Hillsdale High School SLC Council
May 9, 2007 Agenda & MInutes

Tim reviewed the conversation that took place with English and Social Science departments:

• Perception problems if differences among houses become too extensive as perceived by the outside
• Feelings of discomfort regarding preparedness for differentiating INSTRUCTION rather than just ASSESSMENT
• Issues of autonomy vs. synergy

Clearly, there were teams in a variety of places in terms of comfort and readiness for moving forward with this in terms of pedagogical preparedness and concerns about their current cohort..
All agreed that  blocking classes so that flexibility exists from day to day or unit to unit was imperative.

Kyoto 10th grade has concerns around time frame and current student population (larger gap than usual in terms of behavior and skill
Kyoto 9th grade…willing to go if blocking can be arranged

Marrakech—concerns about whether blocking can happen, about whether we will ever feel adequately prepared, 10th grade may be feeling better prepared
In Florence, Zach and Laura are eager to move ahead with 10th grade and Greg and Chris are willing to begin building capacity by integrating for certain units or lessons.

Cheryl noted that somebody’s got to pilot it or its never going to happen.

Perception—we already are differentiating our curriculum this year with the trial and other performance assessments…and this could be an answer to parental concerns/fears

Need for data, measuring progress…Perhaps using pre and post tests to measure or comparing overall performance/grades

Critical needs: blocking CP/AS—SS/English.. other two house classes do not have to be blocked together…
hard decision to be made on grade level and house, we can’t give everyone their first choice of periods to block…
concentrate on those houses/grade levels that are going to blend CP/AS…may create pressure around scheduling 1st and 7th periods and perhaps around individual teacher’s personal needs
Issues of equally high standards being set across houses (a need, regardless of a choice to go to heterogeneity)
Each grade level needs to meet with the counselor to help understand plans/needs
Frustrations were expressed about not having definitive answers around blocking, but the inability to provide answers at this time comes from our not having 80 students yet scheduled…an issue beyond our control
The Council showed a growing comfort with allowing autonomy on this issue…the board will be clearer this week

Schedule
Council reviewed the results of the faculty poll on the two schedules
25 minutes for advisory problematic…too short for significant advisory curriculum
might also create equity issues in terms of what 1/5 equals
The Council recommended cutting some minutes off in order to add more time to advisory, getting it as close as possible to 40 minutes, but otherwise supported the choice of the faculty.

A proposal for a change to the finals schedule that would create less of a loss of class time for 7th period than the current schedule will. However, there appeared to be problems with the number of hours seniors might be on campus and with reporting grades of seniors in the short turn-around time required.
Alternative suggested…1-6 on Friday, Rally, Lunch, then 7th period review+final
This will make senior finals 50+35 minutes for 2nd period.

Review of proposed changes to discipline policies. The biggest shift in policy was around the consequences of reaching 21 period cuts…losing the right to participate in all extra-curricular activities…need to incentivise this for kids to be able to earn this back

Council reviewed polls on Early College-- 26 of 30 positive in some manner with regard to pursuing CSM relationship. Only one did not support the program. All concerns were around not impacting our electives/enrollment in existing classes…a legitimate concern that we must guard against

House leader topic was shelved for another time.