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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011_10_11 Board MinutesOctober 11, 2011 7:00 PM Present from the Board of Trustees: Present from the Administration: Dave Lent, Chairman George Boland, Superintendent Lisa Burtenshaw, Vice Chair Karla LaOrange, Director of Elementary Education Jerry Wixom, Treasurer Carrie Smith, Director of HR & Finance Deidre Warden, Clerk Margaret Wimborne, Communications & Community Larry Haws, Trustee Engagement Coordinator, Acting Recording Clerk Dave Lent, Board Chair, called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. Pledge of Allegiance SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE DAY: a. Emissary of Excellence Principal Mike Marshall introduced Dave Webster, Edgemont Elementary Counselor, as the Emissary of Excellence recipient. b. Volunteer of the Month John Murdoch, Dora Erickson Principal, introduced Clara Grimes as the Volunteer of the Month. Mr. Lent thanked Mr. Webster and Mrs. Grimes for their outstanding service to the students and staff of Idaho Falls School District #91 and presented each of them with a certificate and token of appreciation. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA': Jerry Wixom moved to adopt the agenda as presented. Lisa Burtenshaw seconded. Motion carried unanimously. REPORTS/INPUT/INFORMATION a. Student Reports — i. Lexie Polson, Idaho Falls High School Student Representative, reviewed Homecoming activities, Emotion Bowl Week, Club service projects and AP class offerings at Idaho Falls High School. 10/11/2011 District 91 Board Minutes Page 1 of 3 ii. Hannah Petersen, Skyline High School Student Representative, reviewed Homecoming events, Emotion Bowl Week and Red Ribbon Week activities being planned at Skyline. b. IFEA Report— Mitzi Ellingson reported: A written report is attached. c. Patron Input — Comments were provided by Melanie Ford, Amanda Dierenfeldt, Andrea Chambers, Mary Towler and Suketu Gandhi. d. Education Foundation — Marge Foster reported that the Foundation has been given a new 2012 Toyota pickup, courtesy of Mario Hernandez and Buddy of Teton Toyota, for another raffle again this year. Tickets will be available to all junior high and high school clubs in the district to sell if they would like to earn money for their organization. The truck was introduced at the Emotion Bowl last week and will be given away next fall at the 2012 Emotion Bowl Game. The Education Foundation also received a $20,000 grant from the Fred Meyer Foundation which will be used to purchase foreign language textbooks and classroom sets of T-1 calculators for both Skyline and Idaho Falls High School and one roaming set will be available for junior high teachers to check out. The Foundation will have a booth at the What Today's Women Want Conference this weekend at the Shilo Inn to help raise awareness for the Education Foundation. e. Superintendent's Report — Superintendent Boland reviewed the Odyssey Charter School petitioning process recently completed by Trina Caudle, Director of Secondary Education, and the review committee. The committee will present their recommendation to the Board as an action item on the agenda this evening. Superintendent Boland also gave an update of the Students Come First Technology Task Force Committee meeting he attended the past two days in Boise. He mentioned that all of the meetings are televised live and meeting minutes are posted on the State Department's website for review. The Superintendent stated there was a lot of discussion about fractional ADA (Average Daily Attendance) and how that will play into the online learning piece. The State Department of Education has asked Superintendent Boland to give a report of his visit to Manor Texas, regarding implementation of the one to one computing devices, when the committees meet again in November. CONSENT AGENDA: Lisa Burtenshaw made a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Deidre Warden seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Items approved include: Meeting Minutes: August 17 & 23, 2011 Payment of September 2011 Claims: $1,938,260.77 Matching Funds: $15,000.00 Student Travel: Skyline High School Jazz & Symphonic Bands Anaheim, CA Disney Performing Arts Festival April 12 — 15, 2012 Early Graduation: Student 2011-2012A 10/11/2011 District 91 Board Minutes Page 2 of 3 PROPOSALS a. Second Reading of Board Policy Revisions Board Policy 408 — Nutrition Superintendent Boland reviewed information requested by the Board, at the first reading of this policy change, regarding the number of lunches that are currently being served at each high school. A discussion was held. The third reading of the revisions is scheduled for the November 8, 2011 board meeting. Board Policy 609 —Transfer/Foreign Exchange Students Superintendent Boland stated that no patron input has been received to date regarding this policy. The third reading of the proposed policy is scheduled for November 8, 2011. ACTION ITEMS a. Ratify Telephone Poll Conducted for Classroom Technology Integration Funds to be Distributed through a Competitive Grant Process Superintendent Boland explained that a telephone poll was conducted on October 3rd in order to roll out the grant process to staff during the scheduled October 6t" In-service. Deidre