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Rockwood School District

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Meeting Minutes from September 24, 2024

Meeting Minutes from September 24, 2024

8:30am

Welcome Shelley Willott, introduced herself to the committee. This is the first meeting of the school year, we last met in April.

Since We Last Met:

  • May School improvement Planning - The buildings brought teams of teachers with them and discussed their school improvement plans

  • Summer academy - Went well. Students learned a great deal and earned credit for their participation.

  • Hiring Campaign - The district used TV stations with live interviews with Dr. Cain talking about available positions specifically in child nutrition, bus drivers and custodians. Positions were also spotlighted on the district website, newspapers and billboards. We have seen an uptick in applications. Keep in mind that these are rotating positions and almost always have openings.

  • Summer Learning - Quality was great and tailored to meet teacher needs. Teacher leaders took the initiative and led the training, with data analysts and elementary coaches stepping up as well. Over 1,600 staff members were scheduled for professional development over a two-day period.  

  • ClassLink vs. Clever – We have made the merge to ClassLink. Although there have been some glitches, things are going well. Ultimately everything will be accessed in one place for everyone, even parents. Michelle Daniels is the central point of contact for our digital resources here at the annex. Reach out to her with any questions.

  • Strong start to school year - Normal start to the school year. Positive energy.

  • Planning for Prop 3  Funds - In the next few months you will see facility improvements. Information will be available in December on the district website and will have a list of projects. Technology will also see these funds for updates. 

The 2024-2025 School Year Theme is We Partner, We Plan, We Promise

The Way forward expires this year and the district is working on a new strategic plan. In addition to district employees, the strategic plan committee includes community members.  

Dr. Cain’s has been sharing the slide: Focus on Academics and Nurturing Learning. There are opportunities to do better, but we are moving forward.

Shelley explained how the following pieces fit together - District Strategic Plan/ Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP) gives us ideas of where we're going. We then have Building School Improvement Plan (BSIP), PLC/TEI Goals, Classroom Instructional Goals and Practices. They are in a straight line because they all align. Hopefully help with the question of why we are doing certain things. 

Every job in the district has a role with the district strategic plan to help students.

Shelley asked members to open their Classlink - The minutes, handouts and slides from this meeting will be housed here. 

Inclusion Activity - Keri Skeeters, Director of Curriculum and Learning, introduced herself to the members.

Each member was given a piece of paper and five minutes to compete against each other at their table. Their goal was to use the paper to make the tallest freestanding tower only using one piece of paper. 

Members shared what skills and strategies were used in the process

  • Problem solving

  • Trial and Error -  Resilience

  • Positivity and a great mindset

  • Support starts with a strong base and support along the way

  • Building good habits and positivity

These are all character building skills that can easily be used in the classroom. 

Dr. Shelley Willott, Assistant Superintendent of Learning & Support Services

Dr. Keri Skeeter, Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning

9:00am

Guiding FrameworkGuiding Framework was Introduced to students over the summer and you will see it at every RLC and other places as well.

The three essential elements, safe, supportive and collaborative culture start at the district level, buildings and in the classroom. Layered on that is effective teaching practices in every classroom and end up with guaranteed and viable curriculum.

The only way these happen well is if we have clarity, evidence and feedback on the base. We have a strategic plan so we are clear on where we are moving. We gathered evidence at committee programs that we use. 

Students need your feedback to grow and district needs information from  surveys so we can grow.

It’s not enough to just “think” or to “feel” that we have safe, supportive and collaborative cultures, or effective teaching in all classrooms, or a guaranteed and viable curriculum, we need to be certain. We need to have clarity of expectations for each of these, know what evidence we need to confirm it, and what kind of feedback we need to provide to keep growing in each area. 

John Hattie has done research on effective impact. 

Identify where you see clarity evidence and feedback in the shared video

Clarity - dad shows him what to do and the child models

Evidence - Trying to get hose to mouth then had to feel it splash on him, but keeps trying

Feedback - Ahh - that he actually got the drink, smiled, getting feedback that the water was not going where it was supposed to, looked at parents for acknowledgement. 

Employee Experience - Safe Supportive & Collaborative Culture - Glenn shared a spreadsheet that Illustrated where we started in 2023 (1st employee experience survey)

Here are a few things that we did after the survey

  • Cabinet connection: Reading assessment selection and insurance 

  • Planning Virtual Town Halls - educators can go online for these meetings

  • Increasing school day subs for professional learning or curriculum development - finally in a position that we are increasing the number of subs for learning opportunities

  • More money in the insurance fund - Rockwood increased what they were contributing to save employees money

  • Continued employees experience committee

  • Hiring  campaign success - we are missing staff in the buildings so the district went on an aggressive hiring campaign - still work to do, but there has been increased hiring

  • Creating focus through School improvement planning (May 30 date)

  • More opportunities with professional learning facilitated by teachers.

  • 28 educators in Ignite Leadership program which was double of what we have had in the past

  • Campaign of Prop 3 resulting in passage 

About the 2024 Employee Experience Survey

  • Almost double the amount of participants than last year

  • We need this information in order to improve

  • Added new domain (validation) to align with dignity and belonging.

Glenn compared how 2023 and 2024 compared. Still work to do, but we learned that we are making progress. 

“Other” group is mainly made of adventure club and community education.  

Opportunities to learn from others as to what needs to be replicated or changed. 

Glenn gave members the opportunity to review the results. Copies were placed on the tables. They can also be viewed online by clicking on the QR code. 

We will continue, but need feedback. Glenn asked members to look through the information and add comments to the sheet. Also gave them a blank sheet to add things that may be missing on the list. Collected the lists and adding them to main list.

Data Dive - Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum Members were asked to turn and talk to a partner about what you have seen so far.

  • Any new learning? How have you used in the past? 
  • What am I teaching next and how can I find out my students’ mastery to help guide my instruction?
  • I know the cohort is not working yet but I can see standard mastery of the priority standards for my class and each student.
  • Now that I know master on STAR, I can work with my team to create an activity to help guide instruction for each student. Then I can monitor progress for those students who are not at mastery. 
  • One of the ways to create activities and monitor progress is with Seesaw. Activities are already linked in the library connected to the course outcome.
  • I can see overall data for an activity including number of tries and can click right into the student’s work by clicking on their name to see their responses to help learn where to meet the needs of the student. 

 

Dr. Keri Skeeters, Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning

Glenn Hancock, Director of Research, Evaluation and Assessment

11:30am

Lunch (on your own)

12:30pm

Effective Instruction - Effective Teaching in Every Classroom

 


Dr. Keri Skeeters, Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning

1:30pm

Updates

A100

  • Technology Updates and Tech Tips and Tricks
  • Strategic Planning and Enrollment

A200

  • Principal Updates with Paul Godwin

Bob Deneau, Chief Information Officer and Team

Dr. Shelley Willott, Assistant Superintendent of Learning and Support Services

Dr. Paul Godwin, Assistant Superintendent Supervision of Elementary Education

2:30pm

Feedback/Building Time