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Springfield Prep

Minutes

Academic Achievement Committee Meeting

Date and Time

Thursday December 1, 2016 at 9:00 AM

Location

370 Pine St.
This meeting of the Springfield Prep Charter School Academic Achievement Committee will be held at 370 Pine St. on 12/1/16 at 9 am. Meeting notice was posted on the school's website (www.springfieldprep.org) on 11/29/16 at 9 am.

Committee Members Present

B. Spirer, K. Molina, S. Balogun, W. Soref

Committee Members Absent

K. Murphy

I. Opening Items

A.

Record Attendance and Guests

B.

Call the Meeting to Order

K. Molina called a meeting of the Academic Achievement Committee of Springfield Prep to order on Thursday Dec 1, 2016 at 9:05 AM.

C.

Approve Minutes

K. Molina made a motion to approve October minutes.
S. Balogun seconded the motion.
The committee VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.

II. Academic Achievement

A.

Academic Dashboard Review

Highlights of the committee's review of the dashboard included:
  • Economically disadvantaged numbers appear to be off; Meghan will be reaching out to her contacts at DESE to determine why these numbers are appearing so much lower than they should be.  
  • The chronically absent number is concerning.  10% means 5 absences at this point in year.  Leadership is instituting a daily attendance huddle to target these issues in the moment.  
  • Tardies have not been a focus of intervention but are still a concern.  Bill noted that he and Meghan had instituted some small changes and that they will address this at the daily attendance huddle.
STEP data was disappointing and leadership was surprised by these numbers.  Some reflections include: 
  • In 1st grade, we've worked hard to keep the bar high, so this may have impacted the comparison data from last year.
  • In K, more concerning because the assessed skills are less subjective (i.e., letters and sounds)
  • Summer PD was focused on some STEP challenges noticed the year before, but not necessarily on beginning-of-year literacy skills, which may have contributed to this.  This is a lesson learned for next year.
  • Teachers did not administer a benchmark for returning students (i.e., in August) but we plan on doing a benchmark assessment for all students next year.  This will give us more accurate data, sooner, regarding skills that may have faded over the summer.
  • ANet and STEP data overlap in many ways; the data appears very consistent

B.

Academic Achievement Committee Goals

Wendy will join the December board meeting to do an Assessment Presentation.
Sherriff noted that sharing yearly comparison data is always really helpful.

III. Closing Items

A.

Adjourn Meeting

There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 9:44 AM.

Respectfully Submitted,
B. Spirer