SIP Team Minutes March 1, 2011
I. The SIP Team was called to order at 3:23PM.
II. Starting with celebrations, we celebrated
A. Derek Sobieraj who took 1st at the IIT Bridge Building Contest! Congrats to him and the Science Team!
B. Mathletes tied for second place in the Junior/Senior eight person team event at the regional math competition on Saturday. Members of the team were Xiaohe Li, Magda Olewinska, Szymon Barnas, Brian Kaczmarczyk, James Ryan, Rami Hawari, and Paulina Drosinski. Congrats to Mathletes and Zach Paus!
C. Abe Readers who’ve read four or more books from this years list are at 174! Congrats to Jennette Gonzales!
D. Tom Parrillo who organized the Sophomore field trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre at Navy Peer and didn’t even go! Congrats for Tom’s diligence and dedication!
E. Sheri Vavilis and Monday’s faculty meeting about differentiation and assessments. Table talk comments indicated that faculty appreciated the opportunity provided to talk, share and receive feedback from several peers. Congrats Sheri!
The SIP Team knows there are several things to celebrate in our school.
II. Old Business
The SIP Team proceeded with entering into Old Business. Among the items we discussed were:
A. Rising Star Smart Plans - Actions & Status
1. Professional development for the whole faculty will include assessment of strengths and areas in need of improvement from classroom observations of indicators of effective teaching.
a. progress on developing a classroom walk through tool - target completion date March 30, 2011
b. There has been some discussion among the Union concerning the walk through - what it will be, who will conduct it, how will communication happen.
c. The SIP Team acknowledged that the proposed target completion date of a classroom walk through tool may need to be amended.
2. The school will regularly and clearly communicate with parents about its expectations of them and the importance of the "curriculum of the home."
a. progress on completion of using Rick Wormeli's book as a method of providing all teachers common language to understand the importance of establishing a unified and consistent purpose to all assignments, grading and feedback. Having Department Heads use monthly after school meetings to provide professional development, discussion and activities to help teachers reach a common understanding. - target completion date for May of 2011.
b. We celebrated Monday’s meeting and thought it was a success.
c. Jim Smith asked for feedback on how to proceed with the next meeting scheduled for March 21 and ideas mostly focused on providing the opportunity for faculty members to discuss the points of agreement, disagreement, confusion, or frustration that Wormeli creates in the chapters that discuss grading and communicating student work/progress.
B. Rising Star Indicators not yet assessed:
1. Below are several links.
a. These are Rising Star Indicators that have yet to be assessed. Because Ridgewood is on the Academic Watch List for school improvement, there were required school improvement indicators that were required to be addressed first - these are the ones the SIP Team is currently working towards completing. The links below show all of the indicators and it is recommended that Ridgewood examine these indicators as whether we are in full implementation, partial, or not at all. The links are set up in a survey form and can be viewed and assessed quickly. It may provide the SIP Team with direction on future school improvement initiatives. It is not a scientific survey, rather it can be used to take the temperature of the school’s stakeholders (teachers, staff, parents, students and community) in order to provide focus for the SIP Team.
b. Jim Smith asked for advice concerning the best way to distribute the surveys. Here were the Team’s thoughts:
1. Maybe sending one - two a week out?
2. If we need feedback from students, can we examine which would most pertain to them?
3. Perhaps reword these - perhaps depending on who would be assessing the indicator?
4. Worded more carefully when asking community to examine these - ask teachers to think about your team?
RHS SIP Professional Development Indicators
RHS SIP Classroom Management Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Computer-Based Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Differentiation Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Teacher Student Interaction Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Parent Communication/Homework Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Preparation Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Student-Directed Indicators
RHS SIP Instruction Teacher Directed Indicators
C. Committee Updates/Issues/Needs
1. Tech Committee - Sam Lewis spoke about Friday March 4th’s professional development day or technology day.
a. The training will be in two groups.
1. First, faculty will learn more about Google Apps for Educators and the use of Google Docs especially use in the classroom and collaborative work with other colleagues. All faculty and staff will have a google account using ridgenet.org.
2. Dr. Lupo will discuss electronic communications.
3. Then training on the new website will begin.
a. Joe Rogalski. will show his web page that he created for his class.
b. Departments then will learn how to access and create their own web pages. Trainers will assist departments on this training. Utilizing the google docs to embed into their pages is a possibility.
2. PTO - Jill Laubenstein spoke about Parent’s Night Out and upcomming PTO initiatives.
a. Parent’s Night Out, although not well attended but those that planned and the few that did attend had a wonderful time. There were multiple places contacted for advertising the event - but many community churches failed to publish the announcement. The PTO would like to try the event again.
b. The electronic newsletter is being worked on - tentative release date in mid April or May and it will begin again in August prior to the start of the school year. This will be an exciting way to help parents develop the “curriculum of the home”.
3.PDC - There is an Institute this Friday, March 4th.
4. Reading & Literacy - Jennette Gonzalez discussed the R&L’s meeting and about some of the initiatives the committee is working on.
a. The committee met last week and divided up the non-fiction articles among committee members. The committee will develop lesson plan ideas for the non-fiction articles that can be used in any classroom. These will be made available in teacher work areas.
b. Greek and Latin roots will begin to appear throughout the school in creative ways in the hopes that students will begin to make the connections to these and their content-specific vocabulary.
c. Cari Franz will now be the head of the committee but Jennette will continue to represent the committee at all SIP meetings.
d. Finally, the committee will shift its focus to examining the Common Core Standards and determine methods of helping teachers understand them and use them to connect their curriculum.
5. Discipline and School Safety - Currently working on student handbook.
III. New Business:
A. Jim did mention that the Rising Star site is currently unavailable. It is being looked into.
IV. Announcements
The next SIP Team meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 4 at 3:15 in Room 151c.
The completion of a classroom walk through tool is scheduled to be completed on March 30th - will examine or amend the completion date.
The SIP Team adjourned the meeting 4:21PM.
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