Bits and Pieces for the Week

Good morning!

There was no department chair meeting this week, so I just have a few items to forward to you.

• I have spoken with Alli about the field trip situation in our department.  At this time, the plan is to do what we have always done.  This means the district will continue to support our performances at venues outside of the district.  However, we need to maintain the number of performances we have historically committed to.  For example, if M&Ms have always gone to three competitions, they can continue to go to three competitions.  They don't necessarily need to be the same three as last year, but don't increase the number of performances.  If you have any questions about this, please come and see me so we can be certain of the policies for the year.
• At this time, there is a plan to have the high school used as a polling place for election day in November.  This plan includes using the back hallway as the location for voting.  If this does occur, we will need to accommodate this event as best as possible.  I emphasize we are still in the planning phases of this, so I will keep you posted.   
• The last two Wednesdays in October are being planned as department meeting dates.  I will be meeting with Mike Miller in the next week or so to set the agenda for these meetings as well as the goals for our department for this school year.  Stay tuned for more details on that in the coming weeks.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  You know where to find me. :-)

Department Chair Meeting Update

Good morning!

Here is an update from the department chair meeting today.

• Count week is next week.  If anyone has someone in their class who only occasionally attends school, please make an effort to speak to that student and encourage them to have great attendance next week.  You can also refer names to the unit principal for them to speak to.  Additionally, there will very few out of school suspensions in order to have the highest rate of attendance possible.  All of our funding for the school year is tied to the attendance for next week, so please do anything and everything you can to cut down on absences.
• Per Board of Education policy, all teachers are required to complete one web-based project each semester.  This year, you will need to turn your information in to the department chair and I will submit all of our materials together.  This is all of the information I have at this time, so I will continue to update you as this evolves.
• The discussion regarding field trips continues.  (If you recall, field trips must be cost neutral.)  I am setting up an appointment to meet with Alli and discuss how this will affect our department.
• Conferences are coming up next week on Thursday, October 10.  Conferences will be scheduled by teachers from 5:00 - 7:30, followed by a period of open conferences from 7:30 - 8:30.  (The main office will forward any requests by parents to set up a conference to you directly.)  There are volleyball games here that night as well as an event in the auditorium at 7:00.  The auditorium event is sponsored by Summit Racing and involves someone who is trying to break the land speed record.  This event is expected to be well attended and they are planning to have overflow in the cafeteria.  Consequently, parking should be a bit troublesome, so please plan accordingly.  Alli is going to share all of these details in an email with the staff and an all-call to parents.
• For the Friday Homecoming assembly, we are going to follow the same procedure we followed for the 'Roar' video.  Students will be dismissed to I/E at the end of third period.  From their, students will be dismissed to the assembly by grade level and alphabet.  This will allow for many things to happen, the least of which is a seating chart that will work in the auditorium, students can sit by their classes and the seniors can be in the front of the auditorium.  

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. :-)

Department Chair Meeting Update

Hi all!

Here is an update from the department chair meeting on Tuesday, September 24.

• Count week will be October 7 - 11.  This is an important week as our funding for the year is tied to attendance this week.  Please do anything you can to encourage student attendance this week.
• ERW #1:  This week will be our final week of work on our SLOs.  Both of your SLOs and all supporting documents (i.e. pre/post test, performance rubric, etc) are due to Judy no later than OCTOBER 1st.  Alli is asking all materials to be turned in as hard copies to best facilitate this process.  
• ERW #2:  If you are following the schedule for the ERW, the first two weeks in October are going to change.  For Wednesday,  October 2, all of the dens will be meeting separately to share and discuss the work done during the September meetings.  On Wednesday, October 9, the entire staff will meet together and hear presentations from each of the dens.  
• On Thursday, September 26, the entire school, faculty and staff are being asked to participate in a project.  We will be creating a video during I/E to enter into a contest to win a Katy Perry concert here at our school.  Please check your email to keep up with these evolving plans.
• The scantron machine in the main office has passed on to greener pastures.  So, I am working on investigating what options are available to us.  I know many of us utilize this for exams.
• Field Trips:  (Please take a deep breath before you read this . . . . . . )  Okay, now that you are calm, cool and collected . . . . . Alli has been informed by the transportation department that field trips can be approved BUT they must be "cost neutral".  Alli followed that up by saying we are not allowed to charge the students for transportation costs (i.e. building the cost into the cost of the field trip).  So, at this time, things are pretty up in the air with field trips and I am not sure how this impacts us.  I am talking with Alli about this situation and will let you know as updates develop.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  

What's Up?

