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Hillsdale High School SLC Council
April 23, 2007 Agenda & MInutes

AP Environmental Science: 

Summer P.D.

Resource development

Tardies and cuts

Library

Professional Development & Curriculum

AS/CP integration.

Early College opportunity

Summer School

 

 

 

 

 

 

AP Environmental Science
Steve Maskel presented a proposal to offer AP Environmental Science for the 2007-2008 academic year.  Prior to asking for approval, Steve met with the other science teachers in the department in order to seek their support, which was given unanimously.  Steve wants to offer one section   During the SLC council, questions were asked about the interest among students.  There is strong interest from a large number of students, but no numbers are available at this time.  Jeff Gilbert recommended that counselors go to advisories and English classes to get commitment from students.  Steve wanted the opportunity to “sell” the class himself to key classes that might feed into this course. Greg Lance was concerned with the core classes/ advisory not being affected negatively by this addition.

The SLC Council wishes to move forward in having students sign up for the course, but will revisit the issue in two weeks pending number of students who sign up with their counselor with the new offering.

Summer P.D.
Unallocated department head days can be used for summer professional development; as well, the Stanford Summer Institute is occurring Aug. 7-9 that Hillsdale teachers are invited to attend. Although 5 proposals have been submitted, the council discussed setting a deadline for all proposals that would require summer and/or department head funding to be submitted.  Christine Crockett discussed the proposal, for example, that she had co-submitted in the effort to work on a model for a mastery of content portfolio that may lead into how we consider the senior exit portfolio. The SLC Council decided to have House Leaders and Administrators meet with their houses to discuss who would be interested in the Stanford Summer Institute, along with related logistics. Suzanne Radotic will notify the staff of the firm deadline for all professional development applications to be submitted: Friday, April 27.

AS/CP Integration
With the integration/detracking of levels in the 9/10 English and Social Sciences, one issue is the feasibility of keeping classes balanced in AS and CP numbers per period (to provide opportunities for teachers to also divide levels in certain lessons/units). The council discussed the positive aspects of detracking and differentiating these core classes to create more meaningful opportunities for our students. Although the interest is there to begin the process of detracking, a timeline needs to be decided to discuss the details of planning curriculum development and the needed department funds to support this meeting time. Principal Shiu suggested a possible informational meeting with freshmen parents regarding 10th grade detracking to gain input. In the last set of minimum days, all involved teachers will meet to create a plan toward implementation.

Library
Sandy Gleichmann led a discussion for SLC Council regarding an update on current library functioning. In a written report, data was provided in detail on the current library collections, what students use the most, and recommended balances across subjects. This report is useful to staff and community to see where the library needs funding, which books/areas are aged and need updating, and what general state the library is in this year. Across subjects, the majority of the library’s books were considered to be aged, or outdated, by the report presented.

Sandy also spoke to the difficulties of being only a half-time librarian, and sharing her time between two high schools. She reported that there needs to be a certain level of education, via a professional to lead the library program, in order to keep our library’s collection strong, and that it worries her to think the position could potentially be reduced next year to a half-time librarian yet again, clerical staff, and so on due to funding cuts.

Summer School
It looks as if we will not be having Benchmark Summer School, with the possible exception of Spanish 1-2. Michael Silva will write preliminary class description, job posting, etc. to be submitted.

Resource Development
In meeting with parents at the April PTSO, numerous parents signed up to participate in various committees toward foundation work, school/community climate, corporate sponsorship/connection, enrollment/public relations, and grant writing. Staff needs to also be involved, and Cheryl Lawton suggested discussing this with staff at house meetings, after which time meetings will be set for committees to meet before the year’s end.

Early College Opportunity
The Council reviewed an example Memorandum of Understanding between EPA Early College High School and Stanford University as a model for Hillsdale’s own potential MOU between Stanford and CSM. Jeff Gilbert