Inspire School



Inspire School of Arts & Sciences Board of DirectorsRegular Session – 7:00 pmMonday, July 15, 2015Held at Inspire Classroom IC-6335 W. Sacramento Avenue Chico, CAThe mission of the Inspire School of Arts and Sciences is to provide high levels of learning and support within a personalized environment that allows students to explore their interests and develop their talents.MinutesCall to Order – 7:02pmIn attendance: Dale Word, Jerry Crosby, Dan LaBar, Sue Hargrave-Benson, Eileen Robinson, Jana Gosselin, Julie Shea, Matt Brown, Samia Yaqub, Rob Reddemann, Jake Peterson (Jr. Leadership)Consent CalendarConsider Approval of June 8 and 15, 2015 minutes. Samia moves to approve minutes, Matt seconds. Approved unanimously.Student ReportNote: No student report this month. Principal’s reportThanks to Dan for holding down the fort during the transition. New hires: Special Education, custodial, instructional aides update. Two new special ed hires, Rosie McCulley from Los Molinas and Josh Leffler from Paradise High School. New custodian David Nemat-Nassar. Doing a great job, already on the job. Will have a secondary custodian (sub) on site next week. Still working with the district on pushing forward two instructional aides, Kim and Cathi.In Process: Registrar, math teacher– now on second round of interviews for registrar. Will interview three candidates next week. Also moving forward with math recruitment (to replace Kathryn Buckles). Would like to make opening a full time position. To make full time math opening, took one section of math from Alan Kauffman and split his 9th grade robotics class into two sections. This will allow a good freshman elective with some room. Dave Elke will be able to coordinate his Butte classes with his Inspire classes and keep his teaching position at Inspire.On Site Supervision: Dan reports FTE equivalent for campus supervision at PV is about the same for supervision at CHS and Inspire combined. Inspire needs lunchtime, afternoon and after school coverage. Mark Beebe (new CHS principal) is very open to working together to keep all students safe.Preliminary testing reportAP (attachment 3). US History 10 of 11 passed (avg score 3.18). US Government 8 of 10 passed (avg score 3.2).Calculus 11 of 14 passed (avg score 3.28)English Language 15 of 18 passed (avg score 3.3).English Literature 11 of 13 passed (avg score 3.3).Environmental Science 4 of 4 passed (avg score 4.25).Spanish 9 of 9 passed (avg score 4.0). CAASPP – preliminary report (attachment 4):Strand review – more a report of teaching.English 100% above or at standards.Teacher’s focus on problem solving and modeling was successful. Math improved significantly over last year.Scale Score Report – more a report of learning.ELA students – 94% meet or exceed standards.Math – 50% at or exceeding standards.Staff Retreat Report:Intervention plans (attachment 5 & 6 (more detailed))Looking for a quick response system for students not succeeding. Kids get so far under the water there’s no way to get back up. Three tiered intervention. T1 – classroom teaching practices. Advisory team looking at how to make advisory a way to keep kids on top of the water. Soft skills – do they know how to stay organized, take notes, study? What happens when kids fall off the boat? Short intervention program (SIP).SIPTeachers will refer students every Friday for intervention the coming week. Students in intervention will work in a special Advisory until their work is caught up. The new Special Education teachers will run the intervention advisory. This will allow them to support all students on campus. Students will be caught and caught up early.Two places of weakness – teachers not keeping grades up to date in aeries and advisors keeping up with student grades. To date, as a parent, Reddemann sees very little support for grades in aeries, even when trying to communicate with teachers. Also has never seen any academic support in advisory. Have left some teacher discretion to the advisory referral program. Parents will be communicated with an auto dialer. PD revision (attachment 7)Survey went out to staff (20 responses). Preferences regarding internal/external PD preferences are almost equally split. People in arts want more external PD (work on an island), science teachers feel same way.How do our PD funds compare to other schools? Overall it’s high. Do we need to create a rotating schedule? Other schools in CUSD vary school to school. There were some plans for PD but contract negotiations got in the way and people didn’t attend, on purpose. Lots of internal activity going on in district. CUSD would like to raise the level of PD that’s offered. About 3 years ago that began to happen.Administration will bring a full PD plan to present at the next Board meeting.English plan/retentionTheron Hopkins will work with all freshman in school. Master schedule has been designed for Theron to have all freshman before lunch.Advisory CommitteeCommittee will meet next on Monday at 2:00pm. Have already have several meetings this summer.Grading CommitteeBeth Reid has taken the lead on this committee. Group will have its first meeting sometime this month.Dress Code CommitteeMeeting