Hi all!

Because of the den meetings this week, there was no department chair meeting today.  We will resume our regular Tuesday meetings during third period next week.

We should all continue to develop our SLOs.  This Wednesday, our time will focus on developing growth targets for our students.

As always, please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or concerns. :-)

Department Chair Meeting Update

Good morning!

Here are the highlights of the department chair meeting on Tuesday, 9/10/13.

• This Early Release Wednesday, we will be continuing the work on our SLOs.  The focus of our time will be on writing about the standards and content portion for each of our SLOs.  Teachers are asked to stay on target with this work so we can address questions and concerns as they arise.
• Alli is requesting a list of current technology for every department.  Therefore, I will be putting this together and asking each of you to proof read it for accuracy.  Additionally, I will submit a request for our technology needs.  Please be on the lookout for this email later in the week.  Your assistance is very much appreciated.
• There was a discussion about Open House.  Alli would like to make this event as inviting, positive and worthwhile as possible for our school families.  Some suggestions for improving open house included creating an event out of it (i.e. science classrooms doing labs for parents to try, etc), creating something separate for the freshmen, or holding open house before a football game to encourage school spirit and attendance.  Alli will also be discussing this issue with the BLT.  Please let her know if you have any thoughts about this topic.   
• Department chair meetings will be held every Tuesday.  The agenda is very flexible and open, so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns to bring to this group.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Have a great day! :-)

Department Chair Meeting Update

Yep, it's back - the department blog!

 I will again be using this as a tool to share and store information about the weekly department chair meetings and what is going on in the building from that perspective.  Here are the highlights of today's meeting!

• The administrative team is expecting department chairs and their colleagues to hold monthly meetings.  Principals and Amy Hayward are to be invited to be a part of these conversations.  The goal is to create better communication in the building and foster a professional community among staff.  Early Release Wednesday times may or may not be available for this purpose, so we may need to be creative with setting these up.  I will let you know what the plan is as soon as I figure one out.  :-)
• The department chairs decided today to discontinue the use of quarterly assessments in the core as a means of communicating student growth to the district administration and board of education.  Remember, the district has a goal of showing one years growth for every student in reading and math.  Alli would like to see us move to something more encompassing for measuring growth that includes all the courses a student is taking.  The concept she shared today was something along the lines of "Bachelor of Science" curriculum and "Bachelor of Arts" curriculum and reporting growth along these lines.  I am not sure I understand how exactly this works or where precisely we are going with this, but I will keep you posted.  I suspect we are going to become more involved in this process.
• We are going to continue to have students of the month here at the high school.  Please let me know if you have anyone deserving of this honor and I can submit their name.  Additionally, if you would like to nominate someone for Top Tiger, I can pass that along as well.  (Remember, Top Tiger can only be awarded once in a student's career here in Cuyahoga Falls.)

In addition to the above topics, we had a lengthy discussion about where we are in each department with OTES.  I am proud to say we are one of the few departments that has already administered both assessments and are on our way to analyzing student data.  If you have any questions or concerns about any of the OTES stuff, please let me know.  The district OTES committee is meeting tomorrow and there are many questions on the agenda.  Specifically for us, we need to notate any problems/concerns we have with our materials so we can update them for next year.  

So what should you be doing right now?  Here are some things to keep moving forward with!

• Keep working on those SLOs!  Remember you need to create two separate documents, one for the pre/post and one for the performance assessment.  The information about students and interval of instruction should be exactly the same.  The details about the baseline and trend data should be different.  Next week, we are going to focus on writing the SLO area covered by the standards the assessments cover and what the assessments are.  If you can stay on top of this, you should be able to write your entire SLO in the ERW time.  Please let me know if you need any help or have any questions!
• As we move through the SLO process (and once our SLOs are complete), we will again revisit the work of mapping and assessments.  At this time, the thought process is we will be expanding OTES to cover additional courses. More details about what that specifically means for use to come.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns! :-)

SLO Resources

After our discussion yesterday regarding SLOs, I thought that I would share some resources with you.