Warden made a motion to accept the results of the telephone poll conducted regarding the classroom technology grants being distributed through a competitive grant process. Larry Haws seconded. Motion passed unanimously. b. Odyssey Charter School Petition Resolution Superintendent Boland read the written recommendations from the Audit Committee regarding the petition submitted by Odyssey Charter School. Jerry Wixom made a motion to accept the recommendation of the Administration as presented to refer the Odyssey Charter School petition to the Public Charter School Commission. A discussion was held. Larry Haws seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Jerry Wixom moved to adjourn. Deidre Warden seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:18 pm. 10/11/2011 District 91 Board Minutes Page 3 of 3 IFEA Report Board meeting notes October 11, 2011 The 3rd annual IFEA Tailgate was held on the grounds of IFHS and was a huge success. We went through 150 hotdogs and 75 tamales. We would like to thank Randy Hurley (Principal of IFHS) for, again this year letting us set up our stand on his schools property. I have given each of you a copy of the spreadsheet that I made with information from the schedules that were provided to Mr. Boland at the beginning of the school year by building principals. Notice the inequity of building meetings. Bush is required to attend 9 hours of meetings a month while Emerson teachers need to only attend % hour of meetings . At the beginning of the school year you insisted things would be equitable, you asked me to trust you. This inequity issue is not ok. Two Jr. High schools are requiring their teachers read a book, attend meetings and either pay for the credit or not, yet are still required to participate. At one of the Jr. Highs, the meetings are twice a month and start at 7:42 am. As far as I know, one of the the jr. highs are not requiring this type of class or reading. You have insisted that teachers will be treated professionally; you have said how their time is valuable. You agreed with me when I shared how unfamily friendly some of these new changes could be. It has just come to my attention that an elementary building is holding 1-2 meetings a day with some lasting longer than 5 pm. Keep in mind when a teacher is in a meeting this long, planning and grading are not getting done, and therefore the teacher will end up working into the wee hours of the night. In many cases meetings are being called with somewhere between a few hours to maybe 2 days of notice. We discussed this with the new board changes this summer — meetings were to be requested at least a week in advance. This is considerate. Many teachers have shared that they feel like their principals are micromanaging their buildings and time by requiring excessive meetings, reading books, taking classes, turning in parent contact logs, etc. I would rather see these required classes are offered to educators instead of put upon them. Educators know they need to have a certain number of credits to recertify— as professionals we will get that task accomplished without being pushed into it. There has been some confusion about the differences between a faculty meeting and collaboration meeting. Some collaboration meetings resemble faculty meetings. I have asked George to define each and send that to Principals. Teachers are looking for respect from their principals, and some just don't seem to be getting it. When I sent out a question about meetings and excessive time requirements put on teachers I received a response from Erin Becker at Edgemont about her principal, this is what she said." We have no complaints here at Edgemont because Mike respects our time. He tries to email info out or have short hallway meetings if needed instead of monopolizing our time." It would be nice if other principals valued their teachers and time like Mike does. There seems to be a disconnect with the culture in education and what expectations are. A school culture should be one in which teachers and administrators work together to make an environment that is conducive for learning. NOT who has more power and who can wield it louder. After visiting the New Tech school in "Texes", and visiting with those teachers, I realized that their time was considered very valuable — and it all had to do with planning lessons and preparing for students. There are some buildings in our district who don't see it that way. Teachers know what to do to get the job done, we need to let them do it without all the other distractions that get in the way. Speaking of distractions.. Teachers are now being asked to fill out forms every time they collaborate with each other. This is just "another thing" that teachers are expected to do. What is the purpose of the form? Who will read it? What changes will come from filling out this form? Teachers are feeling a lot of stress this school year. Not only from the new Luna laws, but from the possibility of changing gale to a New Tech school. Many are concerned about their jobs, where they will be and just the "not knowing" is very stressful. Couple the fact that teachers futures are up in the air, and the excessive meetings, having to meet core standards, and all the little "one more things" that seem to be assigned monthly, teachers have told me that their