TAC-February 2015
In many of the questions, editorial comments are removed
for brevity and sensitivity and only the actual question(s) are printed for
publication.
Faculty and Staff, if you have any questions regarding
matters that relate to a specific person, please see the Principal.
1A. What is the justification for paying a
stipend to a teacher for MAGPI?
MAGPI is ongoing
academic support that occurs almost every morning throughout the year. It involves multiple students receiving
additional support based on their deficits.
The teachers work directly with students during this time and plan work
for any aides who work with the students.
The supplements that MAGPI teachers receive are in line with other
supplements in the district.
Non-athletic supplements range from $14, 319 for band supplements to
$1000 for lead technology teachers.
Various supplements are given for sponsoring scholars bowl, technical
theatre, math support at all levels, science support at the secondary level,
etc.
This is a commitment
to provide tutoring for these children throughout the school year. Results have shown the students who receive
this additional assistance grow dramatically.
These efforts are aligned to doing what is best for our students. It would be inaccurate to link this to an
hourly rate because additional time is spent outside of the communicated MAGPI
hours. Teachers who provide this service
are unable to spend the time from 7:45 to 8:00 am getting ready for the day, so
they must do this at another time; therefore, it is not considered “double pay”
for that 15 minutes each day. It is
communicated that MAGPI begins at 7:30; however, the reality is that many students
arrive prior to that time, so we begin providing this help earlier. There is additional work that goes on outside
of the 7:20 – 8:00 daily window. The
MAGPI teachers spend their own time interacting with teachers, and even parents, of the students in MAGPI, either
determining what the student needs or providing feedback. The MAGPI teacher will also spend their own
time determining the work to be provided and checking the daily work as a
formative assessment. The rate for
providing these services for the year is in line with other stipends or
extra-curricular pay provided in our district.
If other teachers are qualified to provide this service, are willing to
commit to all of the duties outlined above, and be held accountable for the
growth of these students, we will be happy to put you on the list to be
considered in the future if one of the slots becomes available.
1B. Are the MAGPI
teachers teaching prepared lessons or do they work with children based on their
individual needs? If so, do they plan
for the aides that are also teaching MAGPI classes and making sure that they
have all the materials they need? How
was the cost figured?
MAGPI teachers are not
receiving supplements that are out of line with the others. See response to 2A.
1C. Were these
positions and salaries being advertised.
Positions with
supplements are not advertised. The
principal has the authority to secure appropriate personnel for those
positions. Naturally, a math teacher
would be preferable over another teacher.
Another math teacher was given the opportunity to teach during MAGPI,
but was not interested in tutoring every morning before school all year
long.
2. Could more paid
positions be put in place to challenge high achieving and average math
students?
A paid position would
depend on if funding was available to meet outside school hours. The Math Team meets for higher achieving
students-based on Global Scholar scores and teacher recommendations. Also, 4th and 5th
grades have a higher level math class.
We can discuss a Math/Literacy Club to meet possibly during intervention
for the upcoming school year.
3A. Who is supposed
to write plans for Tier 3 instruction?
Within the
Literacy area, Mrs. McGough consults and works with the Tier III
interventionist on plans for the students she serves.
Here is what the TCS RtI Handbook says
about Tier 3 interventions:
·
Who
develops the student’s goal/intervention plan?
The PST.
·
Who
provides Tier III instruction?
The PST
will determine who provides Tier III instruction.
·
When is
Tier III instruction provided?
The PST
will determine the time of Tier III instruction. The PST will consider
the student’s schedule when determining the time. It is important to note that
Tier III instruction will require the student to miss something in the
classroom. Tier III instruction is reserved for the students who need
this extra support to meet grade level expectations. The population of
Tier III should be less than 5% of the total school population.
The handbook does not address who provides
the plans for instruction. As we have gone through this process over the
past few years, it has been determined that the classroom teacher knows the
student weaknesses and is the one most qualified to provide work for their tier
3 students.
We currently have only 19 students out of
992 students receiving Tier 3 intervention which is less than 2% of our total
population.
