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December 8, 2021 – Minutes (Draft)

HHS School Community Council Meeting

December 8, 2021

 

Present:

RJ Graham, Jan Hansen, Nicole Huff, Stacey Kratz, Gregory Leavitt, Rebecca Martin, Karina Park, Suzanne Riches, Brant Thomsen, Stacey Timmerman

 

Absent:

Steve Brown, John Olson, Jeremy Wright, Amir Zaidi

 

Previous Minutes Approval

Jan Hansen made a motion to approve the October and November 2021 minutes and RJ Graham seconded; the minutes were approved unanimously.

70/30 vs 80/20 assessment ratio discussion (continued from last month)

Mr. Leavitt said that feedback from some teachers in favor of 70/30 has been that they really want students to have that extra “oomph” in assignments because they’re worried about the weighted unit of 80% for tests. They don’t feel 70/30 is that much different from 80/20 in terms of assessments. Mr. Leavitt said that, having thought about this, he wanted to give the SCC some more specific direction about why this is important to him. The following information is paraphrased from that direction.

“We want our students, when they take assessments, to know exactly what they need to know going in. It’s frustrating for a parent to go through assignments with their students and then have none of it be on the tests. That’s the purpose for 80/20. I want to push my teachers and my staff to begin with the end in mind, so that their projects and class work are very targeted.

 

“However, in taking to departments here at the school, we came up with an idea I hadn’t thought of before. One practice, to remedy this 80/20 concern for citizenship in grading, has been to grade 10% on attendance, 10% participation and effort, 20% assignments. The problem with that is that, as soon as you do it, you’re back down to assessments only counting for 60%. In thinking about this, another idea came to me, and I presented it to most departments, the PTA, etc., and most of them feel good about it: what if we created, for lack of a better name, a life skills assessment? This would be something optional that students could choose to take at the end of the term, and it would be concrete and measurable, assessing their homework and participation and other citizenship areas. It would be a reflection on how they’re doing in school on a citizenship level, and we would fold that test into the averages for the other tests for that term. 

 

“So, let’s say a student has an average of a 70 on assessments in a math class. At the end of the quarter, that student can choose to take the citizenship test, and it would be averaged into their score. So if you have a 70% average on your curriculum tests, and you get a 100% on the citizenship test, that’s going to bring your grade up. 

 

“The questions are measurable things, like:

  • Did you attend class 90% of the term or more? 
  • Did you make an APP appointment with your teacher to get extra help or retake a test at least two to three times? 
  • Did you complete at least 80% of your assignments and turn them in? 
  • Did you attend one social or school activity this quarter? 

“It would be a self-reflection between them and their parents. They would opt into it. If they choose not to, they can determine their grade on the average of their academic scores. If they choose to take this test, they can opt in, and they should be savvy enough to make sure it helps and doesn’t hurt their grade. They would do it a maximum of eight times each term, once for each class/teacher.

 

“Instead of diluting the 80% assessments mark we’ve set, this might help us make sure our teachers are still creating relevance in their curriculum, because the tests are still worth so much, but the students are motivated to do some of the things that help them get a better grade on that end-of-term assessment.

 

“We will have to develop a culture along this idea, just as we are continuing to do with the 80/20 benchmark. This kind of a test could help students bump up to a grade they’re looking to get (B+ to an A-, for example, or C+ to B-). Teachers must grade the test and verify students’ answers, which is part of why we’re making them concrete and checkable.

 

“Teachers are expected to give at least 3-4 assessments per term, with a minimum of three of them being retakeable.”

 

(End of Mr. Leavitt’s initial presentation)

 

RJ Graham suggested also asking questions like, “Give me one area you need help in” on the assessment, possibly for no credit.

 

Stacey Kratz suggested another question along those lines: “What’s one thing we’re doing in class that’s working for you?” She said she likes the idea of giving concrete value to attendance and class work and being a part of the life of the school.

 

Stacey Timmerman said kids likely will opt out unless they feel they need the test for their grade, and Mr. Leavitt said that’s OK. He added that, if students can get A’s on all of their assessments without doing their homework, the classes they are taking are probably not challenging enough for them. They would either need to move to a higher-level class or the teacher may need to add some rigor.

 

A parent had a question about teachers and their understanding of retakes: there are several assessments that never seem available for retakes. Do the teachers decide what tests can be retaken? Mr. Leavitt said the end-of-term cumulative, summative assessments are often not available for retakes because teachers find it very difficult to change grades across terms (as when a teacher would let a student retake a test from the previous term). He added that teachers are ALLOWED to let students retake those tests, but they are not REQUIRED to do so. But with a few exceptions, all other assessments should be able to be made up as a general rule. If some teachers are taking the guideline too literally and only allowing students to make up three assessments when they give, say, seven or eight, that’s something we can talk to them about.

