Spaulding high School – Curriculum Committee Meeting

Minutes of the Meeting

January 7, 2010

 

I.                    In Attendance:  

·        Norma Malone, Committee Chair. & SHS/BT Board Member

·        Nancy Pope, SHS/BT Board Member

·        John Santorello, SHS/BT Board Chair.

·        Tom Sedore, SHS, Assistant Principal

·        Dave Nicholson, SHS Guidance Director

·        Bob Phillips, SHS Principal

·        John Barone, K-12 Director of Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment

 

II.                 Agenda:

·        Follow up on the 2011-2012 Program of Studies

·        Follow up on the proposed time line for the A-Day/B-Day Schedule for the 2011-2012 School Year.

·        Updates from the K-12 Curriculum Committees:  English/LA, Health, & Science

 

III.               Minutes of the Meeting:

 

  • Due to the K-12 Administrative Meeting running beyond 5:00PM, the Curriculum Committee meeting was called to order by the Committee Chair., Norma Malone, at 5:15PM.

 

  • David Nicholson handed out the 2010-2011 Program of Studies and walked the committee members through the document.  The overall savings in this year’s document printing was a savings of $3,000.00.  our goal was to make a practical, useable document for the students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors, etc.   Teachers, for completing recommendations, will be done electronically.  Jeff Hazzard is looking into software so that we will be able to scan students’ course requests.  This may not happen right away, but, we are hoping to move in this direction.  However, we were cautioned by Mr. Phillips, that we do not want to remove the face-to-face interaction between students/parents and guidance counselors.  A question was raised about the 8th grade counselors being able to make recommendations on line.  This is something that David Nicholson and Jeff Hazzard will need to discuss.  Can we use the phone system, when we notify parents about 2nd quarter report cards coming home, can we include in that message for parents to be alert to the POS coming home and to make apts. with Guidance Counselors regarding course registration. 

 

Follow Up questions on the Program of Studies:  (1) AP Stats is not in the POS, we need a write up (can this be added in on a large label?  (2) Is Calculus AB a prerequisite for Calculus BC?  (3) Prerequisite requirements for AP Calculus is a C- should it be higher?  We will present the answer to these questions at the next Curriculum Committee meeting on February 4, 2010. 

  • Bob Phillips presented to the committee a Scheduling Committee Time Line for the proposed move to the A-Day/B-Day Schedule.  Bob has presented this information to the SHS Leadership Team at this morning’s meeting.  He is asking the Leadership Members to go back to their departments and ask for participants and then the administration will look at the names and make selections to be on the committee.  The previous Scheduling Committee was made up of 19 members.  However, our goal is to limit the number of participants to a workable number of committee members.  The committee will need to start with clearly defined goals and purposes for this work.  The implementation date for this new schedule will be the start of the 2011-2012 school year. 

 

  • John Barone presented an overview of the three K-12 Curriculum Committees that are working hard at developing an articulated, aligned, K-12 Curriculum.  All curriculum committee work has started with a comprehensive review of the Vermont Standards and the Grade Expectations and we have broken the Grade Clusters to be assigned to specific grades.  Additionally, there is a similar format to each curriculum document, including Power Standards.  We are at the point of unit development for the Science and English/LA Curriculum Committees and we are using the VALLI and Bridging Consultants to help drive the work for grades 3 – 8.  Health will be aligned by topic and key vocabulary, due to the main fact that we do not have Health teachers in grades K-5.  The goal of each of the Science and the Health committees is to have the curricula to the Boards by the end of the school year for approval with implementation next year (2010-2011).  The English/Language Arts probably by next December.  We are starting a Math K-12 Curriculum Committee this summer and a Social Studies/History next year. 

 

  • Next Meeting:  February 4, 2010

Agenda Items for the Next Meeting: 

-         Barre Tech Center proposed English Course for 2010-2011

-         Updated Scheduling/POA Time Line

-         Answers to the follow questions from the POA

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

 

John L. Barone, Sr.

K-12 Director of Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment