Minutes from the January 11, 2010 Meeting

Introduction

The School Improvement Team met on Monday, January 11 to discuss the school’s progress towards meeting the requirements of Ridgewood’s School Improvement Plan. The meeting was called to order at 3:15. In attendance were SIP Team Co-Chair Jim Smith, PDC Chair Michelle Kumor, Tech Committee Chair Sam Lewis, School Discipline and School Safety Chair Rob McCarthy, RtI Chair Michelle Felde. Reading & Literacy Committee Chair Jennette Gonzales arrived by 3:45. Community Relations and Communications Committee C hair Jill Laubenstein and Principal Jen Kelsall were not in attendance.

The Team began with celebrations. Of note was Michelle Kumor’s work on adding SIP Team and Committee links to Ridgewood’s website. Everyone is encouraged to view the new additions at SIP Team Home Page.

RtI Update

Michelle Felde and her committee have been hard at work developing the January 28 Universal Screening Day. The entire day has been planned including assigning teachers and students to specific areas including screening times, and speakers have been lined up. Left to be done are notices home and staff and teachers to be informed of their specific duties. This has been a tremendous effort on the part of the RtI Committee and they all deserve the school’s sincerest thanks. Great job RtI!

PDC Update

Michelle Kumor and her PDC Committee have been working on setting the agenda is set for the professional development day on Tuesday January 19. To date the current plan for the day is to have an hour and a half of collaboration time, lunch followed by another hour and a half collaboration to develop a differentiated lesson that will be taught. The lessons will also be expected to be peer reviewed. After a brief discussion on who should peer review, the SIP Team recommended that teachers be allowed to choose either a peer from their own team or outside of their team. The PDC has worked hard on developing a way to establish a common language for differentiation to Ridgewood staff and their efforts deserve all of our sincerest thanks. Good work PDC!

Technology Committee Update

Sam Lewis and his Tech Committee are hard at work developing a survey for students, staff, parents and the community regarding website content and navigation. The survey should be ready to launch by the end of January. The information gathered from the survey will provide guidance when it comes time to rebuild Ridgewood’s website. In addition, Sam requested that the Student Service Interns assisting the RtI Committee with Internet Safety meet with him to ensure that key points will be covered. Finally, Sam presented additional information regarding COGNOS reporting. Sam viewed a webnar to answer some of his questions. COGNOS reporting has pre-built reports and dashboards for easy report building and navigation. As a SIP Team, we have made a request that a COGNOS sales representative visit our next meeting to offer additional information to our many questions. Thanks to the Tech Committee for all their work!

School Safety and Discipline Committee Update

Rob McCarthy reported that Natural Helpers will meet on January 26 to discuss the issue of cyber-bullying. Thanks Rob!

Reading and Literacy Committee Update

Jennette Gonzales and her committee have created a method for distributing literacy strategies for reading and learning called RAFT (Ridgewood’s Activities For Teaching). The R&L Committee will meet again on January 13 to discuss these strategies and to create a plan for distribution of the RAFT activities including black lines and student samples. In addition, the R&L Committee has distributed the first series of vocabulary posters, will do so every few weeks. The next items on the R&L’s planning list is to being working on numeracy. Thanks Jennette! Great work!

Community Relations & Communications

Jill Laubenstein couldn't make it to the meeting, but forwarded her committee’s updates to the SIP Team. The CR&CC is working on finalizing a science fair with our local partner schools. Jill reported that the newly formed Ridgewood Parents-Teachers Organization (PTO) was unable to meet prior to break but are planning a meeting this month. Finally, Jill reported that the help cards that are being developed for additional resource information for our school’s parents will be completed by next meeting and will be available at front desk. Thanks CR&CC for all your efforts!

Next

The SIP Team's next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 1st. If you are interested in what the SIP Team is doing to improve Ridgewood, please contact any committee member.