Minutes
The following minutes were taken at a meeting of the Instructional Support Team of Urbana District #116 in Urbana, Illinois:
"MINUTES:
Instructional Support Team Meeting
January 10, 1996
1:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Room 33, Teacher Center, C.O.
Announcements Made
The Regional Office Schoolworks has a good workshop for primary teachers on using hands-on math manipulatives. Sherry announced that Title II funds were available to pay for registration, substitute, and training materials. The workshop is January 18. Teachers should contact Sherry quickly if they want to attend. This workshop seems best suited to new primary grade teachers or teachers who have not been in a Math Their Way Workshop.
Agenda Items
The major discussion of the day centered on developing a proposal on restructuring time. This proposal will be presented by Bob Nielsen to the Board of Education on January 16, 1996. Bob Nielsen asked that in addition to Sherry McClellan, IST Chair, IST have representatives from elementary, middle, and high schools. Sharon Roth, Margo Richardson, and Waunita Kinoshita will represent these schools respectively. All IST members are invited to be at the meeting to add information or provide clarification of the proposal.
Following the attached agenda, IST arrived at the attached proposal, which calls for 6 two-hour staff development programs that would be held in October, November, December, February, March, and April. This proposal accomodates a time frame that IST determined to be reasonable in terms of providing staff development on contractual time, allowing for adequate child and parent needs, and meeting state requirements for using banked time minutes for school improvement activities.
Banked time is any time beyond the required 300 minutes of daily instruction time. These minutes are banked and then used for school improvement, but once minutes are accumulated and used, they cannot be carried over. That means that if we need 2-1/2 hours for a school improvement session, we must accumulate them before we can take them. If we have accumulated 4 hours of banked minutes, we would lose the opportunity to use the remaining 1-1/2 hours. This information was provided for clarification, but it would mean planning the activities to fit a calendar that allows sufficient accumulation of minutes for October, November, December, etc. The time we are allowed for banked minutes may be an average of all schools.
For clarification, three days of in-service time in August, 1996, will be structured similarly to last year. That means one day of districtwide focus, one day of building-level focus, and one day of grade level/dept. focus. A half day in May is scheduled. This additional half-day comes from the ISBE's denying early release for students on the afternoons of Parent Conferences and Friday afternoons for teachers who have completed conferences. This means that students will be in school the full Thursday of evening parent conferences. IST will discuss the use of the May day at a later time, but consideration will be given to its being used for building-level goal setting and/or staff development debriefing activties.
Designation of Day for Staff Development
After general discussion about the negative appearance of designating Friday afternoon as a staff development day, Wednesday seemed the best choice to meet most building schedules. Mondays and Tuesdays are generally building staff meeting days. Although much discussion revolved around designating the same day and time (1st Wednesday afternoons), IST decided that if the times were consistent, buildings and programs could more easily adjust schedules to keep student/class meeting times equal. For example, arts programming could be rearranged to be sure that the same classes didn't miss all the time or classes could be shortened to be sure all classes met, but for less time. Scattered issues such as elementary prep periods, a student's missing perhaps eight sessions of one subject, and lunch and transportation scheduling become part of the input into selecting the time.
Designation of Months for Staff Development Sessions
In determining months for the program, much discussion centered around whether to skip December (already a short month) and January (a busy month at secondary schools because of end of the semester work) or September (follows very closely on the August in-service). Finally, because time would be needed to set up program selection, September was eliminated. IST's desire to concentrate the program equally into each semester made October, November, and December the best choice. The first Wednesday in January fell right on top of return from winter break, making February, March and April better choices.
Designation of Program Length and Student Dismissal Time
Discussion about lunch and child care led IST to recommend a student dismissal at 12:45 so that all could be accommodated most easily--lunch, child care, clearing the building, loading buses, etc. By limiting the program time to two hours, teachers would have travel time to the program sites and significant time for the program activity. These decisions concluded work on Agenda Items 1-3.
Child care raised concern over who would be providing and paying for it. Although it would seem reasonable to assume that child care is parent responsibility, Bob Nielsen and Sherry McClellan will continue to explore possible options in this area.
The Proposal for Restructuring Staff Development Time and a calendar is enclosed. This proposal was drafted by Sherry McClellan from the rationale, assumptions, and program criteria approved by IST earlier this year and from the input from this meeting.
Agenda Items 4-8
On Item 4, brief discussion indicated that the structure of study/work sessions may determine whether or not such activities would meet the IST criteria for program. This will be discussed further at the next IST meeting. On Item 5, no considerations will be made for work on curriculum development, committee meetings, or other such activities. On Item 8, discussion indicated that developing this plan would reduce out-of-district conference consideration. This item will return on the next meeting agenda. Items 6 & 7 will be carried over.
Next IST Meeting Date
The next IST meeting will be Thursday, February 29 at 8:30 a.m. We will adjourn at 11:00 a.m. The agenda will be:
Review of Board of Education Response to the Staff Development Proposal
Study/Work Session on grade level units
Half-time/job share attendance at Staff Development Sessions
Restructured Staff Development and Current Board Credit Programming
What we gain; What we lose with a new program"