Loading...
Minutes 08-22-13 MINUTES OF THE EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD MEETING HELD ON AUGUST 22, 2013, AT 6:00 P.M., IN CITY HALL COMMISSION CHAMBERS, 100 E. BOYNTON BEACH BLVD., BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA PRESENT: Steve Waldman, Chair Mary Morera, Vice Chair Sherri Claude, Board Liaison Carla Colebrooks Carol Lundquist Loretta Wilkinson Dr Tiffany North Jeanne Heavilin Gerline Christophe, Alternate Lourdes Paola Alvarez, Student Voting Member Kellsie Kershaw, Student Voting Member Dawson Charles Hagger- Lendoiro, Student Non - Voting Member ABSENT: Hattie Miller I. Call to Order Chair Waldman called the meeting to order at 6 06 p m Self - introductions were made II. Pledge of Allegiance /Moment of Silent Reflection The members recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, followed by a moment of silent reflection III. Approval of Minutes of May 23, 2013 Sherri Claude pointed out a correction on page three in regards to the Shred- A -Thon. The sentence that reads the event only needed to be advertised in the Palm Beach Post should be deleted This is not the only way it is advertised Motion Chair Waldman moved to approve the minutes as amended. Ms Wilkinson seconded and the motion was approved unanimously. IV. Approval of Agenda Chair Waldman added an item to the agenda under Old Business "D" — Adopt -A- Classroom Motion Chair Waldman moved to approve the agenda as amended The motion was seconded by Ms. Wilkinson and approved unanimously. 1 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 V. Announcements /Presentations /Correspondence A. Presentation: Common Core Standards (Jennifer Jones and Mickey Banek of the Department of Elementary Education) Mr. Banek began the presentation of The Common Core State Standards which were adopted by the State of Florida into law The Common Core Standards are aligned with college and work expectations for our students to be able to meet the expectations to be successful in college and the workplace. The Standards will also be very rigorous to raise the expectations for our students to be able to engage in rich and challenging real world type problems This is what the rest of the world is doing, especially those countries that are out - performing the United States That is a guide used to base the standards on in order to be successful and help the American students surpass other countries in the world. The Common Core Standards initiative was put together by the National Governors Association and the Chief States School Officers, which are the Superintendent's Association. The Standards tell students what they are expected to know and be able to do, but it does not tell teachers what they are expected to teach. The expectations are outlined but the stepping stones to get to those expectations are up to the teachers The standards are grounded in real world relevancy, not just to learn things in text books This initiative was important because each state had its set of academic standards and the Common Core Standards are meant to unify a national set of standards. All students are expected to compete with their peers across the country and across the world. There are 45 states that have adopted the Common Core Standards Some think that adopting the Common Core Standards will bring all State Standards down to the lowest common denominator The Common Core writers looked at the highest expectations that were built in past State standards and they made that the benchmark that all states had to reach, and in most cases they surpassed them. The Florida State Standards that we adopted in 2007 were a guide for much of the mathematic standards that were written Common Core Standards were written in a top -down design with the end goal being college and career readiness so the learning progressions were built for the students to have that strong conceptual understanding and move through the progressions of learning. The second grade students will be taking the Common Core assessment in the next school year 2014 -2015 In 2011 -2012, there was full implementation of the Common Core Standards for English, Language Arts and Mathematics in kindergarten The following year, 2012 -2013, it was full implementation for kindergarten and first grade In this present school year, 2013 -2014, there is full implementation, K -2 grade, but also a blended curriculum for grades 3 -12. Students will be learning the Common Core Standards but will also be assessed on the FCAT. In 2014 -2015, there will be full implementation, K -12, with the Common Core Standards and then on Common Core Assessment. At this time, the State of Florida is not sure which assessment they are adopting They are looking at PARCC Assessment or the Smarter Assessment Balance Consortium The learning progressions for mathematics are to prepare the students to be algebra ready. Traditionally students have been unsuccessful with algebra and the Common Core Standards are meant to help students to be better prepared to pass. Students will engage in rich problem 2 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 solving tasks that are grounded in the real world so that they do ultimately realize math exists outside the classroom The third practice is to construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Students will have deep mathematical conversations with the teacher and their peers The fourth practice is to model with mathematics where students are using manipulatives to model real world math The fifth practice is to use appropriate tools strategically. Students will be able to realize the best tool for the job The sixth practice is to focus on precision Students will be precise with their mathematical communications using appropriate vocabulary and they will also be precise in their calculations Practices seven and eight are very similar where they deal with patterning, looking for and making use of structures where they see patterns that occur in the real world In practice eight students will realize that they can use a method for solving a problem that they have used before so that there is a pattern to solving problems. Palm Beach County teachers are being trained to engage with the Common Core Standards by upside down teaching This means that they will be starting with a rich word problem and show the students all the skills they need to solve that real world type problem. Chair Waldman and the Board asked the following questions. 