COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL OF VERMONT

FACULTY MEETING MINUTES

May 26, 2005

South Royalton House

South Royalton, VT

PRESENT: Richard Anderson, Dennis Bonanza, Jim Candon, Jeff Cassarino, Kathi Cassidy, Diana Chapman, Allen Clark, Wade Cole, Sheila Commo, Anne Cote, John Cross, Kris Degenhardt, Pauline Dwyer, Anne Emerson, Alan Frost, Barb Hagen, Audrey Irons, Anna Jeffrey, Dan King, Sue Kuzma, Mark Lather, Dianne Lawrence, Tod Lessard, John Long, Bob Lucenti, Paul Major, Mary McCallum, Mo McIntyre, Katherine Miller, Maryanne Murphy, Mary Poulos, Gene Rembisz, Barb Rintamaa, Bob Salzman, Bob Sattelberger, Mary Jo Scott, Bobbi Shutts, Lynn Sibley, Guy Smythe, Dave Strong, Claire Swaha, Peter VanWageningen, Bob Walsh, Tony Washburn, Tom Woods

ABSENT: Cara Berryman, Jenny Estey, Bob Holt, Mary Koen, Steve LaTulippe, Mary Nelson, Scott Tomlinson

Introductions and Announcements:

Bob Lucenti called the meeting to order at 9:40 a.m.

John Cross made a motion to approve the meeting minutes of April 28, 2005. The motion was called, and it passed unanimously.

Bob Lucenti announced the resignation of Barb Rintamaa from the Chittenden Community Site.

Bob gave a brief legislative update. The Windsor site has been given $36,000 for the construction of a greenhouse that will be built by the women at the facility. We are currently looking for an allocation of additional Special Education funding.

Bob asked the Northeast facilities how the visit with the representatives from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges went. Pauline Dwyer said that they had a nice visit with Steve LaTulippe, Dwight Davis, and the NEA representative. They toured the facility, asked questions about the facility, Special Education, secondary education, etc. Bob stated that should we get NEA approval, we will be the first "prison" education system to join the NEA. We are hoping to have more information at the September meeting and will be able to vote on whether or not to proceed at that time.

Local Site Announcements:

Anne Emerson announced that Brattleboro will be graduating six students on June 16th.

Bobbi Shutts attended an Inspiration training with Al Clark. She is very excited to be using the writing program for the first time with her students.

Pauline will be graduating Jason Ball on June 1st. Intel trainings have begun. She has six teachers enrolled.

Brattleboro has a student who has received a full scholarship to the College of Art in Beverly, Ma. She told the teaching staff that art has changed her life.

Barb Rintamaa is graduating ten students on July 14th. Four will be receiving their GED and six will be receiving their high school diplomas.

Maryanne Murphy announced that they will be receiving a new superintendent at the end of June. Their Master Gardner class is working on landscape and design and is working on a mother/child garden with different themes. The State Education Advisory Board will meet at the Windsor facility on June 1st. A panel of students has been chosen to represent the school and is prepared to present information and answer questions from the board.

Jim Candon served on an assessment team through the Vermont Adult Learning Center. He also handed out information on the Green Mountain Eagle, a newspaper by the Vermont Adult Education students and explained how students can get their work published in this newspaper.

Paul Major shared information on a conference he attended in Burlington on action coalition for media. The conference concentrated on teaching media with computers. The national conference next year will be held in Burlington with the focus on advertising.

Barb Hagen will have graduation on June 10th at Northeast State.

Mo shared that our Burlington street site teachers, Dan King, Barb Rintamaa, and Kris Degenhardt were also nominated and recognized as outstanding employees of the year.

Bob gave an update on Mary Koen's condition. She is in the hospital with pneumonia again and has had surgery to try and alleviate the infection. She is now out of the ICU and working on getting well enough to go home.

