CW Leadership Meeting Notes

April 19, 2004

Attendance: Rolff Christensen, Chris Linder, Janet Marsh, Theresa Myers, Catherine Miller, Sherri Nelson, David Moll, Nancy Record, Cher Silva, Marsha Silva, Pat Nesbitt, Ingrid Kiehl
Facilitator: Gary Clark

Addressing Input of Focus Groups

Focus groups want to be able to see statewide and district results in the same areas. The CST and CAHSEE test can be viewed at http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ Another place to look is the Waterford School District testing site.

Focus groups want to know the importance of testing. Testing is important, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that 95% of the students be tested. State law says that parents can sign a waiver that exempts their child from testing however students with waivers are not counted in the 95%. An appeal has been sent to the Federal Government asking students with waivers to be part of the 95%. Making the 95% requirement is important because districts meeting that requirement may not want schools in their district that don’t meet the requirement.
Testing is also important for parents to see how their child is doing in comparison with other students at their level. It helps us to know how we are doing. The benchmark test will be helpful to validate standard compliance.
Our charter says that everyone must test therefore we expect everyone who is able and available to test unless they send a waiver.

Focus groups want to know how to align curriculum to state standards. Edusoft is a good tool to use to evaluate how your student is doing in meeting standards. Benchmark testing will be optional to parents but will be helpful in evaluating standard strength and weaknesses. The benchmarks presented by Chris Linder will be posted on the web. Traditional public school curriculum is already standards based but we want to prove that a student can and do meet standards with parent choice in curriculum.
It might be helpful to have a workshop for parents and Ess regarding meeting standards and specific standard based curriculum. Janet has some people in mind to do ES training on standards.
To find out what curriculum traditional public schools use look on our web,the ES Resource button, curriculum link, CDE adopted curriculum.

Focus groups had a question about speaking as part of an ESLR. Parent choice gave the option as to whether or not to do it. It has not been an emphasis and it seems more like an elective. Some parents don’t have a forum for public speaking but these parents could use their time with the ES for this purpose or oral reports can be given to parents.

Focus Group Identified Critical Need
Mathematics with a possible focus on algebra or number sense and English with a possible focus on composition are the identified subjects. We are already doing benchmarks on these subjects.

ESLRs in Support of Critical Needs
“ 1. Effective Communicators who:
-Read critically and extensively for a variety of purposes
-Write using acceptable English
-Speak clearly and listen actively
“5. Mathematical Thinkers who:
-Apply mathematical principles and operations to solve problems.
-Problem solving and functions in algebra

Rubrics for Analyzing Student Work
The definition of a rubric is a set of authoritative rules to give direction to the scoring of assessment task or activities. We need a good usable rubric that we could attach to any student sample to support the sample being a Low Med or High rating.
Gary asked for volunteers to form a small committee to develop the rubric. Sherri and Gary will meet on this and if anyone would be interested in joining them please contact Gary. It would be helpful to have someone with an English background. Sherri will try to see if she can get a copy of the writing rubric used by the district. Gary will search online for samples from the state. Rolff and Gary have math backgrounds. Jesse Vickers, Cher Silva and Roy Shimp have English backgrounds.
The plan is that Ess will collect specific samples of English and Math, rate them and turn them in possibly at the next ES meeting. Portfolios will also be turned in and made available for review. Some schools have a room full of student work portfolios. The next ES meeting is after the next leadership meeting so decisions on how samples will be collected and scored can be addressed further at the next leadership meeting.