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Granite School District > Superintendent's Office > Sup’s Vlog

Sup’s Vlog

9th Grade Reconfiguration Requests

All,

Any network school community council that wishes to pursue an official grade reconfiguration must take certain steps as outlined in this previous post. Additionally, any official grade reconfiguration requests from school community councils must be made to the district administration by June 30, 2012, in order to be considered for the 2013-2014 school year, or by June 30 2013 for a 2014-2015 implementation. Please contact the communications department at communications@graniteschools.org with any questions.

Thanks and have a great day!

Sup’s Staff

Spring Break Follow-Up!

Hello all!

I haven’t written a general note for a while but want to do so now.

Can you believe Spring Break is already behind us? Is anyone other than me counting days to the end of the year? I often have people ask me, “How’s everything?” That’s an impossible question. I usually answer by saying “Many things are great!” I will tell you with absolute sincerity that I truly appreciate the many examples of people stepping up and working through challenges constructively and cheerfully. You are really crucial parts of a great team – I’m glad to be on the team with you.

As you know, the legislature ended a few weeks ago and it looks as though we’ll have the best financial year we’ve had in quite a while. You may have seen reports that there was an error from the state office of education that means that the funding is $25 million short. While that is true, after an extensive meeting with the state superintendent yesterday, I am confident that we will not be impacted. Please don’t let that worry you.

An update on some of the things we’ve been working on here:

About 6 months ago (end of October) you all sent in the feedback with answers from the PowerPoint questions. I sent the responses out to all of you for further thoughts and we’ve been working to identify themes. It’ll come as no surprise that a common theme is the frustrating tension between expectations and tools – “You want me to do this work but you don’t give me the resources [time, equipment, etc.] that it takes.” In this same vein, there is a huge voice that shouts out that there is more to educating the whole child (and preparing them for college, career and life in a 21st Century world – something that starts no later than kindergarten by the way) than language arts and math. Given these messages, here’s what’s underway right now:

We’re taking the core curriculum, all of the subjects (they’re all important), and identifying the truly essential concepts. When we’ve identified what we think are really the essential concepts of, say, the 4th grade music core (or science or social studies or art – you see where this is going), we’ll send these out for your feedback again – I suspect our 4th grade experts (you 4th grade teachers) may want to lengthen/shorten the list. With buy-in and consensus on the essential concepts of all 14 plus 4th grade curriculum areas, we’ll put these into a content management system that, in addition to a realistic scope and sequence, will have Tier I, II and III lesson plans, ELL lesson plans, acceleration/enrichment lesson plans, complete with links to associated learning tools (remember the “what taught, how taught, how demonstrated, materials needed” stuff from the methods classes – we were supposed to fill out the sheet for every subject for every lesson for every day? – it will be done for you, with resources already attached). To make this better, the plans will be coordinated between different subjects and the realistic scope and sequence so that a single activity will meet objectives in multiple areas. I know, I know, you’re thinking that this isn’t new, you’ve been doing it for years. You’re right. However, the feedback you’ve sent suggests strongly that with planning time at a premium, not to mention changing demographics, that some folks are feeling overwhelmed. They recognize that change and adjustment is necessary but are stuck. I happen to think that it’s the district’s job to provide the tools – and the training to use the tools – to enable you to meet changing expectations in these transformational times. Please don’t think this is pie-in-the-sky, we have much of the infrastructure already in place – we won’t be rolling it out next week, but once the essential concepts are nailed down things will move quickly. I know many of you are using Kahn Academy (or similar) stuff now, this is right around the corner. A few facets I think will be important will be to allow teachers to upload and share their existing plans if they want and to do the Facebook “like” or “dislike” thing for lessons that are on already. District specialists will then have responsibility to continually update resources and lesson plans. I’ve outlined this in an elementary context but it has secondary application as well.

Now, the question lots of you have asked and I suspect many of you are thinking right now is “great, what are you expecting me to do tomorrow?” or “what are you going to make us do next year?” We are polishing up a technology continuum right now. Recognizing that folks are at different technological places, other than the basic floor of “web presence,” we’ll have educators and their supervisors discuss and set a technology goal as part of the PG&E process. That way you’ll be able to pick from the continuum and tailor that expectation into something that is not only achievable and realistic, but also makes sense to you and your work.

As I look out and see the rain, I want you to know that spring really is on the way and that the school year is about to end. As you know, I’m wrapping up my first full year as superintendent and I see considerably more forehead when I look into the mirror, and I fear my hair will soon be as fair as it was when I was in elementary school myself. I’ve learned a lot and I thank you for your patience with me, your willingness to let me know your thoughts, and most importantly, the service you render to children and their families.

Thanks again,

Martin

9th Grade Reconfiguration – Q&A

Dear Patrons of Granite School District,

The district recently hosted two informational meetings in the Cottonwood and Granger High communities to answer questions regarding the process by which a community could reconfigure the 9th grade into the high school.
It is important to understand that while there is evidence to suggest that such a model can be advantageous, a decision of this magnitude should be supported and advocated by a community as a whole. These informational meetings were held to begin that process and provide information to a community on how to pursue such a change if they desired. We would encourage you to review the presentation (attached below) that outlines the complete process.

While a number of the questions you will read were answered at the meeting, we have chosen to reprint these questions (see attachment below with complete Q&A). If there additional questions, you can submit those to communications@graniteschools.org and they will be added to this document as they are received.

