To: Michael Green
From: John Shoup
CC: School Board members
Date: 11/5/2008
Re: October Review
Here is an overview of the key activities we worked on in relation to teaching and learning this month.
Monday's: We had three Monday's this month for staff development activities. One Monday was used for CRISS training, another for department collaboration and the other for peer coaching. Aaron Blackwelder has a moodle site up and running for staff to use for their peer coaching discussions. Last month's discussion was focused around the concept of rigor or vigor in our classes. This month's peer coaching focus will be on integrating technology into instruction. We did not work as a staff on the learning Improvement day, as we will work the day in the spring that most of the other district staff will have off.
Other information: Fall conferences were not well attended. This continues to be a frustration for staff and administration as we set aside four hours to meet with parents, but there were probably only about 80-100 parents who showed up for the afternoon or evening conferences. We know that spring student led conferences will be much better, but our assessment team and another small group are looking at options to make these fall conferences more productive. The navigation 101 team is doing a nice job of planning for implementation either this spring or next year. The sub committee on portfolios contacted 8 different schools and districts that are using the program and have received all kinds of useful information. We have had a significant decrease in fighting over the last two weeks of October. That is has welcomed good news. Also, homecoming went well and did not disrupt teaching and learning too much that week. We only had about 80 students take the PSAT this month which was down from last years number by about 40 students. We really don't know why fewer took the exam this year. Our counselors have been doing a great job of having colleges and post secondary programs come to the school to present to interested students. They also have had a college preview night and Woodland Academic scholars meeting for parents.
All is all it was a good productive month at Woodland High School.