Good afternoon, everyone.
It's 401, so we will begin our curriculum council meeting.
This might be the most on time.
This committee has been in a while.
It usually takes everybody a little while to get over here.
So thank you all very much for being here for a meeting in December.
I know this is a crazy time of year and I appreciate your time.
So attached to the the minutes are summary notes from last time.
Those are available for your review and we're going to dive right
into our first informational presentation, which is an elementary iPad refresh.
And we have quite a few folks here to talk to you about that.
Just for a little background, this is a second presentation.
The Finance Committee already had one presentation
that was more along the lines of budget.
This is
why we're looking at this from a curricular perspective.
This is not a presentation, of course, for looking for approval
is simply looking to inform everyone.
Further, as we look at our budgeting season
and the technology that we anticipate for our needs.
So Mr. Swiger and Mrs.
Landry are here, as well as Mrs.
Minnery and Mrs.
Great and Mrs. Lewis.
And then, of course,
leading the elementary and supporting teachers.
So I think they have this all planned and organized,
and I will turn it all over to you.
Okay, great.
My name is Mr. Swigert.
I'm the director of Infrastructure
Technology here at Derry Township School District.
And we have a little bit of an introduction
to kind of lead off before we get into the presentation.
We're going to try to move
along as fast as we can, because we know this isn't the only thing
you're going to look at this evening.
But anyways, thank you for allowing us to present here
and thank you for your ongoing
support of technology integration at Derry Township School District.
We've been asked to provide you with an update
on where we are with fulfilling the vision of our strategic plan
related to technology to provide flexible learning environments,
enhancing and expanding learning opportunities for our students.
So Tracy Landry and I presented this to the Finance Committee
on Monday, November 26th.
At that meeting, the members of the committee
showed their interest in pursuing this refresh of technology,
but felt that we should present to all of you this afternoon.
We are seeking to refresh our current classroom iPad model
to include new iPads for the 1920 school year.
Our plan is to cover the entire presentation
and then we'll obviously open it up for questions at the end.
Mrs. Winslow or Dr.
Winslow already presented or explained who was here behind me,
and I'm going to turn this over to Mrs.
Landry.
Okay.
So we always want to start with the question why?
Why are we seeking to do this?
And we have always our focus was technology.
Integration has always been and continues to be focused on sound
instructional practices in the classroom and how technology
can be leveraged to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom.
We believe and know that technology will not replace good teachers.
However, technology in the hands of good teachers
can be transformational for our students.
This is a quote We love to talk about pedagogy
as the driver and technology is the accelerator.
Pedagogy is really that focus on good sound instructional practices
that drive everything in our classroom.
Technology is the accelerator technology.
The power of technology can be leveraged by the teachers and students
to enhance and streamline productivity and performance in the classroom.
Technology can accelerate and deepen the quality of authentic
learning experiences for our kids.
Jack is going to talk a little bit about our vision.
Yeah, so everything we've been doing
at the elementary level certainly relates to our instructional vision
over the past nine years.
As we all know, technology has been evolving,
but we were always asking that question.
So how does that relate back
to the instructional vision and our comprehensive plan?
And we feel like everything we've done so far,
everything that we continue to do, ties very, very nicely in with that.
Certainly our instructional vision at the elementary level
is to elevate and engage our students every single day.
And that's where we feel the technology piece
enhances the whole educational process.
In just a few minutes,
you'll be able to see and hear some of those examples from our teachers
Day. Oh, sorry
for so busy being funny.
Here you'll see some of the goals related
to instructional technology and it's broken down for teachers.
It's broken down for our students and again,
based around those sound instructional practices
that research tells us are going to move our students ahead.
And we refer to some of the work from John Hattie, the the visible learning
that he did extensive research
in what works and what has more efficacy than others.
So certainly we want to use our data to inform our instruction
and we want to have that most recent data to be able to do that.
That's a piece of our policy work as well.
What data do we have about our students?
What do we know about our students and how can we then take them
to the next level?
And that's where the ladies here
are going to show some of those ways that they've personalized
the learning of the students within their classrooms at varying levels.
So you see their four goals for the students,
the higher level, authentic
experiences moving from the consumption to creation.
How can you show us your learning? What does it look like?
It doesn't have to be paper and pencil.
How can you share what your you're learning
in whatever content area is
giving them the ownership?
It's amazing.
Starting at kindergarten, what can happen with these kiddos owning their learning,
being proud of it and being able to to take it to the next level
and really getting to that level of where we're developing self-directed learners.
And I saw great examples of that in fifth grade today.
So now we're going to talk with you about
where have we been.
