Education Committee Meeting Minutes 08/08/2005

[gonzalesk]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE

School District No. 2, Yellowstone County

High School District No. 2, Yellowstone County

Billings, Montana

August 8, 2005

 

The August 8, 2005 Education Committee meeting was called to order at 5:35 by Chair Conrad Stroebe. Attending the meeting were Julie Sykes, Margaret Aukshun, Shaun Harrington, Kathy Olson, Dave Cobb and Karen Rice. Guests included Leo Hudetz, District Clerk, and Carol Blades, Crossroads principal.

 

20-Year Facilities Report - Discussion of Educational Ramifications

 

Conrad Stroebe explained that the Board had accepted the 20-Year Facilities Report, and now the Education Committee needs to make recommendations on what they think the Board needs to consider. Julie Sykes asked if there was any data available about the freshman academies, and whether they had any effect on the dropout rate. Margaret Aukshun suggested looking at the school within a school concept. This could expand participation rates of students. Karen Rice reported that she had seen an article on having the same homeroom teacher all four years, and this helped track kids. After further discussion these are some of the points that the committee feels needs to be studied: 1) boundaries; 2) mentoring; 3) space considerations; 4) looping; 5) full year scheduling; 6) exploring options of regionalization; 7) looking at neighboring elementary districts that feed into our high school district to be K-9 districts; 8) upkeep/updating of buildings; 9) looking at Lincoln Center as a technical education center; 10) advertising the Career Center to students.

 

 

Report of Transfer Between High School Districts

 

Leo Hudetz, District Clerk/Internal Auditor, explained that the Board asked him to look at the transferring of incoming freshmen at the District’s high schools because of some inaccurate perceptions that were brought to their attention. There seems to be the most transferring of freshmen to Senior High, but it is does not represent a large percentage of incoming freshmen. He also looked at the transfers by which middle school they attended as well as by ESL/LEP and Title I students. He also discussed the test scores of the incoming freshmen, and there doesn’t appear to be significant variations as the majority of test scores were above the median average.

 

 

International Baccalaureate/Programs for Extended Studies Students at MS & HS

 

Shaun Harrington passed out the class descriptions of all the AP and accelerated classes that are currently being offered in the high schools and middle schools. He also gave some background information about the classes. The Committee will follow up with this item again in October.

 

 

Credit for Community Service

 

An email was sent to the Board regarding the idea of community service credits for students who contribute to the community in this way. Shaun Harrington explained that the District has no class available to students that awards credit for community service. Some classes have students that do work in the community, as part of their curriculum, but there is no class now what provides credit for community service. Dave Cobb spoke about one class that’s available for some students called School to Careers. This class is available to students who may need a catch-up credit to help students who may need to work because of family needs etc. These students can work for credit, but have to write up a description of how the job relates to a career they will be pursuing. The downfall of the project is the lack of staff to follow-up with employers to see that the students are performing well. Carol Blades, principal at Crossroads, asked if credit could be given for community service instead of work experience. She would like to be able to award credit for some of her students to do community service, and is looking at paying a stipend to a teacher to monitor students who do community service. This stipend is included in the list of activities that Crossroads is looking to add to their school. The list of activity recommendations will be presented to the Executive Director of Secondary Education for further action.

 

Approval of the minutes of the July 11, 2005 Education Committee Meeting

 

Margaret Aukshun moved to approve the minutes of the previous meeting, and Karen Rice seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.

 

The meeting adjourned at 7:15 p.m.

 

 

Respectfully submitted:

 

 

 

Kathy Gonzales Conrad Stroebe

Recorder Chair