CHS Site Council
Minutes
Sept. 26, 2006
Members
Attending: Dianna McMahon, Shelly Fox, Don Gwyther,
Heather Dorman-Scott, Ryan Kounovsky, Will Coltrin, Bill Martin and Sue Bowers
Guests: Debra Weber, Wendy Zacharias
Dianna
McMahon called the meeting to order at 3:20 p.m. Mr. Martin introduced Mr. Coltrin as the new
faculty representative, noting that Ms. Green would likely fill the next
opening, when his term is completed next spring.
Ms.
McMahon shared the two agenda items for today’s meeting. The group needs to weigh in on the question
of swapping the scheduled Professional Development Day on Nov. 30 and the
Parent Conference Day on Dec. 1 and review materials from the Oregon Dept. of
Education (ODE) to provide feedback about new graduation requirements being
considered by the Board of Education.
Ms.
McMahon shared that currently Parent Conferences are planned from 1-5 and 6-8
p.m.on Friday, Dec. 1. That Friday
evening there are basketball games scheduled at
Marist. After thinking about the
likelihood of parents coming to conferences on a Friday evening, especially
with the basketball conflict, it has been suggested that the conferences be
moved to Thursday, Nov. 30 and the Staff Development Day now planned for
Thursday be moved to Friday. Mrs.
Zacharias pointed out that our Pentamation system (in case of questions about
attendance) would not be available on Thursday, as it was scheduled to be
off-line that day. The group did not
feel that would be a major issue and concurred that the switch in the schedule
made sense. Ms. McMahon will let Mr.
Ophus know that the Site Council was in agreement with the proposal to swap the
two days.
Ms.
McMahon had received a packet of materials (funded by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation) and the request from the ODE that our Site Council review
them and return comments concerning the proposal for new diploma
requirements. These include three years
of math, all at the content level of Algebra 1 or higher, three years of
science, and three years of some combination of foreign language, arts and/or
applied arts. The thrust seems to be
replacing the CIM/CAM system with a more rigorous program for earning a
diploma, as that is the credential used most and recognized by our society.
The
process suggested by ODE included watching a DVD about their process, filling
out individual response forms and then having a group discussion about issues
and concerns.
The
DVD featured a variety of business and education leaders commenting on the need
for more rigor in the high school education,
particularly in math and science. It
noted that 1/3 to 1/2 of students entering a community college as a high school
graduate need remedial courses in math, reading and/or writing. Susan Castillo was featured saying that
students who face higher expectations are known to perform better, which is
driving the Board’s consideration of the new requirements.
After
viewing the DVD, everyone present filled out individual questionnaires and
returned them to Ms. McMahon to be sent back to ODE. She then opened the discussion portion of the
feedback session with some background information. The Board of Education surveyed educators and
The
first concern raised was that the new requirements would bring increased
costs. Given recent history, that was
coupled with the prognosis that there would not be additional funding provided
to help accomplish them. As an example,
we currently have students in Pre-Algebra who would end up needing 4 years of
math to complete the proposed requirement for 3 years at the Algebra 1 or
higher level. They currently need just
two years of math to graduate. We would
almost surely need additional math teaching capacity, which means more math
teachers and/or fewer elective offerings.
Mr. Coltrin suggested, as a possible alternative to at least part of
that demand, that several of his classes could have their content modified to
incorporate more math and/or science.
This could allow some of those credits to be fulfilled through what
currently are Ag. electives. The Site
Council discussed that same idea last year as part of reviewing the Ag. program
and suggesting it be retained.
Another
concern was that perhaps too much emphasis is being placed on math and science,
forgetting that there are social issues of concern as well. These include not only curriculum matters
like civics and economics, but also the realization that teens deal with a
whole range of issues in their home lives that affect their performance at
school.
There
was general consensus that the individual response form from ODE was not put
together very well. One comment compared
this effort to the “CIM/CAM fiasco and a big waste of money.” The question was asked, “What are we trying
to prove and why?”
While
there were differing ideas about how best to accomplish changes, there was
general agreement that we could work to “raise the bar” here at CHS. Concern was expressed that with lots of our
financial resources going to students at the lower end of the academic
spectrum, those “in the middle” are pulled down somewhat and don’t have the
level of skills they should when they graduate.
It would be interesting to know how many of our students who go on to
college are among those needing remedial coursework.
Ms.
McMahon collected a few additional written comments that members had made
during the course of the group discussion and will return those to ODE along
with the individual feedback sheets.
The meeting was adjourned at about 4:35. The next Site Council meeting will be Tuesday, Nov. 28.
Respectfully
submitted,
Sue
Bowers, Secretary