Friday, 12/14/12, 4th hour, library conference table

In attendance: Jay, Sarah D, Paul, Sarah Z, Jim LeFebvre

• Jim H and Jess--world lit/world history
• how often do we just check of a box to meet a requirement but it doesn't actually fulfill the need for our school?
• new directions in PE/fitness
• we need a genetically engineered predator to keep us sharp
• "zombies! we need zombies!" (PB)
• "we're making them! have you seen the 9th graders?" (JS)
• what about life science and health science at the same time?
• but how do we get to places where we can really make some changes? we get so stuck in the way we have always done it.
• e.g., the calendar conversation yesterday--we really should have talked more about the comment coming from Paul's table--why first semester finals anyhow?
• why not something totally different that would be more balanced and more lined up with our world now?
• how many of our students need time to bring in the harvest?
• e.g., changing the policy around turning in work with unexcused absences
• the issue was that there were teachers in the district refusing to work with students, which is a different issue
• data show that students are successful when they attend 95% of the time (building skills that they need to be successful in college)
• "so let me get this straight, if you're not in class, you're not as successful?" (PB)
• at FHS, about 1700 of our students are already hitting that attendance rate
• a lot of what we do here is getting students ready for the next step (college)
• Jay: when you frame my job as preparing them for college, it moves my job away from focusing on who students are and what they need
• Jim LF: what does that do with our Latino population?
• Jay: frame it instead to maximize learning for every kid who comes into my class, on what each student needs--keeps me focused on what I can actually do. Keeps me honest. A lot of our institutional structure burns a lot of time toward that college goal (letters of rec, feeding IC, etc.)
• need a balance w/ IC--parents need a way to see how students are doing
• but as we use IC, are we just giving parents something they think they need that they don't actually need
• if we reframe our goal to engagement (rather than getting them into college), that really changes our job (for the better)
• you have that kid who's not engaged in English class, then you need to change what happens in English class
• how do we handle the parents with grading, special ed, eligibility?
• we can use IC to keep track of what students are doing or not doing--that's easy
• we have taught parents to talk about grades, so that's what we seem to talk with them about
• Jay's example--stopped talking about grades and started talking about students--more qualitative feedback
• need to train teachers how to take control of P/T conferences to focus the conversation on what matters most, not the grade
• do we need to train parents once FHS figures out where we stand on grades?
• why are we feeding the grade beast? why are we peppering IC with stuff? it's a feeding frenzy. we made IC, now we're feeding it, what are we doing? what is it all about? (Sarah D)
• we thought it was great to begin with, but now a few years later we're seeing how this is affecting our students. we just didn't know then; and now we get to think about it
• Sarah D is looking for efficiencies in the system
• why do kids get two grades for a year-long class (the semester division/finals are arbitrary)
• we have to feed with grades
• parents
• post-grad center
• kids
• we are doing something indefensible in school
• can feed everyone with first semester grade being merely a progress grade...
• could we just put in the semester grade and then at the end of the year replace the grade with whatever the student got at the end of the year