 

Mr. Leavitt added that he just did an audit on all the teachers, and only has three teachers who’ve given less than three assessments, and those are all special education teachers. So 100% of our core teachers are giving four or more assessments each term.

 

He said “we’re getting there; that there are still a lot of holes in our system, but we’re filling them. It’s a culture change and it will take a while.” “But,” he said, “he believes in it, and is excited about this idea for a skills and citizenship assessment, because it puts reward for effort in the right category.”

 

Mr, Leavitt added that we will start this plan on Jan. 3, and parents should see it roll out slowly second semester, more fully fourth quarter, and full-on next year.

Remote Learning Fridays discussion (continued from last month)

RJ Graham reported that the second remote-learning Friday seemed to function much better for his daughter, in that teachers who would be scheduled to teach that day gave out assignments, while teachers for classes that would not have been held on that Friday did not.

 

Mr. Leavitt confirmed that administrators had given out directions to that effect again so the teachers were clear on the protocol. He added that the next remote-learning day is Friday, Jan. 7.

 

Brant Thomsen asked if the remote-learning Fridays are going to be extended past this school year, and Mr. Leavitt said that, to his knowledge, holding those days once a month does NOT extend to the 2022-23 school year.

SHINE (Savage-Hillcrest Impact Network for Education)

Mr. Leavitt reported that the memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed and completed and is approved. Hillcrest will be receiving $500,000 over the next five years to implement a CTE pathway to help students in transportation, communication, etc. go right into working at Savage in a sustainable, living-wage career. It’s a unique opportunity to have them partner with us; the goal is to grow this type of program to other schools and to bring in other companies. “The world is changing. We want kids to go to college and be ready for that, but the world is speeding up. There are jobs they can train for in high school and move right into those careers after graduation.”

 

In three to five years our goal is to have 20-25 students move from Hillcrest as seniors to good employment.

 

Mr. Leavitt reported that we had a setback to our efforts in the SHINE-related community hub because Juan Perez has resigned (that job should be posted on the district website today). We need to hire a new community facilitator, and we need that person to be able to facilitate the whole hub, get the right kids in there, gracefully work with these families so they don’t feel like they’re a burden, all that kind of thing. So we’ve slowed down some of our plans until we can get that right person in place. Right now the hub is open from 7-8 a.m. and 2-3 p.m., and kids are using it.

APP Attendance and General Attendance

Mr. Leavitt reported that we are really struggling with attendance right now. He is hoping that, over time, kids will see the value citizenship can have and that showing up matters in their life.

 

One out of every four of our freshmen don’t come to school on a regular basis.

 

Mr Leavitt said that, “to be brutally honest,” we are to the point that we’re just worrying about kids who are here, because the tools that used to help us get those kids back into school have been taken away from us (law enforcement tools, no-grades, etc.). “It doesn’t make sense to me that there are zero consequences and zero ability to send a kid and a parent to court and say, ‘You need to show up.’”

 

On a positive note, while there are a lot of absent kids, at least 80% of our kids are doing a good job. They’re doing wonderful.

Construction Updates

We are on schedule to be completely finished, outdoor fields and all, in September of 2022.

 

Mr. Leavitt asked SCC members to spread the word that we will start ticketing cars as of Jan. 3, 2022, so students who drive will have to have a parking pass and will have to make sure they are parking in areas where they are allowed to park.

COVID-19 Updates

Jan Hansen reported there are no changes to our status; we currently have nine cases as of Wednesday morning, Dec. 8, 2021.

TSSP and LAND Trust Plans

Brant Thomsen said these discussions will pick up significantly in January. Mr. Leavitt said that he will bring to the next meeting copies of our budgets, the TSSP plan, etc., and we will go through them, see where we are, and start to look at any areas where we might need to make changes or updates.

Other items

Stacey Timmerman noted that several students she knows are nervous about the ease of seeing into classrooms in the new building in case of an active shooter coming into Hillcrest and said she thinks drills would help reassure those students; she asked if we have had an active shooter drill this year.

 

Mr. Leavitt said we have not. He said he has reached out to the district multiple times about this issue because they need to rewrite their safety and other guidelines to provide updated guidance to all of these new schools that have tons of glass and those long lines of sight. He said the current protocol is 3-4 lines with minimal instructions for what we need to do; it’s also outdated.

 

He said he is hearing that people are meeting about it at the district level and are going to come back with some information; he said he would like to be invited to those meetings so that he and other principles can give their perspectives and hear what the people at the district are thinking, but so far, he has not been invited, “so we don’t know what they’re thinking. I am not practicing a drill where I don’t have instruction from the district, and I don’t have instruction right now.”

 

The SCC decided to put “Safety Plan” on agenda for next month to see if the situation has changed or if any further action by the SCC is warranted.

 

 

Next meeting: Jan. 12, 2022

 

 

 

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