is working on the process for all seniors to
have a project.
 Project Lead the Brochure shows some possible new Pathways. Starting to plan for the
15/16 school year and now is the time to think about any additions that we would like to
work toward.
3. School Academy Team Discussion
 CCRC Meeting Follow-Up
 ASTs
 Pathways
 Benchmarks
Jefferson
 Pick Your Pathway event was held for all freshmen. Each pathway had an exhibit for
freshmen to see and talk up upperclassmen involved in the pathway.
 Drawstring Backpacks were made advertising area businesses
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Barnes & Noble Fundraiser. Students had an exhibit including studio arts projects at
Barnes & Noble, were personal shoppers, had face painting and crafts for children while
parents shopped at Christmas time. Portion of sales went to the BAMIT Academy.
Planning a pizza party for BAMIT Honor Roll students during lunch.
Planning for Relay for Life
Guilford
 Searching for a new academy principal
 Sent a Guilford BAMIT Newsletter to parents
 Students that are failing are down from 22 to 7 by the end of the semester
 Building a Math Assistance Center. This is during lunch for students that at are
struggling in Math, not just failing,. Goal is to have it open from 7am to 5pm and involve
community members to help students.
 Virtual Enterprise group is attending a trade show on Feb 20 in Rosemont. Adults are
welcome to attend. Will send information about the show. Looking for sponsors for a
banner and professional shirts, if interested contact Chris Magee. After the show they
would like to set up the presentation at a Rockford Chamber meeting. The idea is to
help students with exposure and also to receive feedback.
 Virtual Enterprise allows students to develop, own, and run a business. The competition
is against other Illinois schools. This is the first year Rockford will be participating. A
total of 5 teams from East, Guilford, and Auburn will be competing.
East
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Virtual Enterprise team has ordered banners that were designed by the students.
Visitors are welcome to visit class, provide feedback, and donations are welcome. They
have already gone to a smaller Business Plan Show and placed 6th out of 20. They are
judged on the plan and the presentation.
Virtual Enterprise team is in need of lanyards, display holders, or items for their table.
Community professionals are always welcome to view the Virtual Enterprise team and
provide feedback
Arts classes are expanding. ETSY has created projects on line. They are planning on
adding T-shirts for selling and providing a service to be used by the class, and possibly
the school. Donations are always welcome.
Goad is to have PBIS working on a Mobil School Store. It would be student run and sell
the ETSY projects. It will give students experience in creating and running a business.
Welcome to photographer Christopher Tyson as an AST member.
Focusing on students to graduate using the Star Fish Model.
“Shining Star” certificates with candy are given to students by teachers for their hard
work.
Goal is to offer more classes in BAMIT. Looking at Business Pathway and including
Marketing and Leadership & Management
An auction was held by the students in which they had to write the descriptions for the
items.
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BAMIT and HPS are working together preparing students for tax preparation. Good Will
has been working with students on preparing taxes for those that meet the
qualifications. Students become certified before they can meet with the public.
Students will prepare and then information is reviewed by Good Will staff before
completion. They can also file the FAFSA form at that time. Appointments are on
Saturdays at East.
Auburn
 Holding a Career Fair for BAMIT students, all grades, on Feb. 19. Speakers welcome to
speak about their job and what it took to get there.
 Students were given surveys to pick their pathways. This will help with setting their
schedules.
 Providing Tutoring – Arts class is making the schedule
 Trek Work – Augmented Reality creates 3D graphics. Students visited TREK. Students
have created a BAMIT website. You can scan a code and see the poster with animation
and graphics
 Jan. 27 is the ribbon cutting for Knight and Day clothing which is run by the students.
Visit knightday.com and see their products.
 Relationships are being formed between teachers and students as a result of small
community feel of Academies.
Roosevelt
 AST members are very supportive to staff. They have put together a program with
questions to interview students. They take 20 minutes to interview students, which
gives them the experience, and then 10 minutes to provide feedback. Students signed
up for an interview and had to prepare a cover letter and resume’. This started with
BAMIT students and then was opened up to the whole student body.
 Tech is where support is needed. Working on getting students familiar with Google
Docs.
 Planning a Career Week. Appreciate support received, but more speakers are needed.
If details are sent to Sheila, she will forward to CCRC/AST members.
4. Other
 Chamber’s Leadership Group is with us tonight and they will be graduating soon. Part of
the requirements for graduation is a project. They will have a proposal soon. They have
an idea of T-Shirts. They would work with Arts classes for the design, quality, and colors.
Need to decide how many can be sold. Profits would go to the academy and would
provide exposure of the academy. The group is looking for an opportunity in which
they can be used to help the students and academies.
 Discussion on different ideas of how this team could help. Final decision is to work on
communication tools for promoting the academies.
 A way of communicating stories, experiences, successes, and needs is something that is
needed for all academies. Communicating between schools, AST, CCRC, and
community. David, Katy, and the team will meet with RPS Communications team to
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make sure everything planned is within guidelines. The team will also work with the
subcommittee that is in place.
Discussed having a booth at City Market to showcase RPS students and groups. This
would be manned by students of various groups on a rotating basis.
Discussed having the video production classes at each site prepare a documentary about
their school.
5. Breakouts (as Needed)
Thank you all for attending and the great discussion!
Next Meeting: April 22, 2015 – RPS Admin – 3rd floor Board Room – 4:30pm to 6:30pm