As you can see from the Grade Reconfiguration Attachment (below), we are still very early in the discussion phase of this proposal. We anticipate that those advocating for this proposal will be providing additional information so that our patrons can make an informed choice on this matter.

We have categorized the questions (as some of them are quite similar) into topics and then broken down the individual questions with each letter. The answers directly follow each question in the same subsection and are bolded and colored. While we attempted to be succinct, some questions required additional information to clarify appropriate information.

Thanks for your questions.

Q & A from Informational Meetings

Grade Reconfiguration Process

Question – Title One Bonuses??

Question – Why is it that all teachers working in a title one school, regardless of it they work with title one designated kids, get a big bonus and the title one aides, who help immensely to run the classrooms and wherever needed, get no part of it. It is very frustrating to do all that we do and not be acknowledged as the teachers are.

Response – We value the work of para educators and recognize that they make great contributions to student achievement. The Title I Stipend / Incentive is allowed by federal law to recruit and retain licensed educators in Title I schools.  Unfortunately the law does not allow these types of incentives to non-licensed staff.

Thanks to our Title I Director for his assistance in responding to this question.

Question – Grading Schools?

Question – When will the newest idea from our state legislators take effect? When are our schools going to be graded and what are the qualifiers?

Response – I share your frustration that oftentimes, the mandates passed on from the legislature can be taxing and decrease morale among our hardworking educators. Currently, the school grading bill is undergoing some amendments for implementation this next fall. We are working to communicate with our legislators the impacts of all programs and suggest you do the same. At this point it looks as though implementation of the new “system” will be delayed for another year. 

By the way, regardless of the grade that ultimately results – we encourage you to celebrate the growth of each student with the student’s parents.  With my very own children, when I know that they are progressing, achieving, love learning, and have teachers who genuinely care about them and their growth, I’m not particularly interested in the label the building gets on some report downtown.  if we focus on the things we know make a difference pedagogically, kids will thrive, parents will be pleased and, I believe, the school grading system will take care of itself.

Thanks for serving the kids!

Question – Charter Schools and PR

Question – The Cognos IBM tool available on the USOE site is great for transparency. It has illustrated that the charter schools are not succeeding at the rate the parents think they are. Unfortunately, as an STS who was trained on the program I can “filter out” the special populations of our schools. When I look at the neighborhood schools compared to the charter schools the neighborhood schools are succeeding at a far better rate than assumed with and without those filters. When schools do not make AYP sometimes it is due to special ed, attendance or high mobility populations. Is there a method in which we can make the message “that involved parents have successful students” more available? Every school I go to I see involved parents with extremely successful students.

When I talk to parents who have sent their children to charter schools they seem to emphasize that these charter schools emphasize arts and science more and have a smaller student to teacher ratio. My frustration is that all the resources are being pulled from the district schools to make these charter schools happen. How did the parents become so disenfranchised that instead of investing in our schools they prefer to create whole new buildings and systems? I applaud the tax hike last year to accommodate all the physical educators but maybe all these parents that moved their students would prefer to invest more in the schools but are not sure how to. How can we involve these parents so that they can help us to create the schools they want instead of going elsewhere?

Lastly, I think the size of our district enables us to do great things that other districts can not. We have great programs in place and great resources. It would be nice to see our students reflect on the great things in our district and their local schools. I know the PTA does a reflections assembly and the US forest service used to do a tree poster contest. Can we as a district do something like this to emphasis how great we are. We have certified dedicated teachers, great new schools being built, technology specialists, PE specialists……let’s have students clelebrate these things.

In closing I know these ideas are not foreign. PTA is suppose to be the conduit for change and dialogue and teacher of the year awards are to celebrate our district strengths but they are not. We need to change our image, our schools are succeeding in many ways, yet the news is full of depressing statistics. Thank you for your time.

Response – You bring up a number of great points that are currently being addressed by me and my staff. We have communicated with principals directly, the importance of ascertaining if students are leaving to go to charter schools. And we encourage them to take steps to shore up their programs to prevent or stop the loss!  Our Communications Department continues to work to highlight programs and school successes for the media and our legislators to ensure that information is getting out to the parents who ultimately make these decisions. We continue to work to identify these successes in our schools and could use any tips for programs or individual successes that should be recognized and publicized. Anyone can submit ideas tocommunications@graniteschools.org.

Lastly, we continue to work on other plausible marketing techniques to raise the profile of Granite District. Look for some of these to be implemented over the next year. While we don’t want to give anything away, they will be noticeable and draw significant attention to the efforts our great educators are making in our classrooms everyday.

Please know however, at the end of the day the very best advocate for our schools are the people who work and volunteer in them – we have thousands of “marketing agents” who have personal access to their neighbors.  Just think of the power if all of our employees and volunteers committed to share just one great thing they see happening with three people each day who don’t work or volunteer at their school!

Thanks for all you do – including eating “neatly” at your desk!

Question – Changes in Recess

Question – I am writing because I have a question about the time currently allotted to lunch and lunch recess. I believe the fixed amount of time is 35 minutes. At our Granite District elementary school we have a concerned group of parents proposing changes to our lunch procedures. They would like to see less waste, and more food consumed by the students. They have proposed recess before lunch. As we discussed the potential scenarios for making this work at the community council meeting, the issue of time became a factor. Is there a possibility of this becoming a site based measure, or that the district could build in some flexibility of, say, an additional 10 minutes or more?

Response – Recess before or after lunch is something that several schools are already experimenting with.  Please contact your school community council!