SIP Team Minutes from Monday, April 12, 2010

Ridgewood High School’s SIP Team met on Monday, April 12th to discuss and review the progress being made on completing the goals set forth in the school improvement plan.

The meeting was called to order at 3:25.

In attendance were, Jim Smith, Jennette Gonzales, Sam Lewis, Rob McCarthy, Jennifer Kelsall, and Michelle Kumor.

Celebrations!
Jennette began celebrations by announcing that next year’s 2011 Lit Fest has already booked seven of the eight authors and has already guaranteed two authors for 2012!
The PDC was congratulated on running a successful March 26th Institute Day. Sam Lewis was grateful for the Borders gift card.

Committee Reports
Discipline and School Safety Committee
Rob reported that Natural Helpers is winding down for the year and that those selected to be Natural Helpers next year will receive training next month. Rob reports that Natural Helpers has gone well for the first year. He admits that more student involvement would be better but that he had ten consistent members all year. Rob added that Justin Gates has been doing a tremendous job this year.


Professional Development Committee (PDC)
On behalf of the PDC, Michelle Kumor again thanked everyone who provided their expertise during the March 26th institute.
Michelle asked for and received suggestions for next year’s professional development focus. The discussion included focusing on improving student motivation and improving students’ abilities to use informational texts to learn. A needs assessment of the faculty will be used to verify that these are genuine concerns and interests.


Reading and Literacy Committee
Jennette Gonzales reported that the committee has not met in the past several weeks. However, the RAFT strategies are still being distributed to the faculty. Jim Smith added that it would be a good idea to load some of the blackline strategies onto Google Docs where they could be downloaded and manipulated for specific classroom use by teachers.
Jennette added that the focus on the R&L Committee would turn its focus to numeracy and that the members will educate themselves about numeracy over the summer.


Technology Committee
Sam Lewis reported that Steve Silca was now a member of the Tech Committee as a representative of DVR.
Sam also reported that progress is being made on the advancement of a new website. He announced that there will be a meeting on Wednesday, April 14 at 3:15 in Room 151 (that’s the community break-out room by the school’s library).
A question was raised regarding a timeline to launch the new website. Sam responded by saying right now the committee has completed the first phase of the school’s website redesign – what to do. He said the next phase will be exploring options on how to do it that includes Wednesday’s training session in Room 151. Next year’s plan will be to begin implementing the new website that includes a road plan for training and informing staff and faculty.
Next year’s 2011 March institute was suggested as a good deadline for training.


PTO
Jill Laubenstein was unable to attend this meeting but sent along a note that the PTO has agreed to meet every second Tuesday of the month at 6:30PM. In addition, Jill added that the PTO’s goal at its next meeting, April 13, was to make a year-long calendar for 2010-2011 that would hopefully provide an increase in participation.


RtI
Michelle Felde was also unable to attend the meeting. She did, however, provide the SIP Team with information on the upcoming Universal Screenings in May. At the time of the meeting, Universal Screening days were scheduled for May 3 and May 4. The SIP Team discussed the potential issues raised by the RtI team and provided a few possible solutions. The details of this discussion will be shared with Michelle Felde and the RtI team.


The next, and last SIP Team meeting of the year is scheduled for May 3 at 3:15 in the school’s Board Room.

This meeting was adjourned at 4:40 PM.