• Stark County ESC has numerous music SLOs to review.  Click here to look at examples from a full music curriculum.
• ODE has several items that may be helpful to you.  This page provides examples of SLOs that have been critiqued by ODE.  There is a music example here as well as other content areas that have been reviewed and graded by ODE.  Some of these are a bit intense, but at least it may give you ideas of what to include in your document.
• Finally, this page contains the template from ODE you can type into when creating your SLO.  Scroll down to the 'Student Learning Objective' area of the page and there is additional information on SLOs - probably more than you ever wanted to know!  Click here -  Student Learning Objective (SLO) Template for creating SLOs  for the template to type your SLO into.

As always, I hope this information is helpful to you.  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Are we even still using this thing?????

I know, I just get you all looking at this and then I don't update it!  I am trying to get back on track so we can stay on top of everything, especially as we move into the crazy end of the year stuff.

Okay, here is an update from the department chair meeting today.

1. The master schedule is currently in the process of being finalized.  
2. There are numerous courses that will be offered for 'dual enrollment' next year.  This means that students will attend class here at CFHS but earn a college credit through an area university.  There are numerous core classes that are working on this and I am trying to get Music Theory 2 to get in on the action through Kent State.  Paperwork is on going at this time, but I am hopeful that this will happen for next school year.
3. We briefly discussed the reality of the move from a comprehensive high school to an academy based model.  Anne spoke briefly about the fact that this is a 'done deal'.  We have a contract with Ed Works to facilitate the transition to this model and we are absolutely moving in this direction.  What this will look like and what the details of the academies will be are uncertain at this time.  Stay tuned for more information as it continues to become available. 
4. The transition to the academy model is having implications at the middle school level.  There is currently a great deal of discussion about the possibility and reality of offering high school credit to students in the middle school that are ready for that level of instruction.  The concern is over how those students would continue to fit electives in their schedule.  Again, I do not have many more details about this and will continue to share what I know.
5. Anne is planning ahead for next year and Early Release Wednesdays.  She has asked that we inquire in our department about any suggestions any one has for this time next year.
6. Anne feels like our building is in good shape for OTES next year.  She continues to encourage all of us to keep up this work to ensure next year goes as smoothly as possible.

That's all I got . . . . . . . . .

Department Chair and Other Necessary Evils

Here is an update from the department chair meeting today.

• All staff members are encouraged to take a look at the Course of Studies that students are currently using for scheduling.  (Click here to view the document.)  Courses are now identified in "career clusters" to aid students in determining their own career paths.  Take a look, it is pretty interesting.
• Students are currently in the process of selecting their courses for next year.  They are going to turn their green scheduling sheets into their I/E teachers by Friday, February 1.  I am hopeful that we will have preliminary enrollment numbers by the end of the month.  We should all be encouraging students to enroll in the music courses and keep them full! :-)  I will get the materials to work on our department schedule and need to complete that before spring break.  I will keep you all posted as we move through this process.
• Dr. Nichols has removed the credit requirement to pass from grade to grade.  So, you will no longer need to earn 5 1/2 credits to be considered a sophomore.  It is unclear what impact this will have on our students.
• There is great concern over where we are at with PBIS at this point in time.  Please remember that if you are going to give someone an office referral, you need to have documentation of your previous interventions with the student (i.e. parent phone call, detention in your room, etc).  Of course there are circumstances requiring immediate attention from an administrator (i.e. cutting class, insubordination, etc).  Please remember to use the Tiger Stripes to recognize positive behavior or improvement.
• During OGT week, only the sophomore class will come in for testing.  In the past, there had been a pre OGT assessment given to the ninth graders.  However, since the OGT is going away, we will not be administering a test to the freshmen.  Our staff meeting in February will focus on OGT process and procedures.
• Early Release Wednesday will be group meetings for the next two weeks.  January 31 will feature a presentation about OTES and February 6 will focus on Student Learning Objectives (SLOs).  We will meet as best we can as time allows.  We MUST continue to make progress on our assessments.

