Gene Galin for School Board

Teacher’s Advisory Committee Meeting
Dr. H. David Bryant, Superintendent Interim

Pittsboro Elementary Media Center
February 21, 2008

Valerie Powers – Bennett (Absent)
Judy Ingram – North Chatham
Katie Wood Palmer – Bonlee (Absent)
ChrisVolkmar – Northwood High School
Darlene Brady – Chatham Central High School
Thelma Pike – Perry W. Harrison
Harriet Sherman - Chatham Middle
Jennifer Morton – Pittsboro Elementary
Tom Campbell - Horton
LorettaBatchelor –SAGEAcademy (Absent)
Avajan Oldham -J.S. Waters
Mariann Roseborough – Siler City Elementary
Phillip Cox -Jordan-Matthews HS
Yolanda Moody –Silk Hope
Cindy Springle – Moncure (Absent)
Ann Saunders – VirginiaCross

Dr. Bryant opened the meeting with a warm welcome and extended a thank you to Jennifer Morton and Pittsboro Elementary for hosting this TAC meeting and providing the great food. The next meeting will be at Jordan-Matthews High School on March 19th at 3:30. Thank you to everyone who submitted their questions prior to the day of the meeting.

Dr. Bryant shared an article from The News and Observer which brings attention to the greater risk of incidents occurring when students are not directly supervised. He cautioned against detention for students by leaving them in the hallway unsupervised.

QUESTION: Upon retirement, is it possible to issue a separate check for each compensation (longevity, annual leave payout, supplement, etc.) instead of all being in one check and taxed at 40%? ANSWER: This spring, we will schedule a specialist to come to Chatham County Schools to speak on retirement issues. This would be open to anyone interested.

QUESTION: Why do buses continue to run two routes? ANSWER: The state will not reimburse us for routes less than two (2) hours in length (bus driver salary and running the bus). We do not have local funds to compensate small routes; therefore, routes will continue to be scheduled as they are. It is up to the schools to supervise the students waiting for the second route.

QUESTION: When a child is returned to school because no one is home, how should this be handled?
ANSWER: The principal should designate someone to stay at the school should a bus driver return a child. If a child is brought back several times, social services should be notified.

QUESTION: With present teacher shortage, how can we justify funding new positions?
ANSWER: Dr. Bryant is looking into this.

QUESTION: Does the new high school have a technology lab?
ANSWER: Yes. Much for the new school is still in the design stage.

QUESTION: What is the process for hiring a new superintendent?
ANSWER: The Board of Education has total responsibility for hiring a superintendent.
FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: Will teachers be included in the selection process?
ANSWER: Probably not. Teachers might be introduced to the new superintendent once the Boardreaches a decision.

QUESTION: Why doesn’t Chatham have summer school?

ANSWER: We have done so in the past. It is hard to find teachers who want to work in the summer. It is also hard to find students who will attend in the summer if they know they are going to fail. They are more inclined to come if it is remediation.

QUESTION: Consequences for behavior should be different for 6-8 from K-5.
ANSWER: We do have a standardized policy. Every teacher should have a manual in the school. If not, Dr. Bryant will provide one.

Dr. Bryant asked that questions be emailed to him at any time. The committee members do not need to wait for a month to pass to have the answers at the TAC meetings. The emails will be answered individually, and then posted as a unit on the web.

QUESTION: A teacher was charged for a personal day, but the sub was pulled to another classroom.
Does the teacher still have to pay $50? Why should the school have the option to pull a scheduled sub?
ANSWER: The $50 still comes out. This is state policy. The principal makes the decision on subs in the best interest of the students.

QUESTION: ESL programs have gained new students, but lost ESL positions. Will positions be added, re-filled?
ANSWER: This will depend on current allotment and availability of ESL teachers. (Dr. Bryant will get back to this person on email.)

QUESTION: The last payroll letter from Susan Little did not reach teaching assistants in some schools. If the information is being sent to TAs only through teachers, distribution needs to be done another way.
ANSWER: Dr. Bryant will look into this. We should be able to solve this through technology.

QUESTION: There were three (3) drafts of the new calendar. Schools were given one day to decide their choice, which was not enough time for teachers in some schools to get their email and respond as a group.
ANSWER: Dr. Bryant suggested looking at the calendar and responding as soon as possible. All calendar drafts are very similar. With pre-set holidays, etc., there are few decisions to be made locally.

