Thursday, February 13, 2014

February 20, 2014 Agenda

Lehi Elementary School Community Council 
Thursday, February 20, 2014 
Conference Room 3:30 pm


1. Welcome & Pledge of Allegiance 
2. Celebrate Good Things
3. Voting on January 23rd minutes 
4. Putting together our plan for next year
  *Final plan due on April 4th
5. Upcoming Meeting **March 20th at 3:30 pm in the Conference Room.
6. Adjourn


Thank you for attending! We appreciate your time and input to make our school better.

Monday, February 10, 2014

January 23, 2014 Minutes


Lehi Elementary School Community Council
Thursday, January 23, 2014

Meeting Minutes
Welcome and Pledge of Allegiance
In Attendance- Joel Miller, Susan Archibald, Lance Madigan, Liz Ash,  Brittany Gray,  Amy Grace, Rae Garn,  Cathleen Tronson

Good things:  The school play is underway and doing good, kids excited about it.  Discussion about costumes for play staying in our school to be used on future projects.   Possibility of making a working agreement with Lehi Arts center.
Robotics class-10 week class
Ballroom dance club-Fridays at 8:15
Music grant of $1500 approved.  Using money to buy ukuleles.
Spelling Bee went well
Science fair-Jan. 31 12:30-2:00; discussed need for a few more judges.

Voting on Nov. 21 minutes:
A motion was made by Susan Archibald and seconded by Rae Garn to approve last meeting’s minutes

SAGE Testing:  Discussion of information learned at a meeting held about it at Lehi High School-
David Smith from Research and Evaluation at the district office presented.  Alpine school district previously used a fixed from test.  All questions are given to the students in the same way in a fixed form test. 
SAGE test is an adaptive format test.  It adapts the level of questions-difficult/easy based on students answers to previous questions. 
-Lower end students-this test will show exactly what they know and pinpoint which concepts are not mastered.
-High end students-Questions get more difficult as student shows a level of mastery until the questions get to difficult.
-Shows a greater depth of student knowledge.
SAGE test is 50% multiple choice and 50% higher level questions
Currently Alpine district is 90% proficient.  This year will show a dramatic decline in test scores due to new testing format and new common core.  Expected to drop to about 65% proficient.

Website is available with sample tests to help teachers and students prepare.   Sageportal.org
SAGE test covers:
Language Arts (reading and writing)
Math
Science
Concerns about testing schedule-Will students have enough time to complete test?  Does our school have enough computers to test all students on an efficient manner?
Principal Miller explained that with the use of the mobile computer labs, etc. we should be able to get through the testing fine.

Lehi Elementary Writing Rubric:  The council reviewed the new writing rubric for our school.  It is available on the school website for parents to view.

Update on Double Dosing:  Discussion of double dosing.  Is it helping?  What kind of results are teachers and parents seeing?
Principal Miller showed us some reports from the Double Dosing teachers (with kid’s names removed) to show how they are improving.  Double Dosing is a tier 2 intervention for those that need extra help.  If this program is not successful for them, then the next step is looking into testing for special education program. Principal Miller would like to maintain the number of teachers we have doing Double Dosing for next year.

Update on Gifted & Talented:  The kids involved are having a great time with this new program.  Mrs. Lish is being paid $500 from a grant from the district and we would like to increase her amount and also add another teacher to this program; while looking at expanding and bringing in more students in the future.

Discussion of plan for next year: Teachers want to keep the IXL & Timez Attack programs.  Principal Miller suggests we maintain our language arts and math Double Dosing programs, add to our Gifted & Talented program and give a little bit to science.  He would also like to see some money go towards supporting the arts in combination with a grant that the school is applying for. 
We discussed that as long as we are seeing progress, we should continue what we are doing.  Parents like that we are using money for students on both ends of the spectrum. 

Final plan due on April 4th

Upcoming Meetings:
Feb. 20 and Mar. 20 at 3:30 pm in the Conference room.
Voting members please try to attend to finalize and vote on next year’s plan.
Adjourn—Motion by Susan Archibald and seconded by Lance Madigan.