Community Council Minutes
Time: September 7, 2017 at 7:00am
Location: Hillcrest Elementary Conference Room
| Attendees | |
|---|---|
| Debbie Brough | Kate Twohig |
| Sara Doutre | Jason Pond |
| Spencer Holmgren | Madison Cloward |
| Shelli Field | Excused: Kim Kelley |
Public Input
- Celebration - Hillcrest out-performed all other elementary schools in the district and performed very well in the state compared to other elementary schools.
- Boundary change meetings happening over the next six weeks at every elementary school. Hillcrest's will be on October 12th.
- School lunch numbers - we are about the same with our number of free and reduced lunch as we were last year, we need to keep promoting applications.
- Clarification on breakfast. Preschoolers can eat breakfast, Spencer has spoken to the cooks and all ages can come to breakfast.
Hillcrest Mission
Budget Update
- Budget system is down online.
- We have at least $7500 that we need to reallocate because the district is now paying for our science speclaist position.
Review and approval May Minutes
- Jason Pond motioned, Kate Twohig seconded the motion, all voted in favor of approving May's minutes.
Elections
- Elections were conducted and the following will serve as officers until September 2018:
- Sara Doutre, Chair
- Kate Twohig, Vice Chair
- Sheli Field, Secretary
Class sizes and allocations
- Held a discussion on how the district allocates FTEs for teachers.
- Class sizes are down at Hillcrest in all grades, but low enough in Kindergarten that we moved from four sessions to three. Ms. Melnick was offered other full-time positions but wanted to stay with kindergarten.
- The greatest need is for planning time - the kindergarten team now has no paid time for planning.
- Spencer will determine the cost of paying for extra hours, by the hour, for Ms. Melnick to pay for planning time.
- Aides are less expensive but we have an open aide position that has not yet been filled and it is hard to find good aides.
- Aide time - full-time aide is 5.5 hours of support for $10,992.41. Full time teacher for 180 days is approximately $62,000.
Other potential allocations.
- Power hour is now WIN (What I Need) hour. It can be literacy or math based depending on the kids' needs.
- Hillcrest currently has software for progress monitoring for reading but does not have a way to collect ongoing math data to determine whether students are making progress.
- Imagine Learning is the reading software we use.
- Looking at various math programs - Iceberg model looks at problems and drills down to find gaps in past skills that are causing current problems. One-time assessment that gives data about where kids are at, then teachers can track mastery.
- Proposed math software for progress monitoring - $5,000 for one-year license - Ten Marks. STAR math is a cheaper possibility but the data reports are not as useful for teachers and students.
Update on STEM meeting
- Very small turnout - 6 or 7 parents, Spencer presented requirements for getting the STEM designation. There were 38 responses to the survey.
- If we are going to move forward with the STEM designation, we will need a core team that can commit to ongoing work.
- Spencer will reach out to the 38 parents that responded to the initial survey. Feedback was that the survey was overwhelming and attending the meeting made everything much easier.
- Recommendation to have teachers invite specific parents to participate.
- Even if we don't go for the STEM designation, the process is a great opportunity for self-assessment.
- Need to notify the state of our intent to apply by October.
Next Meeting: Thursday, October 5, 7:00 am.