teaching is starting to feel the pressure. Job security for district staff is one of my number one priorities Vollmer was amazing to listen to, his message resonated with many educators. However, the question now remains, what will we do with that information? We cannot just sit and listen to great ideas, and hope something changes in our district we need to change it. I wonder if more community awareness is the right answer. Questions about Math K-12 have come up. I would like to put together a group of teachers k-12 to begin brainstorming ideas to present to the board about some of the issues we have been faced with. + Suketu Gandhi's Comments on the Proposed Charter School October 11, 2011 District 91 has an obligation to provide strong education, but it fails to deliver quality education in both mathematics and sciences. The proposed Odyssey Charter School also lacks the essential structure and resources to provide superior education than offered by District 91. The ultimate goals of schools must be for their students to become critical thinker, prepare them for the post -secondary world of education, careers and responsibilities of a valued citizen. A critical thinker should not be afraid to challenge or stand up to authorities. In other words, critical thinkers must not hesitate in their commitment to speak their mind, have confidence in their logic and conviction in their statements. Authorities may not like being challenged by a critical thinker, but it is an integral part of both a democratic and an educational process. Schools play vital role in teaching these things through classroom instructions and discussions. Access to post -secondary education means providing credible evidence to those universities offering rigorous education by doing very well in demanding courses, such as AP math, science & foreign language classes. The education must not be designed as a gateway for the students to be kept in servitude for their lifetime. Furthermore, practice of good citizenship requires strong scientific education to make important contributions in their community, such as jury duties where they may be confronted with scientific evidence (like DNA), participation in formulation of potential government actions through public hearing, as we have witnessed in Idaho Falls in Fall, 2008 on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and proposed facility for uranium enrichment plant, or deliberation in elections or referendum where scientific issues, such as global warming, are at the forefront, whether residing in or out of Idaho. Some of the inherent structural problems within the school system include high school schedule that encourage students to do their homework in classrooms, instead outside of classrooms and lack of homework on weekends or holidays. Continued reliance on math and science textbooks for non -AP courses is a source of the problem. These books lacks mathematically sound exposition or rigors, but are full of pictures that have no relevance to the �- materials being presented. The curricular materials do not provide exercises that integrate previously learned materials, or show a way to solve difficult problems that provoke students to think. These issues need to be mediated, but no information is provided on how they would be addressed by the proposed school. The charter school advocates have claimed that teachers lecture, students memorize the materials without thinking to pass exams. This may be true for online courses, but it is contrary to the reality of traditional classroom teaching. Teachers are committed for their students to become able learners, digest materials, and enable them to examine all relevant facts carefully before reaching conclusions. However, teachers do need proper resources such as quality textbooks and cooperation from parents on homework side, and access to professional developments in various subjects, especially math and sciences. It is not clear how the proposed school would address these pressing issues. If the superior education in the district is to become a reality, the number of instruction days need to increase from present -175 to 200-210 so that teachers can teach topics in depth and students retain materials during the summer break. The classroom period needs to decrease from 60 to 40-50 minutes in duration to allow students to digest materials before their attention dissipates. Reliance on online education (such as IDLA) by the proposed school deprives the students of important part of learning that occurs by listening to questions and comments. Learning in a school having small population deprives students from the exposure to different opinions and views that are common in traditional large school. If the goal is for students to work on a project based learning, then door should be open for every interested party to participate in the proposed design to perfection of the Gale School. If the goal is for students from Rigby and Shelly to have access to project based learning, the law already allows students to enroll in specific school through waivers. What is certain that the proposed Odyssey Charter School will provide neither superior education, nor more tangible benefits than that would be experienced by students of District 91 with proposed project based learning at Gale School.