Our vision for technology integration at the elementary building
actually started about six years ago when we first put iPads into the classroom
and we asked teachers to imagine the possibilities and open their minds
up to how they could leverage technology in a meaningful way.
In July 2012, we did put 4 to 5 iPads in each classroom,
and that was the first time we put mobile devices into a classroom
and then in about in 2016, 17, in that school year,
we were able to repurpose those devices from our 1 to 1 program
at the middle school and move some of those down to the elementary.
And with that, we increased the number of devices
in the classroom from four or 5 to 10 per classroom.
So just so you have a little bit of a history lesson,
this is our first example of our iPad to which many of the teachers
remember the trusty green cases that we started with.
And really sometimes we still find these out and about
and still lingering in use, even though they can't be updated at this point.
The next iPads we repurposed from the middle school 1
to 1 when we went moved are 1 to 1 programs six through 12.
We took these from the middle school and sent them down to the elementary school.
What we're seeing now is that these devices are nearing end of life
and they are losing their productivity and functionality
and are in fact sometimes inhibiting the teachers and students to access curriculum
and do the types of things that they need to do.
And we all know that the tools that they're using are more web based
and require a higher functioning device and a faster device.
So last year we asked some of the teachers here to do a mini pilot,
and we put 15 devices that
Kristen can hold hers up of the same iPads
that we have in the secondary 1 to 1, and asked them to see how their
how their instruction changes when they have access to more devices.
Getting them to about one device for every two students, and how having
a better device with a bigger screen was able to impact their their teaching.
So, Mrs.
Zentner, we're happy to have here from kindergarten.
She's going to talk a little bit about how our youngest learners
use the technology.
Hello.
When we first got iPads in the kindergarten classroom,
we had 5 to 6 of them and they were put at the center
and the students would rotate through them and they would use the iPads
to reinforce their learning with different games.
And it was nice.
They liked it, but something was kind of missing.
So last year when I had the opportunity to pilot the larger
size iPads with what was it, 15 of them,
I just I loved that
something changed and I didn't really see it at first,
but the first thing that I really liked was I used a platform called Seesaw,
and it was an online portfolio that the students
could take pictures of their work and it would send right to their parents.
So I still use it now, and I've had conversations
with parents on Seesaw before the kid even gets home from school.
So that's pretty cool because I always hear
from the parents, Oh, you know what they say?
They're not really, you know, what do you do in school today?
And I'm not really getting much. And so here
they kind of have a visual right away, instantly of what they're doing.
Another thing that with the 1 to 1 iPads, it allowed the kids
to kind of take the wheel
like they weren't sitting on an app and just drill and practicing.
They were taking pictures, videos, what they really like to do and
creating things.
So I have some examples of some things that we did last spring.
This was a project we did a unit on sharks,
so we learned how to draw a shark.
And then if you
and then they had to
record a fact
sound as well.
And now it's working with we're testing it.
We heard shark you
know, come a mile away
and this they just really logged and so did I because they were drawing
the picture with paper and pencil and then just recording their facts
and everything was just integrated well into what we were studying.
And it was a tool that they could use to showcase their work.
And then the next project that I have was an Earth Day project
where they had to write what they were going to say
and they had to practice
reading it fluently, and then we could then take it to a video
and a green screen and drop them into the project that they created.
So I can
love the earth by recycling trash and plastic.
I can reuse and recycle as long.
So they really enjoyed it.
I can't speak highly enough of all of the different things
that they got from from this experience, and it was just neat to see them
come alive and create these projects.
Okay, next we have this is Grace third graders.
They're great examples.
So I'm going to talk a little bit about an app
called Near Pod that I use a lot in my classroom.
When we got the 15 iPads,
I was able to take this app near Pod into my wind group.
And my wind group focuses a lot on practice with spelling, phonics,
word analysis.
We do a lot of repeated practice to build fluency,
and the way I used to teach it was that I would be up at the front of
the classroom and we'd go over the scale and we'd practice it every day.
But when we got the 15 iPads, I was able to start using near Pod,
where we were able to do lessons, where the iPad was right in front of them.
The lesson was right in front of them and it was amazing to see the difference
in their excitement over learning spelling and phonics patterns.
It got to the point where they would come to me on Monday.
So excited to find out what the new phonics pattern was going to be,
because they knew they were going to be practicing it on near Pond.
I even had one child tell me last year that phonics is so much more fun now
because instead of me getting to practice with one or two words during a class
period, we get to practice with all the words.
Every single one is pushed out to their device
and we can practice annotating and sounding out the words together and
finding words.
Another thing that near
Pod does is it allows instant feedback.
So this lesson here was where we were practicing drawing arrays
and matching them to multiplication facts, which is a big skill for third grade.