1. Who makes up the Common Core questions? There are two testing consortiums across the country The first one is PARCC, (The Partnership for Assessment for Readiness of College and Careers). At this time there are 19 states that are part of the PARCC consortium for testing Florida has not decided which consortium to choose. The other is the Smarter Balanced Assessment consortium and there are about 20 states involved with that one. Other states have developed their own Common Core type assessment. 2 Are there any actual real -life classroom teachers involved in making up these test items? Each test item goes through a vetting process to make sure they are on the proper level and that they are valid and reliable according to statistics 3 Will there be any classroom teachers involved in these assessments? The State of Florida is creating its own test bank in order to help the teachers and students be prepared for the role out of a Common Core assessment and these items are being written by classroom teachers across the state 3 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 4 Ms Morera remarked that it was her understanding that in the FCAT they were cutting down on free response type questions because of the grading difficulty involved She asked how you will go about grading a free response math question with so many students taking these tests. There will be questions of multiple choice, but there may be multiple answers to the same question so they would have to choose all the correct answers that apply to that problem Turnaround time in being able to grade these tests is still up for discussion 5 How much training is being done? There is a lot of training happening at the District level, but Ms. Jones will be better able to answer the questions about reading specifically For mathematics, multiple trainings in each area of the school District are being offered for every grade level and there was training all summer long on the Common Core Standards to help teachers to be prepared for what is coming. Chair Waldman commented that he has read there are about nine states that have opted out of the Common Core Standards. However, Florida has adopted the Standards Mr Banek responded that this is true and added that he has had a few conversations with the Chancellor of Education and she is completely on board with the Common Core Standards. 6 What plans do they have to make Common Core comparable to what we are doing right now with access points in special education? "Content connectors" have been created but it is the same alignment to the access points They are in draft form and they are under public review They can be found on the Core Standards website at Corestandards.org. 7 Are these presented strictly as smart board material or are they going to be in text books? At this time, the School District has adopted a Common Core aligned textbook so all students, K -5, have a Common Core textbook Secondary education is presently under a textbook adoption year, so they will be adopting a Common Core aligned textbook next year The second part of the presentation was done by Ms Jennifer Jones who discussed the English Language Arts for the Common Core States Standards which are organized into six clusters; literature informational text, foundational skills, writing, speaking, listening and language. There are 10 anchor standards for reading They represent an elevation in the expectations for students over what used to be A great deal of training of teachers across the districts has occurred and they have kept with a balance literacy approach which has been in our district for about 15 years Teachers are being asked to provide different experiences around reading with their students every day They should read aloud using text that is more difficult than what the students can read on their own as well as using books that the kids can read at their level They are being encouraged to do independent reading with their students because we know from reading research, matching 4 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 students appropriately to level text is the best and fastest way to help them build their ability as readers They are engaging the students in complex thought Although students should be able to answer questions from text, they should also to be able to think beyond and be able to infer, synthesize and make connections to predict They will be able to do the deepest level of analysis in critique and analyzing from the earliest grades, even from kindergarten. They can apply this kind of thinking to texts that are written at their level The Common Core is very much about critical literacy and integrating literacy across subject areas These also lend themselves to social studies, science and math, as well as literature and informational text Teachers are working on understanding text complexity and what makes a text difficult Quantitative gives us a readability formula that is simplistic and usually based on a sentence link, sometimes the number or syllable of a word Qualitative measures take many more things into account such as what students need to know in order to be able to understand, as well as how the text is written, and what are the language patterns that we see Students are often reading books that are way above their ability to understand because they are able to say the words The Common Core expects that students will be able to think very deeply about the text they are reading, and the text needs to be appropriately difficult. This is a gap being addressed in order for the students to be prepared and to meet the demands of the Common Core Ms Jones asked if there were any questions about Reading or Language Arts. 1 What happens to the kids who don't