Board Of Trustees Meeting Highlights - November 19, 2019
We continue our efforts to communicate effectively and in a timely fashion with our families and staffs. We know not every parent, teacher, or staff member can attend our Board meetings, so we will provide a brief update after each Board meeting, sharing highlights and actions taken by the Board. As always, please let us know how to better serve and communicate with you! We want to be partners with you in the educational journey of the children entrusted to us.
DISTRICT RECOGNITIONS:
Marina Village School
Principal Levi Cambridge provided an update on current activities at Marina Village School. Currently there are 825 students, 40 teachers, 1 counselor, 17 classified staff and 2 administrators. He reported that 1% of the student population are English Learners, and 9% have IEP’s. They have 78% of students reporting that they feel safe or very safe on campus and staff continues to work on increasing this number.
Mr. Cambridge went on to report that the focus this year is Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), specifically around restorative conversations/chats, student connections and landscaping.
Mr. Cambridge reviewed briefly the California Dashboard and then introduced Marina’s student body class president who provided information on current events that included: Haunted House, Fire and Ice Social in December, Spirit Week, and a new club that will help raise money for various organizations. He also reported on the magazine fundraiser they conducted in September that raised $21,000.00!. He also commented that students enjoyed, learned, and had fun at the CORE 3 presentation.
Principal Cambridge provided additional information on the tools/supports that they are using for districtwide initiatives.
- PBIS program: Tier II, Check In - Check Out Sheets, Tutorials, Homework Club, Help Desk
- SEL: Ohana Climate Committee - OCC, Groups Restorative Circles, Restorative Chats,
Conflict Managers, CORE3, Counseling, SEL Checklist/Modifications
- Community Outreach: PC Pals, PTC, Safeway Fridays, Talent Show, Fright Fest, Parent
Information Nights
Mr. Cambridge went on to describe restorative chats. These are a series of conversations and questions, as they go through the process, that help students begin to understand to a greater level what happened, how it affected others, how it made the other person feel and what kinds of things they can do to improve, resolve or restore that relationship. It is very effective and it is great to see this process work with students.
Marina Village just completed the CORE 3 presentation for all students in 7th and 8th grade. This presentation is designed to help students understand and build empathy amongst themselves by focusing on community, connections and becoming their real self. He also indicated that they are seeing great results with the restorative circles, teachers building a community within the classroom.
There was also a review of the many, many clubs at Marina Village School. Mr. Cambridge stated that these help students make connections and gives them ownership of what is going on. This also encourages students to do more, look outside themselves and be more involved. The teachers have been great to help facilitate these after school clubs. The PTC does an enrichment program as well.
Difference Makers:
The Difference Maker honorees from Marina Village were Elizabeth Ulmer, teacher and Holly Bist, IA Paraeducator.
UPDATES:
Superintendent Report
Superintendent Olson reported it has been quite a month! Mrs. Olson shared how extremely proud and grateful she is for our maintenance and operations folks, our office staff, site staff, administration , transportation department, cafeteria ladies and our technology folks for all working together to make the best of a frustrating and difficult situation regarding the power outages. She went on to say that parents have been grateful for our efforts, communication, and creativity used to open school despite the power outages.
Assistant Superintendent, Sean Martin and Mrs. Olson went to San Francisco last weekend to whoop and holler for Dave Scroggins as he received his State award. She said they were proud and honored to be there. It was a well-deserved award, as we all know how hard Dave works and how dedicated he is to our students, staff, families, and District as a whole.
Principal Michelle Winberg, Assistant Superintendent Dave Scroggins and Superintendent Olson also attended the Trauma Informed School Conference this past week. It was a great opportunity to go a little deeper into strategies and methods in learning the HOW of navigating students of trauma in our classrooms and on our campuses. They came away with some valuable nuggets to share with teachers, aides and administrators.
She also complimented Pleasant Grove for being featured on Good Day Sacramento and also on KCRA as well as the radio for their tremendous work schoolwide in AVID, and also their College Fair. It is available to view on our Facebook page if you missed it on TV. Brittany Kernan and her students were articulate and excited to share what they have learned and how it is preparing them for college.
Lastly, she shared that both Pleasant Grove and Marina Village had a wonderful number of students selected to participate in the Western Slopes Honor Band last weekend. They sounded fabulous. Our music department is amazing and we are so thankful for Shaun, Ben and Mila for their work with our students.
Curriculum and Instruction
Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Dave Scroggins provided an overview of recent and upcoming staff development offerings.
Jenny Maquire math training was offered in August and September with two additional dates scheduled for December and February. Teams of teachers from every elementary school have received this training and are taking the concepts back to their staff. Newly designed assessments and pacing guides, created by Jenny Maguire, reviewed, and edited by our teachers, are now in place. Previous work with Jenny Maguire yielded an 8% jump at Jackson Elementary.
Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) initial one day training was offered in September and October. Also in October two additional training days were provided with student demo lessons and a two day refresher is scheduled for March. These provided professional development in the area of academic language acquisition and literacy that specifically target and promote language skills, academic achievement, and cross-cultural skills with groundbreaking efficiency. It is an
instructional model with clear, practical strategies that promote positive, effective interactions among students and between teachers and students. The results that our teachers report with respect to student growth is exceptional.
Mr. Scroggins reported the TCI science pilot is wrapping up at the middle schools. Information has been gathered regarding the pros and cons, strengths and weakness of the program. They will now begin a pilot of McGraw Hill, to be followed with Houghton Mifflin.
In addition, we are piloting the TCI program for Social Studies at the elementary level. We will check in late December or early January with our TCI representative.
The first trimester is winding down and Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments have been administered. The Interim Assessment and Reporting System, now California Educator Reporting System (CERS), allows teachers to review students’ responses at the individual level, results by item (what percent and who missed each question). This is much more useful in terms of prescribing interventions and reteaching.