John Cross had an over abundance of marigolds that were grown and distributed to the families of deployed soldiers. They are also growing flowers to be planted at the Northern rest stops along Interstate 89 and for the town of St. Albans as well as park benches being built by the welding and wood working classes. The Governor will be presenting them with an award for their efforts on July 4th.

Mark Lather's class built an Atkins Traveler canoe and is hoping to donate it to Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, Vermont's camp for children with cancer.

Landmark College has developed a curriculum for learning disabled students in the area of biology. Al Clark presented a manual from Landmark called Biology Success that is a great resource manual for diverse learners with lots of guidelines.

Mo told the staff about a recognition from Landmark College that the State Board presented to Bob Lucenti at the last Board meeting.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Business Office - Mo McIntyre

Mo reminded staff that grades for courses taken need to be submitted to her by June 30th in order to have courses paid for. She also reminded staff that packets for the next fiscal year will be sent out by mid-June. Audrey handed out the inventory tags for each facility.

Technology Committee - Dave Strong

The Technology Committee will be meeting next week. Make sure that you give any inventory information to Al Frost before the June 3rd meeting. Five sites were represented at the current Intel training course. Jenny Estey and Al Clark are also conducting Intel trainings. There will be a drawing for an LCD projector and a laptop for those in attendance. Al Clark is currently working on setting up two trainings at Marlboro College for July or August. He is waiting on approval for use of a class room. He is also looking at conducting trainings in the Rutland area in July or August or in the fall. More information will be available closer to these dates. Al Clark will be teaching about Inspiration software at 20 sites throughout the summer. He can come to your site to teach, he feels that it is a very important, helpful course for teaching students. Al will send an email with the dates to register; you are able to receive grad credits for taking this course if you are interested. Barb Hagen announced that there will be a course offered by Jenny Estey at BFA from July 18-22 and you can contact Jenny for more details.

Curriculum Policy Committee - Barb Hagen

The curriculum manual will be coming out on CD soon and everyone will get one. It will eventually be on the web. They are expecting a mid-June delivery. The committee advised the use of GED testing for prior learning until you hear different. They are working on the prior learning procedures manual. The brochures are finished and were handed out at the meeting. Jim Candon said that the handbook should be ready by September and everyone should receive a copy electronically.

Special Education - Bob Lucenti

The Department of Education Monitoring Team was impressed with their visit and we are waiting for the written report.

Bobbi Shutts is participating in Relay For Life and is looking for sponsors.

Library Committee - Mary McCallum

Because of difficulties with trying to purchase the internet researcher software with the technology committee, the library committee chose to purchase the book Vermont Century with the excess funds for each school site.

LSB - Mary Poulos

The LSB group will meet tomorrow to finish relicensing for the year. On June 6th, Mary will attend a meeting with Jill Peck in Montpelier on electronic portfolios.

NEW BUSINESS

Curriculum Content Committee - Bob Lucenti

Bob explained that we would be looking at the By-Laws to determine how elections should be carried out and going over the guide to curriculums in the Breaking Ranks book. Bob explained that based on the PALS - Principals of Adult Literacy System, every school needs a curriculum for each core course. Based on the book Breaking Ranks and the Seven Cornerstone Strategies to Improve Student Performance, we need to develop common concepts of learning and consolidate courses to improve student performance and teaching ability. Currently there are 904 courses offered in the course manual. Today, the staff will break into focus groups and try to figure out how to cut down on the number of courses offered. Suggestions were to make "core" courses generic to allow all teachers to receive credit for teaching that particular course. Each focus group will set up common concepts for each core class offered.

Election of Officers

Katherine Miller nominated Jim Candon for Chair of the Curriculum Content Committee. John Long seconded. Anne Cote Nominated Jenny Estey. Bobbi Shutts seconded. Anne later withdrew her nomination for Jenny because Jenny was not present to accept or decline the nomination. John Cross nominated Maryanne Murphy. Barb Rintamaa seconded. Maryanne declined the nomination. Anne Cote nominated Kathi Cassidy. Kathi declined the nomination. Sue Kuzma moved to close nominations. Mary Poulos seconded. All approved. Jim Candon accepted the position of Chair of the Curriculum Content Committee. A discussion followed as to whether the Language Arts focus group needs one or two chairs. One chair for the group was agreed upon. All agreed that the first order of business for the new Curriculum Chair would be to rewrite the By-Laws. The focus groups met to elect a chair, look at common concepts for courses, and look at course work to try and eliminate duplicate courses.