speak English when they come to this country? What about the kids that have been here for a few years who will find it harder to learn? Within the district for many years, there has been concern about the needs of English language learners Language acquisition takes time. There are programs in place to support English language learners There are student progression guidelines which students are subject to including ELL students, but for those who are recently in the country or within the first two or three years, there are different standards because language acquisition takes time When students are not developing as expected or as would normally be the case, there could be an underlying issue that needs to be addressed but it cannot be addressed unless it is assessed and we know what the issues are. Beginning in the next school year, 2014 -2015, there will be a move towards a Common Core Assessment for grades 3 -11, with intermittent end of course exams aligned to certain courses like Algebra I, and moving towards an Algebra II assessment This year there is also an end of course assessment for Civics Administrator and teacher training is being provided on effective instructional practices and aligning instructional materials to help teachers be ready to deliver the instruction The next steps are to continue the professional development This school year, the Common Core full implementation will be place in grade two and providing professional development to grades 3 -10 with a blended curriculum. The focus will be on the standards when assessing students in order to inform parents how their children are progressing in meeting those 5 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 standards Much of the information about the Common Core Standards has come from the Council of Great City Schools which has created informational videos that have been shared with parents on the School District website so that they can access information about the Common Core Standards. They were published in English and Spanish. In addition to the roll out of the Common Core Standards, a Standards Based report card has been implemented for those grade levels that are part of the full implementation of the Standards. The students will have a true picture of how they are mastering those standards and be able to share their progress with their parents. 2 How do we access the teacher in the classroom? You have to go into that classroom on more than one occasion to see how this is progressing How are the administrators being trained to evaluate'? All veteran teachers, outside of their two years of teaching, will have multiple evaluations and there has been much professional development, not only for the administrators, but also professional development for the teachers For the first and second year teachers, they are going to have twice as many evaluations to make sure they are delivering good instruction and maintaining that safe environment in the classrooms Ms Colebrook commented that they used the Marzano model, and the administrators did come in more than once. Ms Wilkinson was concerned there has been discussion about teachers being more creative and being able to do all of this, completely contradicting everything that Marzano stands for. If the Principals and Assistant Principals are coming into the classrooms with specific things they are looking for in order to evaluate their teachers, all of the creative thinking that was discussed earlier doesn't work Mr Banek responded by saying that Principals are looking for teaching actions that have shown through research to be successful Through the 41 indicators on the Marzano frame -work, those are the different teaching moves that Principals are looking for. Chair Waldman said he was concerned that when there is a "checklist ", observation is not occurring They need to be more open to some of the things that are being suggested It is going to have to be a large paradigm shift to get administrators out of an old mold to a new mold of observing, as well as for the teachers Mr Banek responded that in addition to the checklist, there has to be an open line of communication between the teachers and the administrators 3 How about social studies? What would be done with the Common Core Standards on the High School level? One of the requirements of the Common Core is to increase the reading of informational text, such as newspapers or non - fiction texts, Declaration of Independence and comparing that to the Rights of Man in France. Teachers are being trained to really look closely at students and what they are currently able to do, and how they are going to help them bridge that gap. One of the very best ways of doing 6 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 that is to provide text at their level and increasing the complexity as they are able. In order to do that, teachers are going to have to be very good at assessment, as well as understanding the demands of the standards because in some cases it is quite a bridge to gap There are some programs in place for ESC, ELL students and third graders who don't perform well on FCAT, we have summer reading academy, and all of those are helping with that. 4 Are they doing away with the letter grades all the way through high school eventually? The standard base report card presently is grades K -2, and the plan is to go to K -5, but to progress no further. The concern has come from the parents and the Academic Advisory Council at the District that parents are worried about GPAs and student admissions into college. At this time there are no plans to take it beyond elementary school 5 Is there parent training as far as the report card goes keeping in mind some parents don't speak the language? That is the message that is being shared with the teachers as they are training for the Standards Based report cards The District has created literature in parent brochures in English, Spanish, Creole and Portuguese. Parents will have the information on how their child is being assessed on the report card In addition, the Department of Curriculum has put together