FACULTY MEETING MINUTES
Langevin House
PRESENT: Richard Anderson, Cara Berryman, Dennis Bonanza, Jeff Cassarino, Kathy Cassidy, Al Clark, Wade Cole, Chris Colwell, Sheila Commo, Anne Cote, John Cross, Pauline Dwyer, Anne Emerson, Alan Frost, John Gorczyk, Barb Hagen, Lisa Harrington, Audrey Irons, Debra Jaimes, Dan King, Mary Koen, Sue Kuzma, Mark Lather, Steve LaTulippe, Dianne Lawrence, Tod Lessard, John Long, Bob Lucenti, Paul Major, Nikki Marabella, Eric Marchese, Mary McCallum, Mo McIntyre, Katherine Miller, Maryanne Murphy, Mary Nelson, Tom O'Toole, Mary Poulos, Gene Rembisz, Bob Salzman, Bobbi Shutts, Guy Smythe, Dave Strong, Claire Swaha, Scott Tomlinson, Peter VanWageningen, Bob Walsh, Tony Washburn.
ABSENT: Jim Candon, Diana Chapman, Jenny Estey, Broni Plucas, Bob Sattelberger, Sharon Strange and Tom Woods.
Introductions and
Announcements:
Bob called the meeting to order at
Roll Call was taken.
Barb Hagen introduced Tom O'Toole. Tom is our new special
educator in
Dan King introduced Debra Jaimes and Nicki Marabella. Debra has been an adjunct at the Burlington Probation and Parole site for about eight years and is our new correctional instructor at Burlington P & P. Nicki is our new vocational coordinator at the Burlington P & P.
John Cross made a
motion to accept the meeting minutes of February 23, 2006. Dave Strong seconded
the motion. The motion was called, and it passed unanimously.
New Business -
Student Motivation
There was a discussion on student motivation. How do we teach self-motivation and responsibility to our students? There is a need to personalize a program process for students to keep learning from becoming too mechanical. Personalization is connected to motivation. A self-assessment needs to be developed that allows educators to ask students basic questions, who they are, what they like, what their personal motivational keys may be. Bob handed out a chart called Self-Control Development Continuum. It is divided into four stages that address a student's behavior, reasoning and goals from impulsive and needing routines, to self-initiating routines and motivation. It provides a framework that educators can use to assure the students' ability to be self-regulating. Bob's overhead titled Self-test Characteristics of Achievers explains how self-motivation and self-control are learned behaviors that develop with practice, experience and training. You need to watch out for motivational pitfalls like faulty praise, threats, clichés, etc. when helping your students to learn self-motivational skills. These pitfalls can seriously deter their desire to gain self-motivation and responsibility. School related problems that lead to a lack of motivation can come from many sources. Home/residence problems can hinder a student's ability to get to school and stay focused. A teacher's personality or ineffectiveness as an instructor can leave a student feeling like nobody cares, lowering their self-esteem and losing their motivation for wanting to attend school. Bob asked that focus groups concentrate on student motivation, self-assessments and looking to avoid the pitfalls. He would like to see more self-assessments being done with students. Pauline asked if self-assessments could be updated to see where students are at down the road. There are no such tests at the moment. Bob stressed talking to the students and finding their motivation. John Gorczyk asked if the grad plan was enough of a self-assessment to track their motivation and goals. Bob replied that the grad plan is not personalized enough because it carries its own requirements for graduation that all students need to complete. Maryanne suggested that the HOM self-rating scale could be used to determine motivational characteristics. Bob shared a list of motivators that were either personal/from within or from outside sources. The chart could be used to determine a student's motivation. Dan commented that students are afraid of failure which in turn prevents them from motivating toward a goal. Mary Nelson commented that a connection with teachers is essential because of the instability of students' movement making motivation very difficult.
Old Business -
Focus Groups
The focus groups met and came back with a report out:
Pauline reported for the science focus group. They split up into two teams to work on writing the draft narratives for standards four, five and six and should have it done by the April faculty meeting.
Mark reported that they finalized the notes for standards four, five and six in the trades group, has assigned a scribe and are still working on the descriptions for the core courses.
Cara and the fine arts/foreign languages group are working on finalizing course descriptions. They divided the standards into groups so that they could work with all the sites. They will be meeting on April 14th, to finalize course descriptions.
Jeff announced that the math group was finished with the narratives for standards four, five and six and will be emailing them to everyone.
Sue announced that the social studies group has completed standard four and they have started five. They have assigned a scribe and will be meeting again on April 10th.
Katherine and the language arts group has finished standard four and are almost finished with standard five.
The language arts focus group asked if they could leave the meeting to work on their standards. A discussion ensued as to whether it would be a good idea for these nine to miss part of the faculty meeting to continue their work.
Mary Nelson made a
motion to allow the language arts focus group to leave the faculty meeting for
a time to work on standards five and six. Debra Jaimes seconded it. Discussion
ensued and an amendment to the motion was made. The amendment to the motion allows the focus group to leave the meeting
after new business on stipend training and the business office report. The
motion was called with the amendment and it passed unanimously.
New Business -
Stipend Training
How do we build collegiality and congeniality among the faculty? "Parallel Play" in the local schools leads to adversarial relationships. What if faculty members travel to other facilities and observe classes and have follow-up discussions about practices? A discussion was had about using visits as a type of stipend training, length of visit, number of visits, etc.
