Spaulding High School Curriculum Committee Meeting

December 3, 2009

 

I.                    In Attendance:

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

§         Norma Malone, Committee Chairperson & SHS/BT Board Member

§         Tommy Walz, SHS/BT Board Member

§         John Santorello, SHS/BT Board Chair.

§         Nancy Pope, SHS/BT Board Member

§         Tom Sedore, SHS Assistant Principal

§         Dan Hershel, SHS English Dept. Chair.

§         Jodi Emerson, SHS History Teacher

§         Jerry Desmarais, SHS History Dept. Chair.

 

II.                 Agenda:

§         High School Schedule Research Findings 

§         2010 – 2011 New Senior English Courses 

§         2010-2011 Science Dept. Chemistry Courses 

§         Proposal for Civics and to look at increasing History Credit Requirements 

 

III.               Minutes of the Meeting:

 

§         The meeting was called to order by Committee Chairperson, N. Malone, at 5:00PM 

 

§         John Barone presented the schedule research information that was requested by the Curriculum Committee at the last meeting.  There was discussion around the length of time that the indicated schools have been using their indicated schedules.  John Barone answered for the schools of which he knew (Rutland High School, Essex High School, and Colchester High School).  Example of discussions:  hybrid possibilities with scheduling, use of teachers/resources, more time for teachers to do more in-depth teaching and learning, amount of time per block, per school.  John Barone’s recommendation is that we not jump and move to changing a schedule for next year, but, wait and see what the NEASC visitation report says and take time to do adequate research and make an educated decision.  The committee is requesting that the administration put together an implementation time line and bring a recommendation to the committee and then to the Board. 

 

§         Dan Hershel, the Chair. of the SHS English Dept. joined the committee. Mr. Hershel handed out a document that contained the rationale for the changes being made to the junior and senior year English classes, an over-view of the type of courses being offered, and an implementation time line.  The change moved the junior and senior English classes to an elective model, based upon students’ interests and exposing students to more world and cultural literature.  Mr. Hershel passed out a list of the courses with a description.  The goal is to start with the seniors for 2010-2011 and move into the junior and senior year for 2011-2012.  This will also remove the idea of leveled classes and focus on more heterogeneously group classes and combine juniors and seniors into classes together.  With full implementation for the junior and senior year for 2011-2012,

 

we are also discussing requiring students to take one literature based class and

one writing-intensive class.  A final decision has not been made.  Questions that

were raised by the committee members:  class size policy requirements, how will

this impact?  Possibility of offering some courses every other year?  Number of

preps per teacher?  Movement from tracking to non-tracking – how will this

impact learning?

 

·         Jody Emerson, SHS History Teacher and Jerry Desmarais, SHS History Dept. Chair., joined the committee tonight to talk about a Civics requirement at Spaulding High School as part of the graduation requirement and an increase (by .5 credits) to the number of History credits to graduate from Spaulding High School.  Ms. Emerson handed out a preliminary proposal document and reviewed it with the committee.  The document presented by Ms. Emerson not only included her rationale to the proposal, but also included requirements through Title 16 of Vermont Law, the Vermont Quality Standards, and the Vt. History/Social Studies Grade Expectations, as well as current research to support the inclusion of Civics in a school’s curricula.  In support of the proposal, Mr. Desmarais spoke about the History Department’s support of this proposal and also mentioned that the History Dept. would like to follow the model of the English Dept. and look into reorganizing their dept. to offer some “anchor” classes in 9th and 10th grade and having electives for 11th and 12th grade.  From a K-12 curriculum perspective, a K-12 Social Studies/History curriculum committee will be in place for next year.  Mr. Barone’s recommendation is that we use the K-12 History/Social Studies committee do their work next year and make recommendations for the following year (2011-2012).  The committee is in support of the proposal, especially students being required to take a Civics course.  The committee also agrees that we need to look at the overall graduation requirements at Spaulding High School and this will be placed on a future Curriculum Committee agenda.  The History Department was given the go ahead to being to look at implementing changes to their courses, working with the school administration and with John Barone. 

 

§         Larry Davignon, Chair of the SHS Science Dept. could not be at the meeting tonight, so John Barone presented on his behalf.  In response to questions raised by this committee and by the Board, we have reduced the number of Chemistry classes for next year (2010-2011).  We will be offering Chemistry, Conceptual Chemistry and a combination AP/Honors Chemistry. For the combination class, students will sign up for either, however, students who sign up for the AP Chemistry will have a date in which they will have to make a decision to stay in the AP Chemistry or drop from AP into Honors.  The course will be at the same time, but, students will have the ability to opt-out.  We started the discussion with Physics, but have decided to wait and see how things go with the Chemistry, before proceeding to do the combination of AP Physics and Physics Honors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Parking Lot Items: 

-          Updates from the K-12 Curriculum Committees in place (work-to-date)

      English/Language Arts, Science, and Health.

-          SHS Graduation Requirements

-          Follow up on proposed changes to the History Dept. (specifically around the topic of Civics.  The addition of the .5 credit will be discussed as part of the review of SHS Graduation requirements). 

                                   

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

 

John L. Barone, Sr.

K-12 Director of Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment