November 15, 2017 – Minutes

School Community Council—Hillcrest High School

November 15, 2017

In Attendance:

1. Greg Leavitt
2. Brant Thomsen
3. Michelle Hawkins
4. Shelia Armstrong
5. Suzanne Riches
6. Jeremy Wright
7. Kim Weaver
8. Jason Dong
9. Ram Jayakumas
10. Jan Hansen
11. RJ Graham

Agenda:

• Brant opened the meeting.
• Ram reported on the school report card rework that is currently going on at the state level.
  • What goes into the composite school grade is not transparent.
  • Ram is a member of the committee looking at these issues. They have been tasked by the Utah Board of Education to make the criteria for these grades more accessible and easier to understand by the end of the school year.
  • Data streams for this process are not clear.
  • Hillcrest received a D last year.
  • Shelia: there is a bill to do away with these grades, but there is not a good chance of this passing.
  • Michelle: What purpose are the grades serving? Do they result in funding?
  • Shelia: It is a big deal in other states, such as Florida, where extra funding will be received by schools with low grades. This is not the case in Utah. They primarily tell parents where they should send their children to school
  • Brant: With funding not tied to the grades, they may serve little purpose.
  • Shelia: We have many extraordinary students opting to come here for our programs. So, in many ways the grade is not deserved.
  • Ram: It does seem that schools should be able to respond to the grades in a public way.
  • Suzanne: One thing we know with regard to SAGE scores is that many of our IB and AP students at Hillcrest opt out of SAGE because they have so many tests to take for IB and AP. This brings our scores down.
  • Greg: We are fortunate to have Ram serving on this committee. He can bring us back information as this process moves along.
• Brant report on SAGE scores
  • Brant provided a handout of SAGE data. Handouts compare Hillcrest to other comparable schools: size, distance, etc.
  • Comparisons examine current scores as well as growth factors.
  • See attached SAGE data.
  • Greg: explained the growth data numbers.
• Brant: SCC school plan: We need to review last year’s plan so that we have a starting place for this year.
  • Remember that we need to support the CSIP goals as we allocate trust-fund money.
  • If anyone didn’t attend the SCC training, they may go to schoollandtrust.org to do online training.
  • Greg: We need to start the plan in January to have a completed plan in March.
  • See attached CSIP goals.
• Suzanne and Andrea Olson: Digital Citizenship Plan for 2017-2018.
  • Suzanne Presented a PowerPoint detailing what students do online while at Hillcrest, what devices are being used and what filters are currently in place.
  • See attached PowerPoint.
  • Suzanne presented the Hillcrest Digital Citizenship plan for 2017-2018. This plan details what is being done to educate the Hillcrest community about these issues.
  • See attached Hillcrest Digital Citizenship plan.
• Brant: Rules of Order and Procedure are needed.
  • Greg: Bylaws are posted on the SCC website
  • All should review these by-laws.
  • Kim: On pages 37-39 of the SCC 2017-2018 district SCC manual, there are instructions for establishing bylaws and procedure.  We should review them to see what is needed.
  • Brant: We should look at the bylaws online and the training manual.
• Greg: Discussion of data.
• All indicators for 9th and 10th Grade are up with regard to the following:
• GPA
• The number of D’s and F’s
• SRI (reading scores)
• Attendance
• See attached data.
• We have the following in place: increased math FTE (only 25 students in a class), Link Crew, Additional aides (5 that work with 9th grade).
• Brant and Shelia: Do we need a meeting in December?
• Greg: We should be able to develop our plan if we start in January.
  • Shelia: We would like some time to meet with architects about the new school.
  • Greg: We will be able to do that. More detailed renderings may be ready by our next meeting.
• Greg: Come prepared to dive in during January. Present any major ideas that you would like the group to consider.
• Michelle and Rachel Hill will present information on ELL.
• Brant: called for the meeting to be adjourned. Meeting was adjourned.