vodcasts so that parents can get the information about the report card in an audio format for easier understanding 6 When is the teacher training taking place and how does it affect the teachers? Training is going on at this time There will be some ongoing training throughout the District over the next coming weeks 7 How long is the training session? The School level module training is approximately one or two hours. VI. Public Audience Chair Waldman announced the presence in the audience of a board member, Tiffany North Laura Orloff, representing Boynton Reads, is part of a group of community partnerships in its second year that have come together to increase literacy in the City of Boynton Beach. The group supports the five East Boynton Beach elementary schools which include Forest Park, Galaxy, Rolling Green, Poinciana and Crosspointe. In the first year, the goal was to get books into the hands of children Many of the children on the east side of Boynton Beach do not own a book Book drives throughout the City were held with Barnes and Noble's support, WXEL, the Firefighters and many others. Each child received at least one or two books to take home for the summer This year, there are two goals, making sure the children attend school every day, and getting there on time Many of the children in East Boynton come to school every day, but they are late There is an effort to work with many business partners and additional partners to provide incentives to get the children to school The children and also their families will be rewarded because it is a family effort There are commitments from Barnes and Nobles and 7 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 Subway and at the end of the year, for every family who was there every day and on time, the Boynton Beach Firefighters have offered to provide a gourmet dinner for all those families, up to 10 people per family, five times for each school. The second goal continues from last year, and that is to provide students with books. It was done once at the end of the year, but the goal this year to do it three times during the year. Every child at Forest Park, was given one book on the first day of school to welcome them. An effort will be made to do it at winter break and again at the end of the year. In addition to that, Boynton Reads is always looking for volunteers for tutors and business partners. Ms. Orloff said the next meeting of Boynton Reads will be on September 10 4:00 p.m. at the Boynton Beach City Library in the back room. Ms. Wilkinson volunteered to attend the meeting. Chair Waldman moved the agenda forward to the Adopt -A- Classroom item. The board adopted a couple of schools last year. Ms. Wilkinson confirmed the board adopted classrooms at Forest Park and Galaxy. Ms. Orloff reported that she is a reading coach at Forest Park and deals with Kindergarten through fifth grade. However, she is concerned about the needs of the entire school Motion Ms. Lundquist moved that we give $100 to Forest Park. Ms. Wilkinson seconded the motion that unanimously passed. Motion Ms. Wilkinson moved to earmark that money specifically for the reading program at Forest Park. The motion was seconded and unanimously passed. Ms. Morera advised although her son goes to Congress Middle school, there would not be a conflict of interest with her suggestion to donate to that school since her son's classroom is not in need of the money. Ms. Morera's friend volunteers in the lower level science classrooms and reported they are struggling. Motion Ms. Wilkinson moved to donate $100 to Congress Middle School. She noted there are no other middle schools within the City limits. Ms. Morera seconded the motion that unanimously passed. Ms. Wilkinson reported that St. AloysiuG Santaluces houses children from Boynton Beach and she inquired if the Adopt -a- Classroom program works only with public schools. Ms. Colebrooks responded that it applies to charter schools. Motion 8 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 Ms Wilkinson moved to donate $100 to the South Tech Prep The motion was seconded by Ms Colebrooks Ms Colebrooks reconfirmed that the donation was going to South Tech Academy High School and not South Tech Prep since that is a different school. A vote was taken and the motion was passed unanimously. At the request of the Chairman, Ms Colebrooks volunteered to contact the principals of the three schools that will receive the donations. VII. New Business A. Sister Cities International Conference Report (Kellsie Kershaw) Ms Kershaw reported on the different sessions during the conference At the first one, the key note speaker was the Ambassador for Indonesia. He was born in Japan and grew up in Virginia. He started as the dishwasher in the Embassy where he is currently the Ambassador Two groups were formed and a committee group. Ms. Kershaw was the United States and Food Security for her group. The U.S Diplomat, Steve DeMunico spoke with the group. He works in the office that Hilary Clinton started three years ago and came in with the Obama administration There was a special session about sports diplomacy and one key note speaker was Ross Davis, a Paralympics athlete who won in Sydney. He showed his gold medal and heard an emotional story During the mock U N simulation, they had two tables in the middle of the room and two different countries were seated at the center. The Food Security had two topics for which they had to come up with solutions. The two topics were Safe Water Future and how to feed everyone without spiking costs. There was discussion back and forth and it was a good lesson For the U S. there were two representatives There were also other committees like The World Health Organization, General Assembly and Client Control The one that had the most discussion at the mock U N meeting was World Health Organization There was an award ceremony at the end of the conference and Ms Kershaw received an award for Distinguished Delegate — "Youth Leadership Summit 2013 Best Delegation" Chair Waldman commented that Ms. Kershaw was doing Common Core during the conference. Chair Waldman