Board Meeting Journal Questions
I have been at Wahlert for fifteen years and in that time I have never attended a board meeting. Part of the reason why was that I never felt a need too. The other portion of the reason was that I had been to enough meetings at the first school that I taught at because I was the union president. In that role, I was the constant presence at board meetings, grievance hearings, and contract negotiations. As I moved into a private school with no union, I was kind of tired of the whole process and there was not much of a role to walk into. Overall, I have had experience with school boards but only from that teacher and union perspective.
This leads into the present as I attended two board meetings in February …show more content…
The did not even mention anything from the principals reports other than to make sure that they had been approved. The high school report was mostly awards for different academic contests of math and speech. The most involved aspect of student learning came in a brief sentence that the principal had attend an Authentic Instructional Work (AIW) workshop but did not mention any takeaways or possible results for the school. The middle school mention PLC work, the teachers looking at smarter balance test, and teachers attending a PLC conference but no mention of student learning goals. The elementary schools did mention a possible change in math curriculum to Go Math and accelerated reading goals. Overall, there was no board discussion on the topic of student learning, rather just quick segments to read in the board packet. The meeting did have a presentation by the curriculum director regarding assessment data in reading and math. The presentation was mostly graphs of the scores and what the data meant. Followed by the professional development that exists around the data which included, K-12 Curriculum Standards alignment with Depth of Knowledge to ensure rigor continues, K-8 Study of Reading Best Practice, review and preparation for Smarter Balanced Assessments, and local emphasis to …show more content…
The same night that assessment scores were being presented for about five minutes with almost no discussion afterwards. There was a simple presentation that took two minutes but have a 15-minute discussion afterwards was regarding a choir trip. Granted this trip was for the choir to sing at the Year of Jubilee mass at the Vatican for Pope Francis but it took more time than the school report. All the choir teacher was doing was asking if he could look into the trip to see if it was feasible but the board was angry that our school chaplain had mention the trip at a priest meeting before the board had heard about it. I did agree with the discussion regarding price since the trip was going to cost about fifteen hundred dollars. The feasibility of affordability and which type of students, mainly the wealthier, could afford it was a great discussion and very helpful to the choir teacher. I will also note that there was a lot of discussion about enrollment numbers but not about ways to increase enrollment or what schools were doing to deal with declining enrollment. But that looked like it was a discussion in previous meetings from what I could glean from the minutes. These meetings were also coming at a time when contracts, budget, and administrative evaluation
I have been at Wahlert for fifteen years and in that time I have never attended a board meeting. Part of the reason why was that I never felt a need too. The other portion of the reason was that I had been to enough meetings at the first school that I taught at because I was the union president. In that role, I was the constant presence at board meetings, grievance hearings, and contract negotiations. As I moved into a private school with no union, I was kind of tired of the whole process and there was not much of a role to walk into. Overall, I have had experience with school boards but only from that teacher and union perspective.
This leads into the present as I attended two board meetings in February …show more content…
The did not even mention anything from the principals reports other than to make sure that they had been approved. The high school report was mostly awards for different academic contests of math and speech. The most involved aspect of student learning came in a brief sentence that the principal had attend an Authentic Instructional Work (AIW) workshop but did not mention any takeaways or possible results for the school. The middle school mention PLC work, the teachers looking at smarter balance test, and teachers attending a PLC conference but no mention of student learning goals. The elementary schools did mention a possible change in math curriculum to Go Math and accelerated reading goals. Overall, there was no board discussion on the topic of student learning, rather just quick segments to read in the board packet. The meeting did have a presentation by the curriculum director regarding assessment data in reading and math. The presentation was mostly graphs of the scores and what the data meant. Followed by the professional development that exists around the data which included, K-12 Curriculum Standards alignment with Depth of Knowledge to ensure rigor continues, K-8 Study of Reading Best Practice, review and preparation for Smarter Balanced Assessments, and local emphasis to …show more content…
The same night that assessment scores were being presented for about five minutes with almost no discussion afterwards. There was a simple presentation that took two minutes but have a 15-minute discussion afterwards was regarding a choir trip. Granted this trip was for the choir to sing at the Year of Jubilee mass at the Vatican for Pope Francis but it took more time than the school report. All the choir teacher was doing was asking if he could look into the trip to see if it was feasible but the board was angry that our school chaplain had mention the trip at a priest meeting before the board had heard about it. I did agree with the discussion regarding price since the trip was going to cost about fifteen hundred dollars. The feasibility of affordability and which type of students, mainly the wealthier, could afford it was a great discussion and very helpful to the choir teacher. I will also note that there was a lot of discussion about enrollment numbers but not about ways to increase enrollment or what schools were doing to deal with declining enrollment. But that looked like it was a discussion in previous meetings from what I could glean from the minutes. These meetings were also coming at a time when contracts, budget, and administrative evaluation