John Cross made a
motion to try the classroom visits for next quarter, report back and adjust as
necessary. Mary Nelson seconded it. The motion was called and passed.
Business Office
Report - Maureen McIntyre
The end of the third quarter is tomorrow, March 31st. The spending deadline will be May 5th. Some sites still have a lot of funds at this time. Please let central office know soon if you don't think you will be spending your site's allocation. This will allow us to share any surplus with other sites whose funds are exhausted.
The Language Arts focus group left the meeting at this time to resume their meeting.
At this time, Bob handed out a copy of a newspaper article as a point of interest, about using adjuncts in the school setting.
School
Announcements
In March, Bob, Stephan and the steering committee met with members of the NEASC committee, Rick Hilton, Sam Robinson and Erin Pike-Mayo. They visited the St. Johnsbury facility, street site and Work Camp. Bob stated he was disappointed with the. There was a concern that at least one member of the team was more interested in the Department of Corrections and not the CHSVT. They didn't want to know about the curriculum or school related programs. Dan Florentine, Assistant Superintendent at Northeast Regional Correctional Facility, did a wonderful job explaining the CHSVT to the NEASC members, and hopefully, steered them in the right direction toward the school and away from corrections.
Bob recently attended a meeting of the Vermont Principals Association on the topic of high school sports and whether or not our CHSVT students were welcome to play on their local schools team. Approximately twenty local schools were present and most are more than willing to allow our students to join their teams. A few faculty members have had negative responses from their local schools. It was determined that schools will vary on their position, and it should be looked at on a case by case basis.
Bob, Steve and Alan F. recently attended the Correctional
Education Association conference in
Steve commented that Tom Wood's article The
Old Business -
Internet Access
Due to security concerns about the on-line library, it is
not a good resource for students at the CHSVT sites. A report on the site
determined that although the library itself was secure, there was no control
over the outside sources when surfing the web, making it inappropriate for our
use. New technology is becoming available that may allow for access to the web
by securing pages on the library server. We will continue to observe this new
technology as it becomes available. Another suggestion was to give staff
greater access with their own computers so that they could download more information
for their students.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Local Standards
Board - Mary Poulos
Next meeting will be tomorrow, March 31st; we will be discussing portfolios and IPDPs. Please make sure that you get your information into the LSB if you haven't already. There will be another meeting in April to work on electronic portfolios. The Plan of Operation will be looked at and tweaked as necessary.
Title One - Bob
Walsh
Bob handed out information on Title I - Part D and gave a
brief explanation of the information regarding the assessment tool. Basically,
our program is based on Title I - Part D as all of our youth are neglected,
delinquent, or at risk. The Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) was piloted in
four sites to determine whether it would be beneficial to replace the WRAT
tests. The committee concluded that the WRAT could be replaced with the TABE (or
some other test) to allow one single test that could be used for screening
course placement and pre/post testing. Possible replacement of the WRAT will be
discussed with the faculty at a future meeting. Mary K. announced that there
are copies of the TABE in central office if anyone is interested in using it. Dave
S. asked if we should consider the Title One committee an official committee
with its own mission statement and official committee members. Bob stated that
now that the sub-committee was recommending one assessment school wide, that
their issue should be given to the Assessment Committee, created by the NEASC
Steering Committee, for review. This will also be discussed at a future faculty
meeting.
Technology
Committee - Pauline Dwyer
The technology committee has almost completed the student
computer inventory. Karl Sklar met with the committee yesterday and is making
his way around the state taking care of the student computer labs. Training for
the RM Math Framework software and white boards will be held on May 5th. More
information as to times and place will follow. The next technology meeting will
be held in
Curriculum
Committee - Barb Hagen
Please check your education files against the file locator and make sure they are in the right place. If you have a file and it is not in the database, transfer it to yourself so that it can be found. This needs to be done in the next week or two. Over 300 surveys regarding quality education at CHSVT have been received from students from various sites. Thanks for all your cooperation. The data from the surveys should be available by the April faculty meeting. The preliminary outcome seems to be positive.
Library Committee
- Mary McCallum
Library orders were approved at the last committee meeting.
Thanks for getting your orders in on time and doing orders on-line if able.
There was one mystery order with no name on it. If it belongs to you, please
let the committee know. All the reference books have been ordered and
distributed. All library orders are due today, March 30th. Make sure that you
get them in if you haven't already. All orders that have been submitted have
been approved. Don’t forget to put the word library in the
Special Education
- Mary Koen
Mary handed out an informational pamphlet called Disability
Etiquette written by Secretary of State, Deb Markowitz. There are more
copies available at central office. The new special education manual was printed
by Scott Tomlinson's graphic arts class in
Local Site Announcements
Mary Poulos informed the faculty about nominating an educator for the Martha O'Conner award. This award is given to a distinguished educator each year. If you are interested in more information, you may contact her or look on the Department of Education website.
Alan Frost has sent out the new manual of electronic record keeping practices. If anyone is having trouble downloading it, contact Alan for a copy. There are a few changes in class registration. Alan will be sending information via email for steps to end the quarter. Feel free to contact him with any questions.
Make sure you get your fourth quarter teaching forms to Steve and Mary soon.
Katherine announced that the New York Times featured some CHSVT adjuncts with an article about an origami class that they taught.
John Cross made a
motion to adjourn the meeting. Debbie Jaimes seconded it. The meeting adjourned
at
Respectfully Submitted,
Sheila Commo