First Focus/Home Group Meeting Feb 19, 2004

Introductions:

Dave introduced himself. We are going to be starting our initial self study for our school. We will have our meetings and tack them onto the end of our regular meetings. This is going to be a process that goes for 10-11 months. They will want the self study report some time in January. He introduced Eric Anderson, a new ES in January. Jack has been an ES since November and works with the Waterford Adult Group. Todd Adams has been an ES for five years. Mark has been an ES since January mainly with Waterford. Patricia is a brand new ES. Ronda has been an ES for four years. Margaret became and ES in November. Jamie Tinley has been an ES for two years.

Paula Langley is a parent and Luke is a student in 10th grade. Paula asked how she came to be part of this group. Dave explained that she was specially selected to be in the group.

Overview of the Accreditation Process:

We will be doing a self assessment presented to a Visiting Committee. They will give us recommendations that we will implement over a period of years. Dave explained the group structure of which he is the leader. Each focus group is assigned an area of school life and puts it on paper into the report.

Dave explained what WASC is and is not. It is a private organization that assesses schools and state colleges. All schools are evaluated and accredited by WASC. It is an old organization. Dave has a lot of experience in this process of self study. He does not have much experience on this document but has been a part of Visiting Teams and knows the process. It looks intimidating to schools and individuals but it is not. Getting started and assigning the activities and putting it all together is our task. Then we send it to the leadership committee.
There are several different school-wide criteria. We are each looking at school from several different points of view. Our Focus Group is assigned Assessment and Accountability. That will be test results and numbers. Collaboration is the key and we need to be open to listen to everyone. We will gather and analyze the student achievement. The numbers are easy to analyze.

A group has been working on defining the ESLR‚s for our school. There will be statements about reading and writing, science, history, etc. and then statements defining all these.

We discussed Task 4. Review the criteria and identify what evidence is needed to compare the school program with the criteria and ESLRS. He explained that we will be looking at the ESLRS and asking, „is what we are doing meeting those expectations?‰

He asked us to read through the pages and familiarize ourselves with it. He will help us see what the final product needs to look like, divide up the tasks, assign the activities and put it together.

The definition of our school is not the same as a traditional school down the street. The home group and the purpose group will probably be the same and that means we will get all the data from the same source. Because of our structure we will probably pass it around on e-mail. Having everyone‚s e-mail and checking it regularly will be important.

When the report is read by the Visiting Team they might ask any of us questions to find out how the report was put together. Their goal is to make recommendations to us. Their recommendations are not really suggestions. We will need to have them in place to extend our accreditation. We need to do what they recommend.

Dave found out about the experiences of those at our group in WASC. Both Eric and Mark had recent experience in WASC accreditation as have Ronda, Margaret, and Jamie.

Dave passed around the sign-in sheet. We all feel that what we are involved in is significant and is a good opportunity for our families. It is important to do a good job as other people judge us and our school from the self study. Homeschooling is an opportunity to help those students who can not get educated in other ways.

We will define our task more clearly next time. Next meeting is March 18th at 5PM.