So we were able to given an array.
Can they write a multiplication fact?
You can see that the read arrays, they were kind of putting dots to count
how many counters were in each row, and then they could write the fact
that matches.
And then I gave them a multiplication fact and then they had to use emojis,
which they absolutely loved.
When I said you could use the emoji keyboard
to create the array that matched the fact that I gave them.
The nice thing about this is it's instant feedback,
because if I see an example of really good work,
I can push it out to all of their iPads and we can talk about it
or if I see a misconception that a lot of students are having,
I can push it out to the iPads and we can address it right there on the spot.
Quizzes and other
activities can also be embedded into near pods
so that we can assess their learning as they go and they can get instant
feedback on what did they learn in the lesson.
And then this lesson here was a fun social study of the lesson that we did.
We were studying a major rivers around the world
and a lot of them didn't even know half the countries we were talking about.
So we took a couple of days and we went on virtual field trips
to different countries to see these different rivers.
They got to see the Nile,
they got to see the Yangtze River, they got to see the Amazon River, places
that the average third grader would never get to go.
In real life, they got to see an experience
to help build that background so that they could understand
what they were learning in the unit.
All right.
I'd like to speak a lot about student choice and just really having them
take ownership of their learning from a fifth grade perspective.
And then also I'll mention some of the things that from third grade
using their body, how that looks in fifth grade, and also some creation apps.
So what you're seeing here is just a snapshot
of different rotations that the students go through during mass.
Larson And Zoom, you can see there's teamwork, independence stations,
and then also teacher sessions where they're grouped by ability.
And we're using technology in a variety of those centers.
So at the team workstation I integrated I near Pod Larson on volume.
They are student led and student peer.
So once they have access to the code, they can go through the lesson
on their own piece or with a partner and completing the activities.
In this case it was counting cubes and then they would use the volume
formulas eventually at the end and then they would submit their work.
And then I could view it as well to see what they were doing when they weren't
with me at the teacher station and then at Independence Station,
they were using our connect ad platform,
which goes with our everyday math program to access.
Even in this case it was the games for a name, that number,
they could play that on their own and they can also interact
with the math journal online and have access to all that as well.
So that was how it's used as a station rotation model.
And then
here's another example of giving them
a lot of choice in math with what they want to do with their learning.
So at the end of the unit, they are they are given a choice board
and you can see how they're using a variety of different technology tools,
different apps that we have to practice math skills.
So they love using Prodigy along with a game
I can assign them activities on there that correlate
with the units that we're studying at that time,
and it really personalizes their learning and advances them.
It does go up to an eighth grade level and advances them as they go on.
So a lot of kids love to do that.
They like the coding fractal.
It's also really with personalized learning
for all subjects science, social studies and math.
And with their extra math, it really helps them with their flashcards
or like their math facts.
So versus doing a two minute test, they really like doing that engaging.
And I can get a lot of data from extra math reports as well.
And then quiz.
So we had a study of their vocab for all the content,
and I even have students making their own sets of vocab cards
and then sharing them with the class and practicing it as well.
And then some of the creation apps where they're able to like
they can read books on Epic and then they could use book creators
to make their own books on a concept as well as we were going with math,
interactive math magazines, we subscribe to Scholastic Math
so takes their math learning to another level.
And then there's videos that go along with the concepts as well
that are just real world and they love watching those
and then this is just another example
of personalized learning, another rotation where they get a lot of choice.
There's things that they must do with me, and it's a teacher choice section
and then they can move their name as they complete it.
But just using technology for a lot of these things, well,
whether it is doing the math boxes online or completing their math facts with extra
math, playing the games on and then doing any of those other sites for coding.
Prodigy or chocolate as well.
So we are using it and just, you know, having 15 compared to ten,
it does make a great difference
and just even having the iPads that are,
you know, more accessible and able
to use run all of these apps.
So is great.
So I think
it makes a short and sweet, too,
since you heard a lot of great examples
from our teachers as the instructional technology
coach, it's my job to kind of help support them in the classroom
to make these things possible and make that connection between
the use of technology and the pedagogy of what students are learning.
So a lot of the examples I talked about are things that we've worked together
through and kind of talked about how this connects and what's best
practices for our students and best learning opportunities for our students.
So that is my role and I thoroughly enjoy it.
And I know that there are
some frustrations from the teachers right now, from the hand-me-downs,
because they are starting to get worn out.
And I've seen a lot of teachers kind of set them to the side,
which is hard for me to see because I want them to be using them.
And I know the students want to be using them.
So when they had the 15, you were updated once, they were in full use all the time.
So just knowing that we need to keep updating our technology
so that it gets used to its fullest potential with our students.
