Here are the Notes from Friday's Meeting after school.

Notes on Teacher Meeting 2/18/11

Questions:

• Is there a way to ask people not to email brainstorms, but something that is discussed and agreed to? Ex: PTSO
• How are they dividing the school?
• How can we keep arts intact?
• If we are getting PLA money, can we save some teachers?
• What will the scheduling be like? 90 min blocks?
• What about traditional scheduling?
• “the parents” don’t represent all of the parents. Who speaks up for those other kids whose parents don’t show up to these meetings?
• Survey: No programs in place to address bullying, mental health etc?  Really? What about Health? Programs help SOME students, Curriculum helps ALL students. 
• Why are SU people pulling us out of class for “grad class” stuff?
• Why are SU people telling us how to do our jobs?  Will they be here next year?
• Could you say that we want staff development by and for teachers?
• Where are the SayYes resources going?
• How much influence does SayYes have?
• Why is the IT dept. HIRING?
• Who balances and checks the IT dept.
• What’s up with 360 teacher review?
• Are Father figure hall monitors what we need?
• What data are you looking at?
• Are they watching us?
• What about ESL and Special ed kids?
• Where are the carrots and sticks?
• How can we evaluate parents?
• How can we improve the quality of students we receive?
• Smaller learning communities: ½ kids make it through 9^th grade because of us.  Why no teams on upper levels?
• Why are neediest kids kicked out of all these special programs? 
• Why are advanced kids getting the special prograpms
• What is up with discipline?
• How much we will be looking at meeting NYS future requirements, but at college readiness?
• How is the possibility of HW Smith coming here going to work into these plans?
• Don’t IEP and ESL students get 6 years?
• Do students have to take Regents until they pass or can they take RCT after one try?
• Is there any validation for the 4 year requirement when kids have  6 years?
• If I’m teaching full inclusion taking a regents, is this for socialization or to kill our numbers?
• Where are the job coaches?  Vocational?
• How can you base evaluation on student growth with a minimum grade of 50?
• How do we keep ELL students desirable to teachers who are evaluated on results?
• Where are peer tutors?
• Where is peer mediation?

Ideas:

• Smaller learning communities could be set up in houses for kids who are not literate
• Traditional scheduling
• Put the money into teachers, not programs
• Staff dev. By and for teachers
• Put some cameras in the stairwells (where all the babies are made)
• We are losing kids because they come to us low skilled
• Spend money on lower levels to teach reading, etc.
• 10^th grade teams 11, 12
• OLC!
• Students with low skills who need some guidance need qualifying school.
• Talk to Clemente Lopes at IS10 in Queens
• Professional environment
• Teachers are role models, set examples
• Teacher dress code
• No jeans and sneaker while teachings
• More lights in hallways
• Less likely to hang out without mood lighting
• New lockers that look nice and work
• Air conditioning
• Announcements important with principal on it. 
• They should be special
•  
• Rotating teacher, admin, divers and representative parent teams for intervention and home visits.
• Truancy duty
• Every dept included in team meetings

Needs:

• 50 min a day, tops
• Health Class
• Staff development by and for teachers
• We need more than just Spanish language classes
• OLC!
• Support for students transitioning from VINTA
• No education happens without discipline! Like IS10 in Queens
• Be proactive on future state mandates
• Better ELL data
• Show growth in reading, designed by Kelly Malone
• SRI’s
• Base point to show growth in math, not regents or even regular ESL testing
• How do extra curricular activities affect student success?
• Which extras improve performance?
• Need to look out for untenured teachers.  EVEN BEFORE REDESIGN.
• Get rid of deadbeats, we know there are some bad ones.  That is administrative work. No Untenured teacher witch hunts. 
• ELLs And Special Ed students on heterogeneous teams all the way up.
• The Corcoran Model of Upstairs/ downstairs good kids/bad kids is bad model
• Remember all of our populations, no climate of have and have-nots.  Research is against it. 
• No ELL and Special Ed GHETTOS!
• Augment instruction with academic intervention programs not replace it. 
• Address Absenteeism : other than robo-calls to nonexistent numbers.
• Every dept (special ed) in team meetings. 
• Common time with special ED
• Common time among depts., cross curricular, etc.  Use our building
• “Get rid of Goddamn prescriptive programs that replace English class”
• We don’t value what we are being judged on.  We want the child to be ready, not sit in a gym and do okay on something for three hours. 
• Accountability
• Teach citizenship and values
• Flexible hybrid schedule to meet needs of different learners in different circumstances.