In case you missed it, here's a recap of last night's meetings:
Education Committee:
No new additions will be made to curriculum in the upcoming school year given that the last few years have been tumultuous.
All monies requested are for non-math related expenses except for $230,000 that was requested materials for high school pre calc and calculus.
Starting in the 2023-24 all 6th grade Reading and Language Arts classes will move to heterogenous grouping. This change will expand to 7th and 8th grades in the following years. The reason for the change is bring classroom practice more in line with research/best practices. (Heterogenous grouping means that students will no longer be segregated by reading level; instead, students of all levels will be placed in the same classroom at the same time.)
The district will be offering a Biliteracy Seal: the seal "encourages students to study and attain proficiency in English and another world language to promote civic and global engagement. It also demonstrates that biliteracy and bilingualism are academically challenging endeavors. By earning the Pennsylvania Seal of Biliteracy, students demonstrate readiness to engage in the global community."
A chunk of time was devoted to dissecting data regarding the new LUNCH AND LEARN period that was implemented this year at the high school level. Homeroom has been eliminated, and time has been taken away from every class period (6 minutes? 8 minutes?) in order to create the Lunch and Learn period.
This is year one of a multi year rollout for this program. No details were given about how this program will evolve.
The top priorities identified by the district for this program: 1) intervention for students who need extra help and enrichment for students who need to be challenged; 2) that every student would have a lunch period; 3) that teachers would have time allocated daily for collaboration.
So how is this program working?
The data presented at the meeting was gathered from student, parent, and teacher surveys. However, data was presented from only 4 questions on the survey. Where are the other questions and what are we missing? The data was aggregated for all the high schools together. Why was the data not broken down by school?
19% of students are using Lunch and Learn to meet with teachers.
25% of students are using the time for academics. (Study hall?)
35% are using the time to each lunch.
61% are using the time to socialize. (Juniors and Seniors may leave campus during this time.)
47% are using the time to de-stress.
Teachers were asked if they find Lunch and Learn to be of value.
While 50% of teachers reported that while they appreciate the time to plan collaboratively, they also reported that 30 minutes per day is too short a time period to accomplish much.50% of teachers find Lunch and Learn helpful;
50% don't think it's working.
In fact, 20% of teachers strongly disagree, meaning that Lunch and Learn is not helpful. (See page 51)
57% of teachers agree that the classroom environment is better than last year. What does "better" mean? This is highly subjective at best.
The tracking of students was not discussed, however this product was mentioned so perhaps the district is collecting additional data on students beyond the survey data?
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