2018 January

Community Council Minutes

Meeting held Thursday Jan. 18, 2018

Those in attendance:

Community members:

Kim Crump, Suzanne Stirland, Annalynn Yamashita, Heather Hogge,

and Crystal Stander

School members:

Diane Rockwood, Michel Strate, Becky Dills, Tami Jones and

JerylDean Clark

The goals that have been set for the use of the Trust Land funds

regard increasing our proficiency in reading and math. The math

goal is to increase proficiency on the Sage math scores by 2%

and the reading goal is to have 80% of our students reach the

Benchmark standing or green on our DIBELS test. A math aide was

hired this year to go into the individual grades and help with

those students who may be struggling.

Mrs. Jones, a first grade teacher, came to the meeting to

demonstrate how the first grade is incorporating the math aide.

A short exit ticket (a paper with 4 questions on it) has been

developed regarding addition using number bonds, then writing

the equation and other skills. The exit ticket starts with an

easy skill and develops different ways to approach the same

skill. All of the first grade teachers administer this ticket

to the students in their class. This does not take very long

for there are only four questions on the ticket.

The teachers will look at the exit tickets and mark on an excel

sheet which student missed that particular numbered question on

the exit ticket. The groups are then divided into different

groups to help them with the skill that they are missing. On

the day that Mrs. Nisonger, the math aide, comes into the

classroom the students are divided into the different groups.

Each teacher has a different activity or skill that they are

focusing on in their classroom for the 15 minutes of the math

intervention time. Instruction is given for two weeks and

another exit ticket is administered with the same skills on it

that have been altered just a little. Again, the students

papers are looked at to determine which group they will fall in

and what skill they may be missing.

At the beginning of December, there were two columns of students

who had mastered the skill, at the end of the 4-6 week process,

there were four columns of students in the first grade who had

received 100 percent on their skill sheet. This was exciting to

see the growth that took place in being able to help the

students with the skill they did not understand. The other

things that are exciting to see is that confidence is being

built with their math skills and now the students continue on to

the next concept.

The concepts or essential targets have been chosen by each

grade as to what important skill or knowledge the students

should have mastered by the time they leave that particular

grade. So, as soon as the students have mastered that skill, the

next skill is being tested to see what their understanding is

and what skills need to be mastered.

Mrs. Dills reported on the how we did with our DIBELS scores

last year, we were able to meet the goal of having 80% of our

students on the green level last year. The funds are also being

used for other resources such as cross age tutoring. It was

difficult to show the results from the recent DIBELS testing

because not all of the data was available. The Kindergarten

grade was being tested on the following Tuesday. The first

grade their scores dropped some which happens because of the

difference in the tests that are being administered.

At the beginning of the year, the first grade students are

tested on their alphabet knowledge, nonsense words and phonemic

segmentation. In the middle of the year those tests move to

nonsense word fluency and three reading fluency passages.

A concern was addressed regarding those students who are

struggling and reach the upper grades before parents are aware.

An explanation was given that many times a student will not

qualify for resource help until the student is two years behind

the current grade level. Also, if the student is tested and

does not qualify at that time, a wait time of two years needs to

pass prior to the student being tested again. Frustration was

expressed as many times, teachers and administrators hands are

tied as to how much help can be given to help a child. It was

suggested that perhaps if we talked with our legislators with

those concerns maybe those concerns could be addressed.

The budget was discussed showing a total of $44,432.86 for the

school year. There was an increase of $15,000.00 dollars from

last year to cover for the cost of the additional math aide. It

was also pointed out that the light bulbs are starting to go out

with the projectors and the cost to replace those bulbs is

$100.00 each. The projectors have been in the school for a

while and there could be a high possibility that those

projectors will need to be replaced. There could be an increase

of $10,000.00 dollars to the budget next year and Diane would

like to use that increase towards the cost of technology.

Some other expenses have been math bins and vocabulary cards in

English and Spanish for the teachers for the new math program.

The meeting was adjourned with the next meeting scheduled for

February 15 th at 4:00 o’clock.