Members in attendance - Arleen Jensen, Pam Larsen, Janelle Overly, Tamara Dyreng, Melissa Judy, Shara Peterson, Grant Hansen
Testing -
Student Learning Objectives - This is a new part of the testing system. They are required in Kindergarten thru third grade. Fourth and fifth grades are encouraged to use them also. We will be writing and piloting them this year. Next year they will be in place and used to measure student growth. They will also be used for teacher evaluations.
DWA - The Direct Writing Assessment has been discontinued. It has been replaced with a writing component in the SAGE testing. Last year's fifth grade averaged 25 out of 30; 18 was passing. All of the fifth grade scored 18 or higher last year. There is a big discrepancy between the DWA and the SAGE writing scores from last year throughout the entire state. Where we averaged 25 on the DWA our SAGE score was 17. That is considerably lower but higher than the state average.
School Report Card - We received a "B" grade on the end of the year SAGE testing which is in the upper fourth of all elementary schools.
Timez Attack - We are trying out a pilot of the app called Timez Attack. It is a state of the art video game that incorporates math facts. Students can do addition and subtraction math facts on their iPad and multiplication and division can be practiced on a computer. We have agree to use the trial until the end of the year.
AR Quizzes - Mr. Hansen recently attended a conference on a new AR product called AR 360. It gives us access to the regular AR quizzes and also has a higher level skill called "close" reading. Mr. Hansen wants to look into if this newer product will be of benefit to our students.
App List - We have compiled a list of all of the apps used on our iPads. We will be publishing it to the website to allow parents access to see which apps are used at school. There will also be a list available in the office for review.
Beverly Taylor Art Grant - The three elementary schools in the district were the recipient of the Beverly Taylor Art's Grant. This will allow for us to share an art teacher between the three schools. Tomica Boehrer is the teacher who will be helping in our school until Spring Break. She will focus mainly on dance and drama. After Spring Break she should still be in our school at least once a week.
Member Items - Janelle Overly proposed that we develop a school guideline for the amount of screen time our students are exposed to and how we can regulate it. She presented documentation on the effects of excessive screen time on students. It was purposed that we create a committee to develop a guideline for our school.
She also brought up a concern of inappropriate material "popping up" in the apps that are used on the iPads. Do we communicate these problems with the other schools when problems arise. She feels that we need to have an avenue for action when we have problems and a guideline for what action to take.
Calendar Items -
Jan 15 - 4th grade play at 6:30
Feb 3 - Science Fair judging
Feb 4 - Science Fair viewing
Feb 6 - Parent Teacher Conference
Feb 11 - Spring Pictures
Feb 18 - Last Day to earn AR points
Feb 24 - AR Party
Feb 25 - Community Council at 3 pm
Mar 2 - 6 - Book Fair
Mar 23 - 27 - Spring Break