October 27, 2015 Academic Subcommittee Notes

October 27, 2015 Meeting notes from Academic Subcommittee

Norms for Consideration

·         Say it here (don’t say something different in parking lot than what you say at table)

·         See me first (take to me if you have a problem with me rather than talking behind my back)

AMLE conference recap

·         Kids need to fail and them we need to help them recover. Help them to stretch and rise to higher things

·         Differences between boys and girls physiologically should be taken into account when teaching

New slide to replace slide on 10/13 that was changed by MSTF

·         Research Middle School Instructional practices related to providing challenging and rigorous curriculum for all (UW students project: expect students to send research by mid December)

·        Identify student and systemic costs and benefits

·        Make recommendations to JH principals and then to MSTF

Eric McDowell talk (former Bellevue principal of Odle MS)

Challenge v/s regular track

·         Math difference was 1 more unit above in honors

·         No movement from honors to gen ed and back in old model because it was too hard to jump tracks

·         Added ore assessment testing

·         Lowered d/f rate in a year after implementing heterogeneous classrooms

·         Required District wide, building and principal prof dev

·         Blended learning added – computer tutoring

·         Hetero classrooms did not include: Centered Spec Ed, Emotional and behavioral problem students or Gifted students.

·         6 programs in same building, but not in same classroom

·         Assessment tests for math to accelerate into mixed age classrooms

·         Now they are considering having acceleration for ELA, Social studies and science for kids who need it

·         Cohorts or cluster grouping used

·         Teachers required to add ½ hour of tutoring to end of their day

·         Activity buses provided for students

·         “Huge Grants” required to do this and it was a Title 1 school

·         Pull out resource model for struggling leaners

·         Co-teaching model

·         LOTS of professional dev required

Special Ed presentation

·         Least restrictive environment for each child

·         Learning center and resource uses Gen Ed curriculum

·         Paras in Science and social studies classes to help special ed kids, but not in math and ELA since they get help in Spec ed classes for that

·         Differentiation in her class of 12 is very hard. She says new teachers arent’ coming into special ed because the differentiation makes it easy to burn out.

·         In data, numbers of special ed kids might not be accurate since that kid marked as Spec ed on the math line might be spec ed in ELA only

·         Committee confirmed that Spec Ed with IEP will not change…which is the LAW

Math presented by math teachers

·         Hard to get into single or double jump track if you don’t’ get in at the beginning

·         Perception that Challenge is where the good kids go and parents don’t want their kids with “those” non challenge kids

·         B- or better to have a good foundation in math classes

·         M says there are lots of D and F at his school in challenge classes – more than ever before

·         L asked why we aren’t supporting those kids struggling in challenge classes just like struggling learners in non-challenge

·         J says maybe 10 out of 90 don’t get a B- in her school.

·         Suggested a new committee to investigate math offerings in middle school to talk about math acceleration

·         O says only kids who need Alg 1 in 7^th grade are in AAP

·         J2 asked if we are keeping tracking for Math acceleration, why aren’t we keeping Challenge for other subjects. O said some kids are physiologically able to take higher level math earlier, so Jane asks if those kids are physiologically able to take higher level science and such as well

·         If there are kids in challenge not doing well now, how will Challenge for all work at all?

·         P says culture of those who choose to not take challenge is pervasive and those who don’t choose challenge are not trying to do well.

·         J says mixing those “choose not to take challenge” kids with challenge kids will make the whole room want to learn and inspire the others who don’t do well when lumped together with Challenge kids.

·         No decision on Math acceleration in MS

L says trying to close the gap makes special ed kids miserable. Their IEP committee choose extra periods of math or reading for them. So they have lots of those classes they aren’t good at and don’t have room in their schedules for classes like Art or Orchestra that they may be good at. So they just keep getting pushed down.

There was a PPT  that had a lot of statistics on the achievement gap based on year, race, spec ed, etc.