scheduled for Aug 5th. Will include student input.Run to Inspire – scheduled for Oct 11Donation letter completeNew foundation logoVaccination legislation: 2016-2017 School YearNew vaccination legislation. Includes no religious exemption. Doesn’t take effect until next school year.Humanities major will be added next year. Beth Reid will be major advisor.Discussion/Action Itemsa. Approval of VAPA: .1 FTE (attachment 8)VAPA teachers don’t have an advisory while all other teachers are required to have an advisory. This has already been in practice, this is a formalized process for the board. Sue moves to continue practice, Julie seconds. Approved unanimously.5.1 b. Signing of MOU (no copy provided)Jerry will sign final and get to the district.5.1 c. Increase SectionsMath .15 FTE – not adding a new math teacher but adding one class. The FTE will be tied to math. Alan’s robotics class will be split in half.Econ .15 FTE – AP government numbers skew schedule. 0.15 FTE moved to Debbie Travers. Since gov’t numbers needed four sections, had to add another economics section to balance the day for seniors.Board not comfortable adding another section of econ to balance schedule. Too expensive.Sue moves to approve the math section but not the econ section, Eileen seconds. Approved unanimously.5.1 d. Replacement of Board Members:Discussion of potential future action. Questions have come up about process. Do we want input from teachers, should process be more robust? Need to be more open about vacant seats, should go out to parents to let them know when we have vacancies on the board. Nominations are posted in agenda. Defined roles are in the charter (parent rep, teacher rep, CSUC rep, butte college rep) and nomination process is also in the charter.Should go out in the newsletter. Tell which constituent groups. Need nominations in August to meet timelines. 5.1 e. Approval of 14/15 EPA Funds (attachment 9).All funds provided went to teacher salaries.5.1 f. Approval of 15/16 EPA Funds (attachment 10).All funds provided went to teacher salaries.Matt moves to approve all EPA funds, Sue seconds. Approved unanimously.5.1.g. Junior Leadership Development Proposal (booklet)Been talking about student retention particularly with students not engaged in arts and/or sciences. Asset models, how to bring in other caring adults. Jacob’s model has been at Fairview for 3 years. Program born in Jacob’s childhood, started at Fairview 3 years ago with 3 goals. Primary program goals are that all participating students are ready to graduate high school, have a post-secondary education plan (college, military, trade or vocational), and are job ready. In 2014-15 at FV the program matched 46 students with career mentors. Program coordinates between students, parents, and the faculty at school. Looking to expand beyond FV to other students. Experience so far with Inspire – likes school culture, parental involvement, starts early planting seed for college. This program begins with student, series workshops, goal setting, self confidence, communication skills. Work with mentors before they meet students too. All volunteers are live scanned, background checked, tb tested. Go through program training.Meet once a week, have preset activities for student/mentor to work through. Program is an extra support, not looking to add anything new.Inspire is looking to identify 20-30 students that are academically struggling. Sophomores and juniors. Looking to design a summer boot camp before school even begins. Folds into 5 year plan, parent curriculum, other new interventions. Program has power in that the mentor is a person that is not connected to family or school. Cost estimated to be $7500. Would be justified with retention of 2 students.Mentors are recruited from churches and community service organizations. All volunteers are fully screened. Jacob personally interviews all volunteers. Is program voluntary for students? Jacob says, “if you can get them in the door, I can keep them there”. Needs complete support of faculty and staff. If student misses one or two sessions, Jacob will check in with last teacher of day.How many students lost each year? 40-45 total, about a third to FV. Another 1/3 to independent study. Program designed to try and engage students that have become disengaged.What is set-up time? Could it be ready for fall? That’s the goal. Looking to do it after school but might also move into study halls.No consultant agreement in place but could get one started ASAP. Dale moves to approve expenditure, Eileen seconds. Approved unanimously.5.1 h. Additional Contribution to Benefits (attachment 11)Comes to $58 + 20% = $70/person/month = $14,700k. Don’t know where pot of money will come from. Staff expects board to match CUSD. Estimated cost will be between $12-15K. It’s a 6 month increase. Dale moves to approve additional benefit cost consistent with CUSDs agreement, Julie seconds. Matt abstains. Approved unanimously. 6.Public Comment.Items from the floor. Dale will be absent for August meeting. Announcements. Meeting adjourned 9:07pm. Next meeting August 10, 2015 at 7:00pm in room IC-6. ................
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