QUESTION: We don’t have EOC scores from Raleigh. Is there anything we can do?
ANSWER: There’s not much we can do to make Raleigh move any faster. We are working to obtain data in other ways, but university systems may not benefit. Dr. Bryant suggested that letters be sent to legislators.

TAC AGENDA:

Dr. Bryant wants the TAC meeting to become a professional discussion on issues of importance instead of
focusing on questions. Questions will be handled by email. Discussion can be to benefit students and
teachers as we try to improve the quality of instruction in classroom. Examples: adequate professional
development; learning aids you need and training to use them; problems in classroom structure, i.e., more
science labs; more hands-on science equipment in the middle and elementary levels and training to use it;
any school-wide future programmatic changes in new schools; what are we doing in site-based planning
and decision making. We are seeing an increase in dropouts which is not entirely a high school problem.
Most are dropping out at least by middle school and some upper elementary school—those who can’t read
and don’t have support at home. How can we address this issue? It can’t be left to high school teachers
and administrators.<

If you were asked what one single thing could we do in your school to improve EOG scores or improve the number of students who stay in school, what issues does that bring up for you?

DISCUSSION

We need more vertical integration between high schools and middle schools in all areas. The TAC Committee could set up quality professional development. What? Time is needed to sit down and discuss curriculum with other levels. Teachers would identify gaps in curriculum to bridge from one level to another. This would also help eliminate bad feelings.

Is there a reason middle school students are allowed to fail either science or social studies in the promotion standards? Are we setting students up for failure or to take advantage of the system? Students are then not ready for high school courses. There is a similar situation with homework. If students are not doing homework until high school they have not learned to juggle all aspects. We would like to see promotion standards include science and social studies. It is up to the district to decide promotion standards in middle schools. We can find out what neighboring systems are doing. High school graduation standards are set and strict. What about ability grouping: Dr. Bryant said he has never seen sustained ability grouping that didn’t at some point lower ability of low students. They have more success when they are in classes with role models. The committee members are interested in additional study about middle school promotion requirement for language arts, math, science and social studies that would put them more on par with high schools. And also a more hands-on approach for teaching science.

We need leveled texts for elementary. Why don’t we have them? Money. It takes a lot to buy enough guided reading books. 60-70% non-fiction texts are needed for success, readable for the levels. Will Books offers matching funds and you can get twice as many books. Other companies also offer nonfiction texts, but need to be looked at carefully for readability. Dr. Bryant asked the committee to take this back to colleagues and generate dialogue on priorities and funding needs. We are working on the budget now. Maybe some additional funds for purchase of science manipulatives can be found.

Can we have teacher planning time mandated? K-5 teachers depend on specials at one school and teachers only have 25 minutes a day for planning. A suggestion was made to double that time with use of teaching assistants and do something else for grades 4-5. Can county mandate planning time for teachers? If you don’t have time to integrate staff development during a planning time, you can’t use the new skills. Planning then moves to after school when there are meetings, and then moves to home. Dr. Bryant asked committee members to accurately ascertain planning time for each of their faculty with additional information on thoughts about how to accomplish this. Blocking hours in the schedule was discussed as one possibility. Planning time must be built into the schedules by the principals.

Concern was expressed that the principals be told the committee members will be collecting this data. Dr. Bryant will tell them.

Common planning time is needed so teachers who are succeeding in scores can share ideas with new teachers. Would it be more valuable when we have district staff development time to have vertical integration time for schools? There is a wealth of information in this system, but no time to share it. Some schools do have common planning time. Dr. Bryant will share with principals to look at this kind of time on workdays for faculty to share vertically or by subject with agendas in place. The bulk of professional development funds are at the schools.

Dr. Bryant commended the group on the discussion and reminded them to send questions by email. Responses will be sent to everyone on the TAC Committee and they will be responsible for sharing.

How can we get parents to do a better job? It is hard to involve families with school. There are poor turnouts at meetings, retreats, etc. Is there another meeting place in the community? Yes and the school goes there. There is more success there, but still poor turnout. Would like suggestions of things other schools are doing in their communities.

Do all third grade teachers have a full-time assistant? No. Various situations in schools were discussed.

The members discussed changing March meeting. Is there an NCWISE training conflict? Let Dr. Bryant know if 20th will be better than 19th .

To be put on next month’s agenda: Is there a recommendation to not hold a student back by more than two (2) years? Is there anything we can add to help the slow learners? Reading is a problem in all subjects.

Dr Bryant adjourned the meeting at 4:50.
The next meeting is Wednesday, March 19th, 3:30 pm at Jordan-Matthews.