GALILEO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Leadership Team/Department Heads Meeting
9/27/12
Marcus called the meeting to order at 10:10am.
Leadership Team
I. Academic Honesty
–Marcus said we are missing some members, so we will table this until our next meeting.
II. Vending Machines
–Marcus said money is tight this year. The Senior Class needs to raise $14,000 for graduation. Mr. Wing would like to have a public vending machine. The administration would like to have a vending machine. Drinks for ASB and snacks for the administration are the focus.
–David asked where they would be. We need to place them where students would not be able to use them during class. Marcus felt there was a space outside by Room 210. Nancy suggested by the Deans’ Office.
–Ethan asked if this could be opened up to ROTC, PE, music, etc.
–Joseph asked who the supervisors would be—counting money, depositing money, unjamming the machines, stocking the machines, etc.
–Jessica said there are only a few vendors we can use due to student nutrition guidelines. We have to follow the guidelines, and we can only use-approved foods.
These foods and machines are listed on the SFUSD website under Student Nutrition.
–Jessica said that they may not be open during lunchtime as that would conflict with the cafeteria.
–Ethan will look into private sponsorship from outside vendors.
III. Lunch Forms
–Marcus would like a way to get more students to fill out the applications. This will bring us more money.
–Suggestions made to bring this up at Back to School Night. Nancy said there are many advantages besides the food—fee waivers for SAT, AP exams, etc.
–Jessica asked about those who do not qualify. She also asked about the competition Karin Lau did a few years ago with the homeroom competition and the winner having a pizza party.
–Ethan said that PE would take this on. They do a Field Trip Permission Slip that is required. So he could require the Lunch Form as well.
–Both the paper form and the online form have a quick check for “Not Eligible.”
–Deadline for this year has already passed.
–Nancy said it might be possible to hand the form out at Back to School Night.
–David suggested giving them out to 8th grade parents in the Spring. This would only work if the state has the forms ready.
IV. PSAT
–October 17th in the morning. This is a mandatory test for all 10th graders. There are 60 slots for 11th and 12th graders. The reason the students have to take it here at school is the district wants to increase our SAT scores and some students cannot afford the prep sessions.
V. Back to School Night
–October 11th from 5pm-8pm. Faculty only needs to be here for what they are responsible for. For the Resource Fair, use student representatives. This activity will be around the auditorium perimeter. This is 5pm-5:25pm. Anybody can participate.
–Patrick said there might be better teacher participation if there were 2 Early Release days for teachers.
–Day before is the Early Release Day, so teachers can leave at 2:10pm.
–Joseph said that he is glad that we are doing this in the 10th week of the school and passing out report cards. He believes we will get a big turn out and he likes the fact that the report cards will be delivered at the end of the event.
–A postcard to families is going out today. On this notice, there was no agenda listed.
–Joseph asked if other schools were doing this the same week as we are. Marcus said that most of the schools have already done this.
–Marcus asked the Department Heads to encourage all teachers to attend. If any teachers cannot attend, please arrange coverage. Nancy would like to know which teachers will not be present.
VI. Schedule Changes
–There are a handful of schedule changes for the next grading period. After School Loop closes on Wednesday we will place those changes.
–Department Heads should give a list of changes to Nancy by Monday.
–Ethan asked if he would get a print out of grades before October11th for athletic eligibility.
VII. Data Report
–Marcus passed out the API over view. This has last year’s results and this year’s results. We will do a data review at next Wednesday’s faculty meeting.
–Marcus asked for feedback.
–We started out at 780, with a target of 785 and we went to 791. Our target is 796 this year.
–In 2010 year, we are 7 3, 3 out of 10 in similar schools. In 2011 we are a 5—a good gain.
–Nancy said more lunch forms we have will help with the similar schools rank.
–Joseph talked about the 13 points the English Language Learners achieved.
–Marcus mentioned the Latino Students and the huge accomplishment they achieved. They went up 50 points.
–Nancy said there is a Latino support club that came from the Latino Club. We have more Latino students in AP class than we have had in the past.
–Lauren said everyone went up, except Asian students stayed the same and students with disabilities did not go up.
–Marcus said we did very well with our White students.
–Patrick asked about gender changes over the years. Nancy said we have more females than in the past.
–David felt that when the population shifts, it does affect the test scores.
–Nancy gave information on which programs have more males or females.
–Joseph asked about the number 100 for group size. Marcus said the group size is 100 or 10% of population and that becomes significant.
–David mentioned a past practice of selecting 2 low scoring students and focusing on them. He asked if this had any effect. We have since stopped doing this.
–Patrick said he felt Loan Ly has been a great articulator for the Asian students who are going un-served. These students know how to slide. David mentioned a group of students he saw yesterday that are not in class, but not causing trouble—the one he saw was all male ELD students.
–Patrick suggested a Vietnamese class.
VIII. Emergency Procedures Week
–The Great California Shakeout is Thursday, October 18th between 8:30am and 9:00am. We will miss the 10:18am siren. We are moving the time up due to the ELD Picnic and Activity.
–We will duck and cover, then evacuate to the football field.
–Katie would like to do a Lock Down, a Fire/Bomb Drill that same week. All the drills will involve evacuation. David said it would be good practice for lining up on the field.
–Fire and Bomb are virtually the same. We evacuate for both and kids could be dismissed to their parents or not.
–Katie would like to do Monday and Tuesday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
IX. Administrative Protocol for Sharing Information
–Mat mentioned a threat that happened this week and he has heard about students making a threat on the school, and the FBI getting involved. His department would like to know the information is passed to the faculty.
–Stan said the teachers who had the students were told. The administration did not want the kids to have notoriety from other students. The students were suspended.
Department Head Agenda
I. Textbook Accountability
–David said the book problems in his department, AP Biology and Physiology, involved books that were misplaced or borrowed. In general we all try to do the best job we can.
–Administration wants to continue the process as it has been done in the past. The inventory will continue, probably electronically.
–Joseph said we will have textbook loss no matter what system we have. There are things we cannot control.
–Marcus said in the past Central Office would help with this, but now they are putting it back to the schools.
–David said in the past every 5 years new textbooks were adopted. This has not happened and some of them are 10 years old. The old textbooks are no longer available for purchase.
–Marcus suggested Department Heads press this issue in their district meetings.
–Kathleen gives points in her department for cleaning out lockers and finding books.
II. CLA Updates
–Marcus said we are going to continue to meet the window and hope everyone is giving some kind of Common Formative Assessment in the time frame. We want to get it into Data Director. Goal is for teachers to have discussions around CFAs.
–Marcus said they would use Social Studies as the pilot.
III. Miscellaneous
–Kathleen asked about truancy and who should be notified. Nancy said to notify the counselor.
–Kathleen said they are starting their tutoring program and she passed out information about this program.
–David offered clarification on the science class names.
–Katie said the departments will get some money. We have 50 more students and funds will come to WSF, SCE and LEP.
–David discussed the needs of each department and they are all different. He wanted to bring this up to the departments to see what they need, and then spread out the extra funds.
Meeting adjourned at 11:30am.