asked how many kids attended the conference and Ms Kershaw responded that over 50 kids mostly of the United States attended Chair Waldman inquired if Ms. Kershaw was going make this presentation to the City Commission Ms Kershaw responded that she would send to presentation to Ms Claude who will link it to everyone Chair Waldman felt Ms Kershaw should talk to the City Commission since Mayor Taylor donated funds to it and felt it would be appropriate to go before the City Commission and tell them about her experience 9 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 Jeanne Heavilin of the Boynton Beach Sister Cities Program, reported it was a delight to have Kelisie attend. She represented the City very well. Ms. Heavilin said she heard that the United States was given kind of a hard time but Ms. Kershaw handled it very well. Ms. Kershaw responded that China and the U.S. went back and forth a lot. Ms. Heavilin pointed out that Ms. Kershaw learned negotiation and diplomacy. There were over 500 people attending the conference from 25 different counties. They actually ran several summits concurrently. One was the Youth Leadership. There was also an International Environmental and Urban summit. The different tracks they had included communications, exchanges and partnerships, fund raising and economic development. Ms. Heavilin asked Kelisie for her opinion on whether Sister Cities should continue sending youth each year. Ms. Kershaw said it was a really good experience, especially to come back and share the experience with everyone. Ms. Heavilin announced that Sister Cities will continue doing this every year. However, a process will be put into place for next year. Perhaps a couple of scholarships can be offered after an application process. Ms. Heavilin will seek Chair Waldman's help with this. Chair Waldman agreed to help. Ms. Heavilin commented that the next conference will be in San Jose at the end of July or first of August and asked if the board would help create a criteria for the process of recruiting the candidates that will attend. Chair Waldman replied that the board would help but needed ground rules of what were Ms. Heavilin's expectations for the process. Chair Waldman asked if more than one candidate would be going and Ms. Heavilin replied that she would like more than one student to go. She will reach out to Ms. Gonzalez at Recreation and Parks Department PARCC's Youth Leadership Program for assistance. Chair Waldman commented that they would contact Ms. Gonzalez and perhaps donate funds to the program. The City Commission will be contacted for their help as well. Ms. Wilkinson said that the Borovy scholarship is used, and there may be a template that some of the Kiwanis clubs use also. The Borovy scholarship is more an essay type of application with just a few questions about community service. Ideas can come from the other one. Ms. Wilkinson will send the information to Chair Waldman. Ms. Heavilin mentioned that she would like to get the information out earlier in the year so that families would have time to prepare and to perhaps do a joint fund raiser. Ms. Heavilin went on to talk about the Young Artists and Young Authors for 2014. The theme will be; "Connect Globally, Thrive Locally ". This is the tag line for Sister Cities International. Information will go out by the middle of September to all the schools so they can incorporate it into curriculum. On Wednesday, August Au ust 28 th , Sister Cities is having a webinar on their Sister Schools p rograms at 5:00 p.m. and it is free. Go on their website under "event's" then webinars /join. 10 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 Ms. Heavilin continued that there was a strategy workshop last week and the new mission statement should prompt international exchanges to connect globally and thrive locally. There are goals and projects that are being worked on. There was a meeting with a member of the Haitian consulate about the Haitian government's role in Sister Cities Chief Carter from the Fire Department will be sending surplus equipment Some officers will go to do some training and possibly on -line training ahead of time B. Renaming of Tennis Carnival in Memory of Phyllis Stern Phyllis Stern, a former Board member and a member of the Community Relations Board, passed away. Ms Stern started the Tennis Carnival at Hunters Run and her family wishes to continue it Donations so far total $275 and there is a scheduled meeting with Ms. Stern's daughter where more donations are expected. Ms. Stern was always concerned with children who had less opportunity. She will be missed Motion Chair Waldman moved to rename the Tennis Carnival in memory of Phyllis Stern to be called "The Phyllis Stern Memorial Tennis Carnival" Ms. Wilkinson seconded and the motion was passed unanimously C. November /December meeting dates Ms Claude spoke about the upcoming meetings. Ms. Claude suggested cancelling the November meeting and rescheduling the December meeting to December 05 Chair Waldman approved the December 5 th date No vote was necessary VIII. OLD BUSINESS A. Shred -A -Thon Ms Wilkinson gave an update on the Shred -A -Thon event Suggested dates to Micro Shred are October 19 and April 19 They tentatively agreed to April 19 just in case and October 19 is confirmed. Ms Claude commented that as soon as Micro Shred returns the completed documents promotion of the event can begin. The fee will remain the same as last year at $500 Chair Waldman reminded Ms. Wilkinson to contact the school to confirm the date Ms Wilkinson will contact the school B. Youth Volunteer Bank Ms. Claude replied that there was nothing to report at this time. Chair Waldman skipped the fund raising item since there was already discussion of the Shred - A -Thon 11 MEETING MINUTES EDUCATION AND YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA AUGUST 22, 2013 XI. Adjournment Motion There being no further business to discuss, Ms Wilkinson moved to adjourn. Ms Morera seconded the motion that unanimously passed The meeting was adjourned at 7 p.m Grace Morales 4' � Records Coordinator 8/26/2013 7 hours 12