Follow-up To Staff Meeting

I read the group input from the two faculty meeting conversations and want to share what I read:

Eagle Eye Input:  I asked for input on how teachers and students are feeling about the prerecorded Eagle Eye over the last few weeks and tended to get mostly suggestions for improving the program and support of the students' hard work.

There seemed to be positive feelings about the on-location format and teachers like that it is starting on time.  There were positive comments about the energy level of the students and concise messages.  On the other hand, two other groups noted that the taped didn't have the energy and expressed concern about student engagement.  

There are also technical challenges with film such as volume, lighting and pacing.  Film seems to bring pacing issues that seem rushed and needs transitions and lead ins that may not be as important as live.  

I will be having a discussion with Eagle Eye students on Friday and share my take on how EE is going.  Thank you for your input.

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Foundation Class Input: Mixed and everything in between.  This is a huge pink elephant sitting in our living room;  are some classes too hard for some students?  Looking at the grading data, is a class where 38% of the students get a D or an F too hard?  More challenging...when a student fails a subject in 7th and then 8th then is it reasonable to believe that they will be able to pass the class as a 9th grader. One group asked, “Are we trying to create a mini-SAS?”
Reasonable question and I have no issues in classes where 8-15%(ish) kids  get D/Fs, but at what point is that class just too hard for some students.  When/If we can acurately predict who can’t pass the class and we don’t do something to adjust the class then that just doesn’t seem right.

It is not my opinion that classes with fewer D/Fs are less rigorous or “easy grades”.  This isn’t about watering down the curriculum.  Instead it seems to me that we can either adjust (differentiate) the curriculum in these classes, or we can create classes that meet these students where they are in reading, work completion etc...  I guess that is where SAS is but SAS is consistently full and does not have the capacity to meet the needs of this population of SJH students, much less the whole district.  Bottom line, this is a complex issue and deserves attention and conversations.

These are some of the questions and ideas that came from conversations

Foundation Classes would need to be...

•  small classes
•  ability to move students in and out
•  extra parapro help (LAP?)
•  for academic struggles, not low work
•  the class shouldn’t be too comfortable and so should have a different grade level lunch


There were concerns that Foundation Classes would...

•  track PE and Exploratory classes (other classes also
•  won’t work
•  make other classes larger
•  take something away from failing students who may be learning but not enough to get credit

Questions

•  would we still promote Summer School?
•  could parents opt out?
•   how do we schedule new students?
•  class size in Foundation classes?
•   effect of Foundation classes on LC
•  will students learn better with entire struggling class (behavior)
• do grades affect learning
•  is >20% D/F reasonable?  Unreasonable?
•  is this just tracking?
•  who will design the class?
•  are students “slipstreaming” behind smart students now?
•  NO HOMEWORK FOR ALL CLASSES?
•  Isn’t Exploratory already doing this?

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OUTCOME OF FOUNDATION CONVERSATIONS

I will be discussing this input with department heads with courses that tend to have a lot of failing students. There are obviously pros and cons and no easy answers.  This is the start of a conversation, not the end...