San Mateo High School

Department Chair Minutes

February 2, 2004

We discussed potential focus points for new department meetings

Mr. Appleman asked, "what will be our focus?" Several different ideas were brainstormed on the board. Ideas included

1. Establish goals for the school
2. Draft a presentation for the 3/27/4 Board study session on the 9/10 Academic Core Proposal
3. Work totally off the list generated by the staff on s.d. day, supplemented by our concerns
4. Help all students meet standards
5. Better ways of bringing all students up to grade level.
6. We should target Latino and Pacific Islanders not meeting the UC requirement, especially.
7. Alternatives for non-UC bound students (Academic core, non-UC students shouldn’t feel less )
8. Usage of tutorial time (maybe subject-specific)
9. Examine Student Study Team process
10. Examine block-scheduling and the support provided
11. Standardized, school-wide system of note-taking and organizing.
12. Make sure we can discuss, protect, promote electives
13. Find ways to facilitate teacher-parent communication with Spanish speakers
14. Examine what is good enough
15. Examine weighting of grades(should a C+ mean the same thing as a C-)
16. Little teacher issues and greasing the wheels such as copy machine
17. Big teacher issues such as time for grading

We prioritized the above list and came up with these priorities. Each chair got 5 votes and we raised our hands.

1. Draft a presentation for the 3/27/4 Board study session on the 9/10 Academic Core Proposal
   (Ms. McEvoy and Mr. Mozzini supported this as a top priority)
2. Better ways of bringing all students up to grade level.
3. Make sure we can discuss, protect, promote electives
4. Alternatives for non-UC bound students (Academic core, non-UC students shouldn’t feel less )
5. Usage of tutorial time (maybe subject-specific)
6. The following could be items for future meetings: establish goals for the school, Examine block-scheduling and the support provided, We should target Latino and Pacific Islanders not meeting the UC requirement, Little teacher issues and greasing the wheels such as copy machine,

10. Examine weighting of grades. Should a C+ mean the same thing as a C- ? Examine what is good enough, Big teacher issues such as time for grading, Find ways to facilitate teacher-parent communication with Spanish speakers, Help all students meet standards, Examine Student Study Team process; Standardized, school-wide system of note-taking and organizing.

We decided to take the above list in order, and Mr. Appleman asked for volunteers to facilitate

Ruth Micheletti volunteered to facilitate the 3/1/4 meeting

Renee Leap volunteered to facilitate the 4/5/4 meeting

A statement to the Board about the 9/10 Academic Core

A data packet for the Board, which will be determined on the 3/1/4 DH meeting

1. Passing and failing rates in classes,
2. Numbers enrolled in classes that satisfy the proposed Core and those classes that wouldn’t.
3. Department member opinions

We need numbers; anecdotes won’t cut it; we need data on who is passing/failing; we need to take a look at how many sophomores would meet it now; How many now take a year of Foreign Language or Art? How many kids do we have that are on track to do this?

How many sections are offered in Math, etc and what would need to happen to the schedule to support the change? What is the passage rate for last year’s Algebra, for example? Can we use the CBEDS data?