Happy Friday!:-)

Here is an update from yesterdays department chair meeting.

• The Program of Studies is in the process of being formatted.  All changes have been reviewed and submitted.  The document will now include a section called "career clusters".  If students are interested in pursuing a career in a health care field, classes offered here at CFHS related to these jobs are included.  The clusters include careers such as hospitatliy/tourism, legal, medical, business, finance, marketing, arts, information technology, education . . . . .  you get the idea.  The hope is to have this document finalized and presented to the board of education for approval so scheduling can begin in January.  If you have questions or concerns about this, please let me know.
• At the staff meeting on Monday, 11/5/2012, we will be discussing goal sheets.  This is a district initiative that we will begin during this second quarter and each quarter for the remainder of the school year.  We will basically be asked to assist students in developing one academic goal and one behavioral goal for each class.  Students will complete a document, recording this information and the teacher and student should keep a copy.  At the end of the quarter, teachers will review this document with the student individually to discuss their progress at meeting their goals.  At our department chair meeting, we discussed the possibility of making a goal for the students or addressing a need department or grade level wide.  For example, we could create the goal of increasing individual practice time as the academic goal for the students.  Anne was fine with this idea, only wanting to ensure that students would be able to work on the goal in a way that was meaningful to them individually.  We will find out more details on Monday and I will set aside some time for us to discuss this on Wednesday during our Early Release Time.
• At this time, the school year is 25% completed.  Anne expressed concern over meeting all of our goals related to the mapping and assessment that needs to be completed by the end of the school year.  In short, we are being asked to create maps, some form of quarterly assessments, and end of course assessments for every class that we teach.  I myself feel terribly overwhelmed by the colossal amount of work in front of us.  To that end, please plan to arrive promptly in my room for our Wednesday time ready to discuss the maps for the performing ensembles.  It is my intense hope that we can complete these by the end of November (yes, this month!) so that we can move on to the assessment piece.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!  Please let me know if you have any questions.