There was oh so very much more, but that is what I believe to be most pressing to us at this moment.

Please take a moment to look at the Google docs calendar.  I have updated that with all of the information that we discussed this past Wednesday.  There are many, MANY things coming up and I am hopeful that this document can be used to help alleviate some of the congestion that February and March bring.

Questions?  You know where to find me! :-)
 

Exam Materials

I have uploaded two items on to Google docs.  The first is an essay rubric.  I am hoping this will work as we grade the essay portion of our exams.  I found the rubric on the internet and modified it to fit our needs.  The second item is a performance rubric to use for the scale assessments.  This is basically from our band audition materials.    Jesse, this will more than likely need revisions to better fit your needs.

Since this is the first time that we are doing this, I am assuming that we will need to edit both of these items after exams.  Please consider any revisions and share them after exams, as these documents will most likely become part of the assessment and evaluation materials that we ultimately submit to the administration.

Please let me know if you have any problems accessing the documents.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a restful and enjoyable break after a crazy month of holiday concerts!

I am going to apologize in advance for the length of this post.  There are numerous 'irons in the fire' right now and I am going to try and put some issues out there that need attention.

1. First of all, we will not be meeting as a department tomorrow (1/9/13) during Early Release Wednesday.  We are meeting as a full staff in the library to discuss safety issues in our building in coordination with the police department.
2. There is ongoing discussion as to whether or not we will meet next week for Early Release Wednesday because of the exam schedule.  I will let you know when I learn of the final decision on this.
3. Because we are not meeting for the next couple of weeks, please take a moment to check your performance calendars.  Has anything changed or been rescheduled?  Please, please, please share this crucial information with your colleagues so that we can all be on the same page as we head into the next couple of months.
4. The information regarding web-based projects is due in the Google docs by the end of the semester.  (I do not have a specific date for this.)  If you have taken care of this already, many thanks!  If you still need to complete this, please do so as soon as you can.  We are required to complete one web-based lesson each semester, so the next time that we will need to submit this information will be at the end of the school year.
5. I must submit a report to Anne for our department no later than January 22, 2013.  In that report, I must include our collective thoughts on the following issues:
• Goal setting feedback:  The second quarter was our first attempt at this.  What worked?  What didn't?  What needs to be changed/improved?  (Please know that we will more than likely need to input information about this work into a Google doc at the end of the school year.  The administration is working to make this as simple and basic as possible.)
• PBIS:  What is working?  What isn't?  Are we all utilizing the Tiger Stripes?  Are we seeing an improvement in student behavior with the Tiger Stripes?
• Curriculum Mapping and Assessments:  Where are we at?  Where are we going?  Do we need anything from Anne to get our jobs done?  Anne is requesting copies of all the work that we have completed thus far to review and provide feedback on.
6. Hopefully, you have read the email from Deb McNair and Amy Hayward regarding our meeting on February 13, 2013 from 2:00 - 3:00.  This meeting is happening over two weeks later than previously scheduled.  We will need to keep moving forward so that we can stay on track to complete everything necessary for this school year.  According to T&L, we will be discussing where we are at with mapping and assessments and where we are going for second semester. I am hoping we will have prepared and ready to share:
• Curriculum maps for all performing ensembles
• Rubrics to use as part of assessment process for these courses
• Outline of end of course exam

So, what should you be doing right now?  I am glad that you asked!

1. Web-based projects into Google docs
2. Jesse, I need the choral curriculum maps typed and ready to go before January 22.  Can we shoot to get everything done and to me by next Wednesday, 1/16/13?  I need time to put everything together and still meet my deadline.
3. Everyone needs to work to create a quality assessment for the midterm based on our revised curriculum.  All of the maps are posted on Google docs and shared with everyone.  Spending time on this assessment now will definitely help us in the long run, as we are going to need to submit this midterm assessment as one of our items to be included in OTES.  
4. Put T&L meeting on your calendars.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to read all of this! :-)