Curriculum Lay Minutes Jan. 14, 2009

Pam McKinnon (Silver Spring), Nancy McKinley (High School), Ginny Boynton (High School), Vanessa Selby (Sporting Hill and Good Hope), Pam Long (Green Ridge), Susan Signore-Smith (Shaull),  Mary Krempasky (Middlesex), Jane Rhodes (Monroe), Matt LaBuda (District Office intern), Kathy White (Eagle View), Lynnette Snyder, Leeann Rhodes (Director of Curriculum and Instruction), Doris Baboian, Department Chair for World Languages.

The beginning of our meeting focused on a discussion about teaching World Languages in the district.  Mrs. Baboian told us about the STILES program, high school students teaching after school language programs at the elementary schools, which have just been started.  The program is geared towards giving 4^th and 5^th graders a limited amount of exposure to a particular language including its culture.  Additionally, World Languages will be pushed down to 6^th and 7^th grade next year so that 6^th grades take two languages in a survey course, and 7tdh graders will have the other two languages that are offered in the survey during 7^th grade.  There will probably be an option as well for students who do not need to take reading in 7^th grade to move on to the study of a language.  The district is also looking to add a 30 day rotation of Latin during Cultural Arts – health issues previously covered in Cultural Arts may be moved to Phys. Ed.  Next year 8^th grade students will only have an entire year of language available to them rather than the option of taking survey which had always existed in the past.

The bulk of our remaining time was spent discussing the PSSAs.  Next year, the state is looking to complete all PSSA testing during a 6 week period falling in April and May.  The results from the Science PSSAs have shown a discrepancy between the information being taught in the schools and what information is necessary to do well on the test.  It is also possible that the test, given in 11^th grade, has a heavy focus on material that was learned by the students in their 9^th grade class.  If this is the case, the students will not do as well trying to recall that material two years later.  The test currently has 4 components:  Nature of Science (Inquiry) which makes up 50% of the test, and Biological, Physical and Earth and Space which each make up about 17% of the whole.  One of our teachers, Courtney Vathis, is on the state committee which is evaluating the current PSSA science test.  Though the overall results from the PSSA science tests given last year were not good across the state, CV’s 11^th graders came in 18^th in the state, 8^th graders came in 14^th and the elementary was the lowest at 107^th out of 501 school districts.

We were also informed that CV was beginning a search for a new elementary math curriculum and given a time line that indicated a report would be given to administrators by November of 2010.

We briefly discussed the issue of on-line leaning possibilities for AP courses not offered at CV.

Our next meeting is April 15, 2009.  Please contact me if you have any questions or would like me to get information for you about any curriculum issues.  Ginny Boynton, gaboynton@juno.com; 766-8909.