Ridgewood High School’s School Improvement Plan (SIP) Team gathered on Monday, November 1, 2010 to discuss the mandated opportunity we have to use a new program to determine our school improvement needs called Rising Star what work committees have been doing and to determine ways to fulfill the mission and vision of Ridgewood High School.
The meeting was held in room 151C, which is the breakout room across from the Community Room, at 3:15 PM. The meeting was called to order at 3:22 PM.
In attendance were Jim Smith (SIP Team Chair), Michelle Kumor (PDC Chair), Jill Laubenstein (PTO Chair), Sam Lewis (Tech Chair), Rob McCarthy (DSS Chair), and Jen Kelsall (Principal). Absent was Jennette Gonzales (R&L Chair).
The meeting began with celebrations that included the sectional win for Ridgewood’s soccer team and a state qualifying student from the cross country team. Best of luck to our school’s great athletes! Ridgewood’s Thespian Troupe 6662 went Trick-or-Treating on Sunday October 31st and instead of asking for candy, asked for donation to the Norridge Salvation Army. The Troupe members collected 460 pounds of food! Way to go! Everyone’s lives are rich and full in and around Ridgewood and great things are certainly happening. Go Ridgewood!
The meeting then turned to special business concerning the mandated opportunity for our school to participate in using the Rising Star program to keep track of our school improvement initiatives and prioritize our areas of need. Several schools around the country have been provided the opportunity to use Rising Star and have seen significant improvements in student achievement. Several Illinois schools are now able to have access to this valuable tool including Ridgewood.
The online tool provides both districts and schools with over 119 indicators that if fully implemented lead to increased student achievement. To understand more about Rising Star, click on this link: (http://www.isbe.net/sos/htmls/state_sys_support.htm).
The SIP Team is the beginning stages of evaluating Ridgewood’s implementation of key school indicators of effective practice called Smart Start and Smart Plan. Currently the District has completed both and Ridgewood has completed the Smart Start indicators and will have completed the Smart Start indicators before the end of this month. Once these have been entered, our next step will be to review and analyze data, identify areas of critical need through the data analysis, identify objectives to address our AYP deficiencies, identify the objectives and tasks, develop an action plan, implement the action plan and revisit the plan to make adjustments as needed and finally conduct a comprehensive revisit of the entire plan before the end of the school year.
Members of the PTO, DSS, and Ms. Kelsall are currently reviewing the Smart Plan indicators for Ridgewood and will be determining Ridgewood’s implementation of these indicators.
To review Ridgewood’s Progress, any member of the community is welcome to visit our school’s progress page with a guest login and password. Visit Rising Star Login (http://www.centerii.org/SchoolRestructuring/login.aspx) and use the following id for both login and password: guestSIL4786.
Once the special business was concluded, the meeting was able to continue on with committee reports, questions and or concerns.
First to present was Michelle Kumor representing the PDC. Currently the PDC is planning the joint institute day with Ridgewood’s partner school teachers. Several ideas for topics and sessions are currently being discussed. The institute days’ focus will most likely focus on differentiating and motivating instructional teaching practices. The PDC will be asking for teachers to volunteer to run sessions and or moderate sessions.
Second to report was Jill Laubenstein representing the PTO. Despite the PTO’s optimistic start to the current school year, there appears to be a continued lack of participation and interest among our school’s parents, even with events like “Pack-the-House”. Jill expressed her and her committee’s frustration and received ideas and suggestion from the team for help. All committees are being asked to consider how to open up to the parents of our community more. In addition, the partner school science fair may be in jeopardy if the communication between Ridgewood and the partner schools does not improve. If you are interested in participating and assisting PTO with efforts, please contact Jill Laubenstein or attend PTO meetings on the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30PM in Ridgewood's Community Room. The next PTO meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 9th.
Third to report was Sam Lewis representing the Tech Committee. To celebrate, the Tech Committee is pleased to report that it currently has 10 members! Sam suspects food at the early morning meeting may add to the appeal. Currently the Tech Committee is working on a draft outlining proper electronic communication usage between faculty / staff and students. A copy of the draft will be made available to the entire Ridgewood community after this Thursday’s meeting and will be available on the Tech Committee’s Blog. Drafts of potential website templates were available to view on the blog as well. The current plan will be to revamp our current website by the end of this school year, train the trainers and provide training for the remainder of the faculty and staff possibly during the March institute. Steve Silca presented a DVR grant proposal to the Tech Committee and asked for ideas on ways that Ridgewood could effectively use the money. Finally, additional ideas from the Tech Committee including additional training for using Google Applications for teachers and the ongoing evaluation of using new technologies, like Apple’s Ipad, in classrooms.
Next to present was Rob McCarthy representing the DDS Committee. Currently the focus is on developing an effective Reunification Plan for Ridgewood in emergency circumstances where the school would need to be evacuated. Natural Helpers continues to be a success and although Mr. McCarthy could not directly correlate the success of Natural Helpers to a decline disciplinary referrals it certainly appears to help many, many students in our school.
Finally, Jim Smith representing the R&L Committee in Jeannette Gonzalez’s absence, reported. Currently the R&L Committee is investigating reading strategies for non-fiction. Suggestions for bringing back passive programming, such as “use this word instead of this,” were recommended along with continued research and investigation into numeracy.
The SIP Team decided that deadlines for team members working on completing the Smart Plan Indicators for Effective Practice would be due Monday, November 15 and will be posted on Google docs for team review and or revision.
The next SIP Team meeting is scheduled to meet in Room 151c at 3:15PM on Monday, December 6th.
If you have questions, concerns, or ideas on how the SIP Team can fulfill the mission and vision of the RHS Community, please contact one of the committee chairs or Jim Smith.
Thanks to everyone who volunteers their time and effort to a committee!
The meeting was adjourned at 4:51 PM.
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