So we shared a little bit about where we've been.
Now we're going to go to where we like to go.
We want to continue this.
Students centered learning.
We want to continue to be able to bring the learning to the students
at varying levels through the use of iPads within the classroom.
So we'll tell you how we think we can accomplish that.
So I guess that's where Dave and I come in and and planning for budget
and a predictable way for us to continually make sure
that we are getting the most updated devices
into the hands of our teachers in our classrooms and our students.
So what we're what we're looking at is, is 67 general ed
classrooms with 13 iPads, full size iPads per classroom.
And we're also wanting to equip the special education classrooms
with about five devices per classroom, as well as the intervention specialists,
so that they have access to devices
when they have students because the classroom devices are in use,
when when the kids students are going out for resource support.
And then we would have some spares to to fill in as we have damage.
And we do have a process for repairing damaged devices in house.
So that has been going very well, especially
with the 1 to 1 program in six through 12.
So we're considering, you know,
entering into a lease and we have two options to consider.
And that's one of the things, obviously, that would be a budgetary
concern or, you know, question for us to to tackle.
Do you want
Dave is going to talk a little bit about why we would want to enter into a lease
and the benefits? Absolutely.
Just to
touch on a little bit at the bottom of this slide before we switch to that.
The the numbers that we're using that that iPad, that the cost of that,
just in case you're wondering, actually includes the iPad itself.
And at this time, Apple's offering what they call
a crayon, which is a stylus that goes with the iPad as well.
And and the case so there's some some other
but there's value adds that actually come in through a lease. So
if we actually
look at some of those benefits,
Apple is actually able to deliver some other things beyond that.
But let's start at the top.
So we're actually able to pull aging technology
out of the elementary, the K to five buildings and put in new.
Obviously this adds more devices and a common device model.
So instead of having different different kinds and
and knowing that some will update and some won't,
we actually have a homogenous set of devices across the building
that we can count on and know what will have.
It also becomes a fixed line item in our budget.
So we can always plan fully budget for this kind of expense.
So we'll know going into this that we're going to have a payment,
give or take, of about $122,000
in our in our budget to cover a lease like this.
And then obviously payment dates and flexible delivery
benefit as well, because then we can obviously take,
I guess, acquisition
or delivery of the iPads before we actually pay for them.
So there's some benefits there as well.
And yeah, and like I said,
there's other there's value adds that Apple's also offer that offered up
we get professional development and different things like that
that they're actually able to roll into the device device purchase
or lease rather to give you a good example too
with the secondary iPads that we did grades nine through 12,
they actually gave us caching devices like these little servers
that we put in every building which allow us to cut down on how much
bandwidth we use out to the Internet to get to the App Store, things like that,
because they think of things that we wouldn't necessarily think of.
And then they're also supplying it because they really,
at the end of the day, they truly do want us to be successful.
Did you want us to ask?
So so we'll just leave you with the quote at the top and just open it
up to questions that you might have?
What was the model that you guys wanted to get?
Was the iPad Pro or the.
It's just iPad.
The new. Yeah it's nice. A pro,
I believe.
Yeah.
Yeah it's just called iPad now
right and and with the leasing that's an annual
leasing was out for this whole three years that price
annual annual so
we're I'm a math so it was
383,000 for 1066
so like $360 a year per iPad.
Is that about what it is.
And with that comes
we service it ourselves.
But what do they provide besides the iPad?
What does Apple provide the case? The stylus
sometimes casing for us, inventory.
Inventory, sometimes training. Okay.
And other other supports.
Okay.
The speed of the
I mean, I love the idea that we've been passing them down as as far as we have.
That's not nothing goes unused in my iPhone.
It goes to the next person or whatever.
So I understand that when they get old, there's an issue is the speed or the lack
thereof of the older iPads, how much it is of as a due
to the iPad versus the Internet.
It's it's a we have both problems and okay.
Well I can give you a
prime example is the older the older I've had that we have here
actually operates on an old wireless standard.
So this might even be I don't even know that this supports 5 to 8 gigahertz.
So it's it's kind of I mean, in essence,
it can't even communicate with a wireless network at a proper speed.
And in some in some instances, it's actually slowing down
all the peers in the network because that device is on the network.
And then it's a little of everything.
Not being able to update the device is an issue
because that keeps us behind app developers plan and roll out
apps based on the newest
iOS update, so you can't update the operating system on them.
Is that correct?
Sometimes as they age, they fall out of the ability we have.
We lose the ability to provide. UPDATE Gotcha. Okay.
And then I have a question
for the third and fifth great teachers, because you guys had mentioned
you were getting metrics and the students were they're the ones driving.
They're they're they're learning.
What is the level of individual screen accountability?
Like what can you see what each student is doing?
Like, I don't know what kind of internal network we have if they're on it.
One is on app A and this is on B and this one's on C.
What do you see?
Or do you only see the end results
in your metrics in terms of their their completed
worksheets on your pod, We can see what they're doing.
It is a teacher life lesson.
Okay, you can follow along with their iPads directly on my screen.
So I can see what they're doing in real time.
So do you get to see like little. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. All right, cool.
But then otherwise, if they're on different apps,
we're not really sure what they're doing
unless you're walking around or how does this work?
Like, if it were a student,
I would see their results.
Any gotcha on it and then the X and
it shows you right away if they're using the session
or if they've completed it like it's an incomplete session.
So for that, so you can see what they're logged into.
Is that something that there's
there's also the ability to use Apple Classroom with newer devices.
So there's some Apple classroom does allow teachers to see all screens.
That is something we've not been able to use at the elementary
because of the size of the iPads and the age of the iPads.
So with newer iPads, we would be looking to provide
support for teachers to use that resource.
And at yes, then they can see it's it's a it's a
yeah it's it's an app, for lack of a better word for it.
Yeah. All right. Great.
I was just going to
ask about the three year versus the four year lease.
With the change in technology, is it worth even getting a four year lease?
I mean, what would you recommend?
We would prefer three.
And thanks for asking.
Yes, and I'm going to for multiple reasons, because we do have a four year,
even though that becomes a fixed cost in our budget at 133,000
or whatever the end cost is, at some point our three year
secondary lease and our four year elementary lease are going to line up.
And where that looks difficult
or where that becomes a problem for us is is actually rolling out new devices.
So at some point Apple will actually have us collect all the devices.
We have to remove them from fixed assets.
They have to be pulled out of inventory, sometimes decreased,
whatever this situation might be.
In most instances with the middle school, we did sell some back,
so we did make a small, small earnings from from selling back
some of the oldest iPad minis that wouldn't update.
So the ones that did update we handed down,
but the ones that didn't, we sold back to a company in Texas
and I think we made, I want to say, 30 some thousand dollars off that.
But then the problem is then we now have
2100 iPads for secondary students and,
you know, almost 1100 for elementary students
that we need to case inventory and get in place by the start of school.
So having that three year staggered lease would really benefit that that from
that angle as well And was the goal of the lease to have to be 1 to 1
was it to maintain the 15
to to maintain a greater ratio of devices to students at this point.
And then I think we're you know, in
within the next three years we might want to consider what
that could look like at the elementary in terms of considering 1 to 1 rollout.
So if you're 15 per per, per class, what is the average class size like 22,
22, 22, 20, 25, 26?
Yeah.
So when you're using the iPads, how are they using them in partners
or or the people who aren't using them doing something else on a computer?
They do they use them in a variety of ways.
So sometimes it is a lot of partner work.
Other times it's station rotation.
So while some students might be on technology,
another group of students is working independently in another group
is working with the teacher and direct instruction so that in that way
they have their ability to manage those devices in that way.
And about how many computers are there per classroom or are there not very many?
Okay. Right.
How does this pass?
How do you carry over to home practice?
You know, if you're using these at school,
how would the students be able to use them?
Right.
I guess that you would they wouldn't take them home with them, right?
Not at this point.
We don't.
We do in the secondary do have a take home model.
What we do for carry over to home from school is work
with the teachers to provide access increase to the resources that they use.
We've also started to use a single sign on tool that allows parents
to access all the tools and resources from one location using one sign on
so that really provides that bridge to transfer
some of their use it to the home
and they would just be able to sign on with their own devices.
Correct. And do the same practice, Correct?
Yeah.
Some of them aren't app dependent, some of the or some have companion
apps that go with a website.
So which is nice.
I mean, I'm going to use Google Docs as a prime example.
I mean it's that translates at home exactly the same way it would translate
at school. So. Right.
So you mentioned professional
development because that's you're probably have staff there.
All right.
All different levels of integration into
the technology.
Obviously, these ladies are
then other teachers may be will there be a set expectation
of how of what the use will be within the classroom?
So 15 iPads in there, How how do you determine
that they being used properly?
Right.
Well, I think we work with the grade levels
for that and look at the tools and resources they use.
A lot of our core programs have technology companions, so that's very important.
Also, the instructional coaching model and that ongoing job
embedded professional learning is really what we rely on.
So we work with our coaches, Kristen being one of them,
but we also have literacy and math coaches that also help to support
how technology is used to support those curricular areas
in terms of you're
repurposing them and selling them in,
how much were you getting per iPad?
I'm just curious.
It really depends on the quality.
They they have different levels and standards for
for how they assess the quality of the device they're getting.
So we never know until we actually get them back and take a look at them.
And we would work with whatever
format or resource we would be talking to at that point,
Have you looked at trying to repurpose them for lower use?
For example, say we sold them to like a preschool
where the where the engagement is a lower level or to country
meadows where they just want to learn how to Skype or something like that.
Is that something that you can look into or do they not have?
Are they
so low functioning that they won't even do basic email and Skyping that are,
you know, that Grandma island country metals are want to use school code?
School.
This school code doesn't really allow that.
So it's not easy to sell equipment, right.
It really is not recycling or or having a vendor come in and take a lot
you know, I say a lot like a large parcel of devices
that's well within the confines of what we can do as an alias.
But actually selling them off is really not an option.
But to answer your first question,
the devices, I don't know that they would be usable.
Okay.
At least the device that we sold, I think it was from eighth grade,
I think it was in the devices that the eighth graders
had in their hands at the end of the 20 1516 school year.
Those devices were not updating.
I mean, they were definitely at the end of their useful life.
Okay.
And then I have one final question, maybe final.
Obviously, you looked at leasing versus purchasing.
What is the advantage because you can purchase an iPad six
generation for $250 at Target
and that would last you three years if you wanted it to.
Obviously, you're getting more with the lease.
What would what justifies the $360 for three years versus
just buying it outright?
I think working with Mike, he wanted to make sure
that we have an ongoing plan for a refresh cycle.
It's something that has been lacking at the elementary
when we just outright purchase and sometimes things go by the wayside.
So I think that that's why Mr.
Friends really supported this. This model and this option.
And we've had great success with it at the high school
and it was accountability and making sure you got what you needed each year.
Yeah. Okay.
And I would like to add to
that, far as motivated as our students are learning about,
what more can I offer students are there, What do you have for me?
So I think it's a nice reciprocal relationships
that they want to grow like our students do.
So is the 1 to 1.
This isn't a question.
It's kind of a statement.
Is the 1 to 1 future goal just a future goal?
Just because of the finances of it?
Just because we can't afford it yet?
Or is it truly not necessary because of the way it's used
in terms of stations and rotating that 15 does serve the purpose.
So I think I'm going to jump in on that one, if I may. Dr.
Cronin.
We've had a lot of discussion about it as far as what our philosophy
for technology use at the elementary level.
And right now from the pilot that we've done,
we are able to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.
While we don't just like
TV, you want to limit screen time,
we don't want iPads to replace
direct teaching and relationships, especially at the lower grades.
Well, actually at any of the grades,
because that teacher student relationship is so incredibly important.
So really what we're looking at is
how do we integrate technology to be an instructional tool,
not to replace what we're already doing, but how do we enhance it further?
How do we get more creativity?
And one of the pieces that we're looking at with future ready
skills is collaboration and communication and how the students work together.
And so that also provides that opportunity to how do we share this
and how do we work together to accomplish our goals.
Thank you.
Sure.
Okay.
Questions.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you very. Thank you. That's great.
Thank you.
Okay, so we'll keep moving along.
I do have a high school grade skill update from Mr.
Smith. Hey, we were actually at a conference this morning.
He was able to stay for the whole thing.
I came back for
this meeting, so.
But he did write out a statement for so that you could have an update on
on what they're working on and what you can expect in the next couple of months.
So what he says is discussions to consider a new grace
go reporting system at Hershey
High School commenced on August 9th at the high school department to retreat
the consideration for a new grade reporting system for report
cards and transcripts as a result of a review of districts report
grades on transcripts which were shared with colleges and universities.
And we do thank Dr.
Cronan for that was something that we had not looked at the way
that she brought data to us, and it was very evident that we needed to take
a look at what we what we were doing and how it impacted the students.
So our current system of reporting numbers is,
instead of letters is reviewed,
the group of department chairs agreed to investigate the manner
which is currently calculated and reported throughout the fall.
The group continued the discussion after reviewing grade reporting systems
and scaled use by high schools across the country, region and state.
Although numerous systems were reviewed, there was particular attention
given to schools
that were similar to Hershey High School related to size and performance.
Department chairs brought information back to departments for discussion
and consideration, and although there was some concern related to change, the group
of department chairs has made progress regarding a recommendation for change.
A final recommendation for a new greater reporting system will be ready to present
at the February Curriculum Council meeting.
Are there any questions that you have without or any that I can take back to Mr.
SMITH.
Just one question.
I mean, that's great looking.
I mean, you have 500 schools in Pennsylvania
and you probably have 50 different ways of reporting it.
