Month: February 2012

GALILEO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Leadership Team/Department Heads Meeting

2/9/12

Marcus called the meeting to order at 10:10am.

Leadership Team

I.            Academic Honesty

–Marcus received a report from Mr. Flisak on cheating.  Marcus asked the group for their input.

–Ben said copying and cheating is the norm.  David Barrios said he gives a “0” on an assignment if he catches a student cheating.

–Delores  Lee said that kids take pictures of homework and post it on Facebook.  Test are also posted on Facebook.

–Ben found students copying right in front of him with homework for another teacher.  He sends students to the Deans’ Office for suspension when he catches cheating.

–Nancy mentioned students attempting to cheat on the CAHSEE yesterday.  Even though the questions are in different order for different versions of the test, Tony said it is possible to match the graphics and copy answers.

–Jessica wanted to know what message students get from Galileo about cheating—messages on walls about zero tolerance?

–Kathleen felt that we need to define cheating.

–Michelle said her teachers cover in the beginning of the year what is and what is not cheating.  Different teachers have different policies, but they state them and the consequences in their syllabus.

–Joseph felt it is hard to start a new policy now, but the group disagreed.

–David talked about an incident last year where the student who was receiving the department award was caught cheating.  It was a difficult situation.  He felt that no student thinks cheating is OK, but that it is easy to get away with.

–Kathleen told of a similar incident.

–Stan said cheating is not acceptable at any time of the year.  He spreads the students out and does as much as he can to make sure they do not cheat.

–Michelle felt teachers are changing the way they are assessing students, especially at the college level.

–Tony mentioned, “When does collaborating become cheating?”

–Ben felt we have to deal with the issue of students wanting to get points for good grades.

–Marcus will call other principals to see what is happening at other schools and we will continue the discussion at the next meeting.

–Joseph talked about artists and musicians modeling their work after their predecessors.

II.            Bell Schedule

–Marcus said we are still working on the spreadsheet for the student survey.  We are looking at A and B and the difference is the amount of passing period minutes.  Tony is still working on the student schedules.

–Joseph asked if there are more students late with a 5-minute passing period, versus a 7-minute passing period. Concrete data will be good.

–Tony talked about information on School Loop about tardies—biggest amount was for first period and then right after lunch.

–Suggestion was made to compare 2^nd and 3^rd period tardies.

III.            School Loop

–Marcus distributed a packet on School Loop.

–Marcus said he gets lots of interest from the parents about School Loop, particularly the 9th and 10^th grade parents, as they are used to it from middle school.

–Marcus told of his experience at the training for School Loop.  The trainer has a student at Galileo and she was disappointed she only hears from one of her son’s teacher on School Loop.

–66% of our teachers completed the survey on School Loop.  Most of those felt comfortable using School Loop.  Tony went through questions on the survey and some of the results.

–Needing training and lack of time were the main reasons teachers were not using School Loop.  The training is from 4-6pm, after the working day.

–25% of parents are registered to use School Loop.  Ray mentioned that we have a minority using School Loop.  Tony said at his former school 90% of the parents were using it and all the teachers were.

–Ben felt that we need to tell parents what is going on with their kids.  Patrick felt we have high school students.  The parent is not holding their hand all the time, but we do need to check on how the students are doing.

–Discussion followed about using School Loop, time it takes to post grades, etc.

–Joseph told of his experiences and he said it is a good communication tool with the students who use it more often than the parents. Joseph felt the trainings should be done in the common planning time, not after school.  4-6pm is his time and there are other activities that he needs to do.  We are professionals and should be treated as such.

–The district is using our building for a district-wide School Loop training, and that is why it is scheduled from 4-6pm.

–David suggested we do in-house training.  Many teachers do not know how to do many of the items on School Loop.

–Stan says School Loop takes time.  He would like the district to do a survey of what times during the day/evening/night the data is input.

–Marcus said we will use School Loop next year in some way.

–Patrick said that School Loop is a contract issue.

–Marcus said if we have School Loop access at school, the principal can put it in the Principal’s Expectations.

–David Barrios brought up the fact that those teachers not contacting parents by School Loop are contacting parents in other ways.

IV.            February 14^th Wellness & GSA Event

–Jessica talked about this event.  This concerns sexual health and teen relationships.

–Jessica said she had 2 pregnant students in her office this morning.  This happens often.

–She talked about students in abusive relationships.

–She talked about students working on “coming out” to their parents.

–This event will be highlighted on the district website next week.

–Our ELL students do not know where to get reproductive information.

–There will be 42 workshops this year. She asked the members of this group to sign up.

–Some teachers are giving students extra credit for the noon-time activities.  Please encourage your teachers to participate.