Focus Group Results

Pauline Dwyer was elected Chair of the Science group. The group decided to include health in the science curriculum and is looking more into separating the science courses into General, Earth, Life, and Physical Science and creating a course description for each. They are also dividing health into physical education and health studies. It was suggested that the courses be generic with no faculty or site name listed in order to allow any faculty member to use a particular course.

Jeff Cassarino was re-elected Chair of the Math focus group. The math focus group had previously come up with 5 core course descriptions for the five core math classes: Basic Math, Pre-algebra, Algebra, Algebra II, and Geometry. As a result they went through and eliminated all the course descriptions for any and all of those five core classes that were similar to the five the focus group had come up with. They also set aside a few elective
course descriptions for "special" classes, for example the Stock Market Game. Mary Jo Scott is also drafting up a course description for an applied math course that will cover specific math such as construction math, etc...

Richard Anderson was elected Chair of the Social Studies focus group. Dave Strong volunteered to take notes. John Long reviewed the core concepts and subject areas the focus group prepared previously when he was chair. Richard suggested that we consider developing an “exemplary” World History course. The group focused on U.S. History, since that is a school requirement. It was agreed that their approach would be to identify or create a survey course from the pre-Columbian period to the present for up to two credits. John Sanderson’s course “U.S. History: Beginning to Present” was seen as a possible model, but only two of the standards it addresses – 6.4 and 6.6 – are among those identified as essential concepts by the original focus group. Standards 6.2 and 6.18 are missing. The course description would have to be revised to meet those standards, if they affirm that those are essential learnings. Mary Poulos volunteered to draft “exemplary” or generic course descriptions for Geography, Current Events, and Vermont History. The idea is that these might serve as recommended course descriptions – if you offer this course it must include these standards, as a minimum. However, the status of “exemplary” courses will need to be further clarified. A follow-up meeting was scheduled for Friday, August 5^th in Burlington at 11 am.

Katherine Miller was elected Chair of the Language Arts focus group. Since the Language Arts group is so big, they divided up into two groups. Each group
took half of the course descriptions to check them for duplicates. Guy Smythe took the Literature sub group and completed checking for and eliminating duplicates; Katherine took the Writing sub group. Each group got part way through the task of checking for and eliminating duplicates.

Bob Sattelberger was elected Chair of the Computer Studies focus group. The group went over how to divide trades from Computer classes. They also divided computer class descriptions into Keyboarding, Basic Computer and advanced classes.

Mark Lather was elected Chair of the Trades focus group. The trades group reviewed which courses would be core classes.  The two are Basic Safety and Habits of Mind.  They then split the course descriptions up among their specialties to consolidate, if possible.  They will also look at the Family and Career descriptions.

Jim Candon felt that a June meeting was needed for the Curriculum Content Committee. The date will be determined after the faculty meeting today.

Old Business

The acceptance of nominations for the Beryl Gardner award has been extended to June 26th. You can email Bob Sattelberger your nominations. You can also email him with any questions about the criteria for the award.

Tom Woods has mailed the winners of the writing/art contest. It was very difficult to choose just one. First place went to Jeremy Daley, second place was an anonymous entry, and third place went to Shane Bessette.

Annual Report: Each site and sub-committee chairs are responsible for getting a narrative and pictures to central office for the annual report. Bob will be sending out a timeline and checking on information gathered.

Mo handed out the new Budget and Purchasing Manual and advised everyone to please throw out the old one!

The meeting adjourned at 2 p.m.