There's the four point scale, the five point scale, the six point scale,
seven point scale, etc..
How have they looked at what the common colleges
that Hershey students apply to, how they're actually accepting the reporting?
I honestly cannot answer that question for sure, but I will ask.
Okay.
I mean, they all claim to recalculate, whatever,
but we all know that in their heads they know what they're looking for
there.
Any other questions that you'd like me to take back?
Great.
Thank you. Thank you for that. Absolutely.
Our next item
Last month at our items for discussion, we had begun a discussion of our health
curriculum and the sexuality education component, in particular
that became a lengthy discussion.
And in order to kind of keep us moving along in that discussion,
we made Jessica and Steiner and myself met
at the time, I think it was last week, last week,
to go over some additional questions that Mr.
Steiner had and to really talk about what our curriculum
is currently doing and where we would like to go with it.
So we had, I think, a really great discussion.
I think we talked for about an hour and a half
and our health curriculum is currently in review.
And one of the things I did not get to the last time was an opportunity
to show you where in a kind of atlas
how I turn that back on
supplies their off
the floor plates okay, thanks.
Sorry I just realized they were dark The
so I did not get the opportunity to show you an atlas but there were
we had several things marked in red in the health curriculum, particularly
the sex ed curriculum from when we began looking and planning our revision process
in the spring.
And a lot of those topics were the same topics
that were of concern for for Mr.
Steiner in particular.
So we want to move forward with that.
The teachers are very interested in purchasing
a curriculum package that would be approved and supported.
Right now they feel that they walk a very fine line.
I wanting to give really good
and accurate information to the students while also wanting
to be very mindful of our community standards and expectations.
So what we are
looking forward to is continuing in our revision process
and then probably by next fall coming
to Curriculum council with a curriculum
that we would like to purchase and use
for your review and approval at that time.
So I've had really great discussions with the teachers,
I've had really great discussions, I feel like with Mr.
Zachary. Mr.
Steiner happy to answer any of your questions that you might have
regarding this topic at this time,
because we knew was going to be a lengthy discussion and this meeting
has been running over so much and other readings we did
get to some of the more in-depth pieces of that separately.
But if you have questions right now, I'd be happy to answer them for you.
I think the curriculum that
we we looked at when we met is very exciting to see.
And for me, I would I've always wanted
to see more focus on sexual harassment, consent.
And this curriculum has that in it.
And if we could get something that the teachers
feel good about teaching it, it comes to the board.
We all review it. It's it's open, it's transparent.
The community can see it,
and then the teachers feel comfortable teaching it because
like and the administrators feel comfortable
because if the administrator gets a phone call.
Why did you talk about sexually transmitted disease?
We can say, well, it's a board approved curriculum.
And then you talked about the opt out portion.
If it's on Rebecca Atlas and they see that there's a section of that
that they don't want their child to hear for whatever reason,
they can opt out of curriculum.
So we just seem to streamline it and kind of
because I
and this came up for me as a board member, my daughter went to college
and got a lot of videos prior to college from the college about consent and stuff.
And she's like, Mom, I didn't get any of this at Hershey.
You need to do this. You're on the school board.
And so I I've been wanting this for a while and we talked about it.
And I mean, there's obviously more to the curriculum than that.
It's, of course, about sex education.
But I'm very excited about this that we can review it and look over it
and then the teachers know what to do.
Yeah, we're excited to actually.
Yeah.
And I just want to thank you for all the work that you did in gathering
information from the health teachers and for,
you know, being open to having this conversation and moving forward.
So I personally think I also have daughters.
What grades would the curriculum include?
Probably still the same grades that we have right now.
So it would be seven, eight, nine and 11.
And then what we do in 10th grade right now is through FZ ed class.
So there might be pieces of this that could be incorporated
into that to continue it, but it's not quite the same way
as what it's done in health class.
But it wouldn't, it wouldn't go into what they do in what, fourth or fifth grade.
That's completely separate.
That is separate.
And does the curriculum that I was looking at that we were taking a look at
does have a full elementary component
Right now, Our time in the elementary
is more limited for health lessons than what
we would be able to really feasibly do with this particular piece.
But there might be pieces that they could pull in to what they're currently doing.
To expand it a little bit.
We would have
we'd have to have a lot of discussion about that piece of it.
But what I was focused on primarily was where
where we currently have all of these elements right now.
And I know that they can fit in the nice thing with the one
that we that I had pulled down also was it was free.
So but there are other ones to look at.
Obviously, we don't we never look at just one
material support delivery.
Thank you.
Sure.
Any other questions?
If you have questions and you're not comfortable
asking them in a public forum, you can ask me later
is to say that to the kids, to
all right, thank you.
