Summary of Dept. Head Input

I am really trying to collect your input from Dept. Head Meetings, Dept. Meetings and ongoing, everyday conversations so we are making good schoolwide decisions. This is where I think that we are now:

1. School inservice release days will be focused primarily on self selected teacher teams working on curriculum/unit plans. Our School Improvement Plan will reflect the belief that improvement is dependent on teachers having the time to work collaboratively on their teaching and learning.
2. I will do the paperwork to offer clock hours for this collaborative curriculum planning.
3. Teacher teams can continue to get substitute release time to work on curriculum unit plans. (Dept. Inservice Days, Dept. Release Days, Principal Discretionary Days available)
4. Since we are projected to grow to 936 students next year and continue growing, I have started district level conversations about how to best address these issues.
5. We are moving ahead with discontinuing Core 1A for regular education students. In addition, we are actively trying to add a second “honors” math class at each grade level since our average class size now is almost 40 students. Math teachers also believe that many students are ready for a more accelerated math program.
6. Basic Skills Core Classes: 9^th Grade Science teachers may/will meet during curriculum planning time to chart out a more basic Biology course. We are tracking our struggling D/F students much more closely and can analyze and evaluate which classes are these students having the most difficulty passing. I understand that this is a real balancing act because the goal is not to create a remedial, sweathog class. The goal is to make sure that we are doing our best to make sure that our teaching and learning best matches the ability of our students to learn.
7. The general feeling seems to be to limit TAs to 1 or 2 per day and not more than one per period. Peer Tutors for special education are not TAs and the program depends on these students to help our most needy students. In general, we want most of our students in an exploratory or a PE class…especially 9^th graders. Of course there are extenuating circumstances that may need to be worked through for an individual student by counselors and teachers.
8. Master Schedule issues are on the table and we will continue to talk as we get more information. Expect that we will be aiming for an avg. of 26 students in classes and student enrollment will drive the number of sections that we offer. We will have to conservatively estimate our student enrollment growth due to new housing because of the significant financial risk of coming in under student count. (13 students basically costs our school budget $20,000)