–Joseph said some of his students asked him to officiate at their wedding at the event.  Jessica told him to see Jackie Peters.  She told of the educational games by the marriage booths.

–Price to get married is 50 cents.  Proceeds go to GSA.

V.            Policy for Food Sales

–Mat asked what the school policy is. Marcus said there should not be any food sales on campus.

–Jessica said any candy sales for students are against district policy.

–Food Sales to teachers are OK.

VI.            Rise in Hall Walking

–We are being vigilant to curb this.

VII.            CAHSEE

–Stan said the auditorium was chaos and not well thought out.

Department Head

–Marcus gave kudos to Ray for his efforts to give Special Ed. students the regular tests.

–CST—California Standards Test—what everyone takes.  CMA is a modified assessment.  It is almost as difficult as the CST.  CMA does not count towards the school’s API.

–CAPA is for the severely impaired students.

–State goal is to have no more than 3% of students taking the CMA.

I.            Testing Update

–City College Placement Exam is February 24^th for seniors going to City College.  It will be at Galileo from approximately 8am-noon.

–Nancy said last year CCSF gave the SFUSD priority for 2 classes they had to take.  This year our students attending CCSF have to have at least 3 classes that will transfer to a 4 year university.

–The test will be given in the library.  Students sign up for the test.

–Ray would like his students to take the test at the same time.

–CAHSEE—this past one was our census test and counts for the API score.  On both dates we tested 98% of the students we were supposed to test.  We needed to test at least 95%.

–Nancy said it was a little bit chaotic for those students who did not have a place to go when their classrooms were being used.  This is a whole school effort.  She asked for cooperation from all staff and teachers.

–Denise mentioned miscommunication on the second day.  The time of 10:30am was confusing and some students did not finish by that time.  Denise asked about students who did not report to her class until after 11am.  Discussion followed.

–Joseph suggested we plan a fun activity for those students who finish the test by 10:30am.  Kathleen said that some kids might rush through the test to go out and play.

–Michelle asked about the auditorium and how it was used.  Joseph turned the house lights up, as he felt it was too dark inside.

–Those two specific days are the only days we can do the CAHSEE.

–9^th Grade Practice CAHSEE

–This year we can decide if we want to give it.  Ray and Kathleen both said, “No.”

–Will having the test improve our passing rate?  Ray said there are no stakes.  Decision made not to give it.

II.            Registration

–Nancy said they should finish on time by Feb. 17^th.

–We can enter the information in Scheduler right after that, by the beginning of March.

III.            Academic Literacy Discussion Check-in

–Academic Literacy is a school priority.  First we have to define academic literacy.

–Mat said his department included reading, writing, academic norms—bring materials to class, ask for help, etc.  Know how to act in academic environment.

–Science focused on the standards. Specifics come from the standards.

–Kathleen said her department came up with definitions—and ability to navigate all of their classes.

–Denise said her department mostly talked about AP classes and what is expected of these students.  High literacy is one of the issues.  They do SSR in the target language.

Students who are ELD in their classes do very well.  They learn from the ground up.

–Joseph mentioned his department came up with 40 words that would apply to all his classes and were what the students should know by graduation.  He also liked the academic norms—bring a pencil.

–Standard Literacy in an Academic School, then Department literacy—Tony mentioned this.

–Academic Literacy means different things to different people.

–Ray said in their department said they talked about navigating through a textbook, etc. He mentioned the parts of a textbook.  These things need to be taught.

–Tony will put all this information together.

IV.            Common Formative Assessments & Data Director

–Marcus gave some background information on the usefulness of this information.

–The goal is for every course to have a common assessment and have a common final exam.

–This goal is for next fall.

–One a piece of data is entered for a student, it is linked to the content standards and teachers can watch their students over time.

–Any assessment teachers are now doing can be digitized.  This requires using rubrics.

–Denise said the big task is to get together with the teachers to work this out.

–Tony said it will take time to get this all set up.  What am I teaching, how am I teaching, and do I have a good collaborative relationship with other teachers who are teaching the same course?

–Discussion followed.

–David mentioned that much has been going on this year with data, etc., and there has not been much time to talk about curriculum.

–Denise is not sure how to explain this to her colleagues.  She asked for Tony to come and help her.  She also mentioned Chinese literacy.

–Michelle talked about Common Planning Time.  In the past one hour was Cluster Meetings, and one hour was Department Time.  She said this year they do not have the time to do this.  Marcus said those discussions will happen once we get the CLA and Data Director in place.

–Marcus told about his experience at Thurgood Marshall.

–Tony said he is hearing that teachers want to have more planning time.

–Joseph said we need more staff development.

–Patrick said everyone in the district supports CLA, but Data Director is not mandatory now.  We need to develop the CLAs first and then get to Data Director.

Meeting adjourned at 11;50AM.