So we do have some old business.
We have several courses from the high school
that we
approved for first read at our last meeting.
And just to explain how this works becomes old business after first read.
This is now a second read.
If we go through and approve each of these,
we do not have the big presentation again.
But if you have any questions there, Ms..
Wade is here to help answer those questions.
Mr. King is here to answer the questions.
So what we do for a second read is then
if they are all approved for that, then I will create a memo
for the full school board and that will go to the
full board in January and the first meeting for January
so that they can be approved and included
in the educational planning Guide for the high school.
Okay, So anybody have any questions about the process?
And just so we have some new people,
I want to make sure that everybody's comfortable.
Okay.
Okay. All right.
So let us move through this.
The first one that we have is the digital production two course.
And if you recall, that is just a continuation
of digital digital video production that we approved last year.
And this would help students to continue that.
It is a full year course and is a mixed level course.
So video production, one and two would be students
working together during the same time period during the day, correct?
I have that right. Okay.
Are there any questions regarding this?
May I have a motion for a second read?
So moves on. Second, second.
Are those and
any further discussion.
Okay.
All those in favor say I oppose.
Same thing.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
We have a proposal for an electronics course.
This would be coming from the science department.
Is it has a credit for a semester.
This would be a course that's
proposed to complement the existing physics courses
and would be talking about practical application of circuit components.
Were there any additional questions regarding
the electronics course
came?
May have a motion for a second reading.
So moved a second second.
Any further discussion?
Hey, all those in favor say
I oppose something
on the floor.
Thank you.
Okay.
And then we have a course revision for great books.
Course.
And if you'll recall, this is actually going to apply to the next three courses.
These are courses that would be transforming semester college prep,
English courses and two year long courses
in order to more extensively
teach the concepts and skills that are in those courses.
Be able to do that more in depth
and to get more practice with the writing process.
Did anybody have any additional questions regarding great books?
Actually, you know, really for any of those?
Okay, may I have a motion for a second?
Read four great books, so moved on Second, second,
any additional discussion?
All those in favor say
I only oppose him saying
great
is exactly the same rationale
for the multicultural literature course.
May I please have a motion to have a second
read for the multicultural literature course
so removed?
Thank you again.
Thank you.
Any further discussion
and all those in favor say I.
I oppose. Same saying.
Great.
Same thing with Hero's journey.
May I please have a motion for a second read?
I'm having a really hard time spitting that out. I'm sorry.
The first motion for a second reading
of Hero's Journey, telling the second.
Thank you for the discussion.
Great.
All those in favor say I. I
any opposing side.
Wonderful. Thank you.
And finally, we have a course
elimination proposal for media studies.
Not because we do not find the skills in this course valuable, but because they
really need to be incorporated into all of the English courses.
And really that I think that has been happening across the board.
So this is a a move to eliminate this as a specialty
skill and make sure that all students are getting the skills.
So for moving this course, putting these skills into all of the courses,
are there any further questions with this course?
Okay.
Me Please have a motion for a second read of the course Elimination for Media
Studies Removed.
Thank you.
And a second, second.
Thank you. Any further discussion?
All those in favor to say I oppose.
Same saying
on the costs and
our next portion is public comment, even though I know
that there's people coming in there not for this meeting
someday.
Love public, Mr. Chavez.
So very briefly, returning to the iPad refresh,
the Finance Committee is in favor this and wanted to make sure that
there was no objection from the curriculum committee before moving forward.
Can I conclude from the questions that we're asking
from the general demeanor of the committee,
that there is no objection to moving forward with this? Yes.
I just want to make sure that due diligence was done, that the
the rental rate or the leasing rate is really worth
the 369 per year versus buying it outright for 249 a year,
as knowing that
knowing that we would have to put something in place
to make sure that we didn't forget to order them the next year.
And the decision regarding purchasing and leasing that had not been made,
it was just the concept of moving forward with the professor.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Is that what you needed?
Okay, wonderful. Thank you.
Does anyone have comment?
Thank you for being here, Alexander.
Something nice. You.
Okay.
Our next meeting is
January 14th, 2019.
And at that time, I would expect we might have
a new reading program to look at and to make some decisions about.
We are we are neck deep in looking at reading for grades three through five.
Last year we approved K one and two
and due to a lot of changes with reading three
and it being outdated and them not updating their technology components
and some data that
we have that's driving what we see our needs are for our students.
We are looking at
a new program for four, three, four and five also.
So that's something to to possibly expect next month
depending on how far get in that process.
They've been working very, very hard on it.
So at this time, with
no further information, we will adjourn for 56.
Thank you.
If you could tell me.