Will hear from both schools for instructional leadership.
Issued 78 contracts for teachers and para last Thursday.
Next week will issue remaining 25 for the rest of the staff.
There are 6 current employees that we know are not returning; 2 of whom we are not inviting back and 4 of whom elected not to return.
Excited to move forward and excited about building the staff for next year. Will be posting positions next week for those we know are not returning and will follow up with positions are people make decisions.

Some teachers are having a difficult time making a decision due to the threat of WIA losing the Title I status. This effects their student loan debt.

Community dinners held last weekend. Saturday hosted by Kate and Matt Boyer and Sunday hosted by Thomas and Chris Ryan-Lawrence. At both dinners, the guests had the opportunity to get to know Jason and Wesley in a more personal way. Had a lot of good ideas from both evenings. Discussed how to move Wesley forward from a fundraising perspective and continue to create a culture of giving.

GaDOE does not have us on the March agenda due to the fact our contract has not yet been completed. We are still negotiating two areas: The weighted lottery, we would like more flexibility than 5:1 and the per pupil funding from APS, the number that was given in the contract draft is more than $1,000 lower than what we've been allocated for FY17-18.

Mazie Lynn will follow up with A. Mueller to notify of when the next board meeting is in April to try and get the final contract to us before then so our board can vote on it without an additional board meeting.

We expect to be on the May GaDOE agendas - May 2nd (committee) and May 3rd (full board with vote).

Anita Lawrence and Donica Johnson:
Presenting 3-5 data this evening. Benchmarks were finished Friday of last week. This is Quarter Three Data.
Looking at overall proficiency as oppose to growth this evening and developing a plan for improvement.
Benchmarks are not a true predictor of Milestones performance, MAAP is used for that. Benchmarks is a tool to help us prepare for Milestones.

(see attached report for detail)

Action items include changing the scheduling structure and leveling the math classes next year as well as adding additional support during math classes. Also looking at resources that we've had. Will more to more frequent benchmarks (monthly) in order to be able to make course adjustments more quickly. Monthly Star data and MAAP data shows a different story than Benchmark data being presented. Star data was presented last month.

A written action plan for the remainder of this year, next year, and a more consistent dashboard would be extremely helpful to the board.

At this point, all standards for the year have been taught. The remainder of the year is about increasing the proficiency of each standard. Passing is 70%.

Looking at various ways ti co-teach more classes with subs, etc.

Spiral review - allows us time to reinforce items that have already been taught. Starting to also give sample assessments to get the students used to a longer test and not get burnt out. Make instruction more meaningful so they retain more data.  Science Bowl and Social Studies Bowl as example.

Dr. Mason and Dr. Pullen
Benchmark 6 Data (see attached report for specifics)
Math: 8th grade math has improved over Benchmark 5. This is a result of more targeted support.
6th grade struggles with implementing ratios, particularly when presented in word problems.
7th grade struggles with items related to geometry.
Still have time to go back and reteach the standards our students are struggling with.
Standard 7 will occur next week, which is a culmination of all other standards and will be weighted the same as the questions are weighted on Milestones.

Overall total growth across all three grades is 79%. This is important because CCRPI is measured on growth and we're trending well here.

Small group math scores are considerable lower. Co-taught numbers are better, yet not where we want them to be. Small Group Math overall growth is not where we want it to be, but the groups are extremely small, so one student can account for 50% of the data.

ELA:
Benchmark 6 is trending upwards. 6th and 7th grade above 70%; 8th still lower than what we want, but trending up consistently since Benchmark 4.
6th grade has 100% growth, which is fantastic! 86% in 7th and 53% in 8th grade. Working closely with the 8th grade teacher based on data presented last month. She has been receptive and open to the feedback and looking forward to seeing the results on the next benchmark.

Small Group ELA focus is 6th grade based on the data.
Co-Taught, for the most part, trending upward. Continuing to perform better than we have in the past; still not where we want them to be though. 6th and 7th grade growth at 100%; 8th grade at 63%.

Science - Continues to trend up for all grades; all three grades pushing 80%.
Growth - 6th 94%; 7th 85%; 8th 80%

Social Studies
6th grade is the only grade with the same teacher all year long. Around benchmark 4, swapped 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teacher.
Growth - 6th grade 57%, 8th grade 93%. 7th grade not reported in document, but is 73%.

None

Anticipating the dashboard creation being presented at the May meeting.
Any ideas should be sent to Mazie Lynn via email. General concepts, benchmark tracking, CCRPI, etc. Just suggestions of what we want to keep on our radar moving forward.

Donations are due by May 1st if you have not given yet.

Next meeting is Thursday.

Had the two dinners Jason mentioned and kicking off the planning for next year's China night. Planning it being a much larger event next year.
Working on some policy around red thread to clarify who is getting what and where it's going.

Continuing to make progress developing and reviewing the financial policies. 7 of the 11 sections are completed and hope to bring the entire policy manual to the full board for a vote in April.

 

Leadership of school is starting work on FY18-19 budget as contacts come in. Looking at growing the student enrollment next year; will create a small lag to fund now until the funding comes in. Would be looking to increase 1 student per classroom.

First board recruitment interview today. Another one scheduled Monday and still working to schedule the third one.

BOT Training scheduled for July Board meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page with OKR's, agendas, minutes, etc.

Please complete Demographic data and Skill set data.

No updates this month.