3B. Could you please
clarify the job of the Reading Coach and Math Coach?
This question has been
answered at the December 2013 TAC meeting.
Copies are kept at the Board and in a binder in the front office.
4A. Why does the
library open at 8:45 when there is a teacher and two aides in there?
There is an
intervention group that meets in the library from 8:15-8:45 each morning.
The library serves 6 classes a day and that is our only planning period for the
entire day (both librarian and aides). The library aides shelve books,
catalogue new books, and repair old books during this time. Intervention isn’t over until 8:45 and there should
be no movement of students in the halls.
4B. Why is a child
allowed flex time every other day and not daily?
We have
1,000 students in our school, in addition to teaching 6 classes each day,
therefore making flex time every day is just not feasible. Students are
encouraged to check out two books and finish both books before coming to flex time. If
students are making good choices with their books (not choosing books that are
too easy), and are reading both books before coming to flex time, every other
day is practical.
5. Last year equal
access to the computer labs was a problem, since math teachers were scheduled
for 30 minutes each week for student to work in DreamBox. This year math teachers have 1 hour each week
instead of 30 minutes and literacy teachers have no time to be able to use the
computer labs for research, publishing writing pieces, or utilizing AR
360. Can literacy teachers have some
access to the computer labs? Can one lab
be for literacy and one for math?
Lisa and Kelly are
aware of this problem and are looking at schedules to adjust them to be more
fairly usable. Kristi is going to review
the lab sign up and cart checkout too.
There is a future Chromebook purchase that will ease some of this also.
6. Is there a way for
teachers to get some kind of break on Club Days?
The
problem is that we can never begin on time because it takes a full 10-15
minutes before everyone is all in the room. We will give them 15-20
minutes up front (for a break) and begin "exactly" 15-20 minutes
later.
7. The students need
30 minutes of physical activity every day.
On cold and rainy days, the students do not have recess or courtyard
time. Could a “Plan B” be put in place
to meet these requirements?
Check into an app for
exercise or dance and/or possibly meet with your partner teacher’s class for 15
minutes of physical activity. Once there
is a school split there will be other rooms open for different options.
8. Is there a
curriculum committee in place at TCS?
Are resources, math books, etc. a possibility for the near future?
A textbook committee
has been formed and there is a math curriculum committee in development now
headed by Beth Bruno.
9. Would it be possible
to strategically plan one E-learning day each 9 weeks or trimester to designate
as a teacher planning day or a day for parent conferences?
E-learning days are
TCS system decisions and the 15-16 school year calendar draft is out now.
10. Can we please
consider having CAD on another day of the week next year?
There isn't another
day that would work as well as Monday.
Meeting to plan for the week is best at the beginning of the week or the
very end of the week.
11. Please clarify
CAD ending times on Monday.
This is a CAD
decision. Please discuss your ending
time with your group and come to an agreement on your ending time. You may also reference the September 2014 TAC
minutes.
12. Could blog posts
be limited to Monday-Friday (8-5)? Could
all other correspondence be limited to school hours? (Family new/emergency could be an exception.)
When the Blogs are
sent out, it takes 24 hours for them to be delivered to staff. You can flag your posts with different color
flags to read at another time. Blog posts serve as one of many methods of
communication for parents and staff.
13. Is it possible
for us to go back to quarters instead of trimesters?
We initially changed
to trimesters because of the change to standards based report cards. There are pros and cons, but the trimester
gives more time between the progress report and actual report card to make
adjustments and help students close the gaps.
When the schools
split, report cards would need to be sent out at the same time for each
school. In other words, each school
would not want to send a report card to K-2 students at the end of each
trimester, and to grades 3-5 students at the end of each quarter. That conversation can begin with the primary
teachers, but I am certain they will not want to complete their comprehensive
standards- based report cards every nine weeks.
14. Will we continue
to report standards on the report card?
We will engage in
conversation regarding what is best for children (and their parents) as it
relates to reporting standards on report cards for the 2015-2016 school year.
