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Statement
A true college prep.
Okay, so the key points that I wrote underneath were, it says giving students the
opportunity to discover their passions or life aspirations. This gives the students
an example of what college is really like, declaring a major, taking focused
classes based on that major, and then completing requirements. >> So are you
referring to like CP classes in general? Or are you trying to create like a new
section of classes to support the college prep line? Like alignment? >> I think
what you know as college prep right now, CP in high school, is not what I'm
referring to. What I'm basically referring to is saying that I want high school to
literally prepare you for the college experience. So you would have to go into -and we're kind of getting that way now in the high school, but I want to make sure
it's universal across the entire way, where the students will come in as freshmen
and then after one year of classes, they begin to kind of focus their class choices
and their energies towards choosing a major or choosing a pathway, like what we
are building right now, so that way they get the experience of that going through
and seeing whether or not those choices and those classes that they are taking
are helping them and guiding them towards being that for the rest of their lives.
Because we all know we've been through times where we've had friends who
changed their majors in college and maybe even some of you experienced that
yourselves, if we could sort of try to have this be an experience where that can be
done in a high school level, perhaps when they get to a coleagueate level they
may be more efficient with how they operate and be more successful. >> By
college are you referring to the traditional four year college experience or would
you expand that college definition to mean two year colleges and trade schools as
well? >> I think when I wrote it, I was thinking the traditional college experience,
but I think it would apply to anything. In our district we do have our CTE program
which gives them that student, like Sandy was talking about, so I guess it could
apply to that as well. >> Do you think that we need to do a better job with students
actually understanding that they are required to have a pathway and actually
making sure that there's information out there that these are what our pathways
are at the district level? >> Absolutely. >> So do you see this as a question
around scheduling of current classes or do you see this around the classes that
aren't there that would support this? I'm not sure if my question is clear, but --. >>
Is it about how kids are selecting into the current classes we have and aligning
those? Or is it about there's gaps in the classes we offer that don't allow that
alignment? >> I think the answer to that is both. I think what we could do is we
could do, as a district, a better job of aligning what we do have and then
identifying if there are any gaps and holes, and then offering those types of things
if we have the staff to support them and we have the abilities to offer that, those
classes, yes.
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doors, buzzer, that kind of thing. And then the other one I feel is maybe even
more important is the internal threats. I keep thinking of that poor girl up north who
went into that bathroom and was killed unfortunately. And, you know, if you have
that kind of situation where you feel like there's going to be a fight or something
like that, that kid is not going to learn that day because they are worrying about
the fight that's going to happen. So if there was some kind of resource that kid
could go to to know that they could go to that source with their situation and it
would be dealt with, I feel like that would be helpful. >> Would your external
threats be also, like, their family? >> Yeah.
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All educators highly qualified in the content area in which they teach.
All educators highly qualified in the content area in which they teach. It would be
maintain this at the elementary level because at the elementary level across the
district we are highly qualified. It is really in my mind focusing on the middle
school and the high school to ensure that all educators are highly qualified at that
level. To ensure that all students have access to highly qualified educators. Have
access to teachers that have the training to be teaching the content area that
they're teaching. And that access be equal to all students within the building. >>
So would educators like include substitutes? >> I think that's a very good
question. When I developed the headline, I was not -- I was thinking about the
Capital School District employees. I think that substitutes potentially could be
another headline. I think there are issues around substitutes that are different than
issues around full-time employees. >> Are you talking about at the onset of their
employment or after? If they are employed and they are given a certain amount of
time to be highly qualified. >> I think our initial task was kind of to shoot for the
moon, kind of perfect world, and in my perfect world they would be highly qualified
from the onset of employment. >> One-to-one teachers and Special Ed teachers
at the secondary level, would they, as they travel with students, would they be
highly qualified in all of the areas where they travel with their students or is that,
like -- I think you understand my question. >> In those situations I would say that
my thought process is the individual who is providing the content instruction is
highly qualified, so it's probably -- in my mind, there's some individualalization,
depending on the one-on-one with the individual Instructor or the Special Ed
Instructor. >> The definition of highly qualified, are you talking the DOE definition
or are you talking what would be best for Capital School District? >> I think that I
am talking both. At this point when I say highly qualified there's a Federal
definition of what highly qualified is, but I also think I'm talking about what is best
for Capital School District. And there may be times when we believe what's best
for the district may be a standard that is higher than what is set by the Federal
standard of highly qualified. What I think is very important though is that all
students have access to the best teachers. And that means hiring the best
teachers in the very beginning of the process and then ensuring that all students
have access to those teachers, you know, throughout their education. That, I think
that there is -- tell me if I'm expounding too far, but I think there is a perception
that that are times when our quote best students from access to our best teachers
and that teachers who are coming in who may be less qualified or have less
experience are getting some of the more challenging students. And what I think is
important is that we hire the best from the very beginning and that all of our
students have access to the best educators so that we're attracting, we're
retaining those best educators and that all of our students have access to them.
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middle school and the 8th graders going up to the high school. We are a very
small school district. Without some kind of uniform system, I heard people say, all
kind of kids, regular kids, Special Ed kids, all types of kid, no matter what school
they came from, they can expect to see this in an inclusion setting, or a Gate
setting and the students in the middle school. I don't like when people talk about
Polytech. What I would like to see, being an associate principal there, I would like
to see more classes added so that the student can have everything they need, so
they walk kindergarten through 12th grade they know they are going to be a
Capital student. And the other thing is having community support, to support that
linear district because we have people that communicate and have conversations
about the schools only based upon what they have heard and they are never
walked a foot in any of these schools doors. And I think having, as someone said,
going out and being able to reach the community, communicate with the people in
the community to find out what the needs are, which is similar to what we are
doing now, so everyone knows what Capital stands for and where we are going.
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just feel like that's, like, a big problem because SATs and ACTs are a big qualifier
for your future. So if you don't get an equitable score on your ACT or SAT, it does
determine what school you will ultimately go to, whether it's an Ivy league school
or ACPU, it's a different level of education that you will receive and I feel like that's
a problem.
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Student centered.
>> Okay, student-centered. And by that what I meant is the student are the heart
of what we do, so any decisions that we make, we want to look at the lens of how
can we best benefit our students? And so sometimes that's hard because we
have to take the "I" out of that. And so sometimes we have to look at the bigger
picture. And sometimes that's more than a schedule or a certain activity or a
certain intervention or even in working with parents or other stakeholders that
we're always looking through that lens of what's best for our students.
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reinforcement that could change. And I think it would cut down on a lot of
behavioral issues. And allow for the community to attend those as well, because
the community is a huge part in any school district.
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Every graduate leaves high school with at least one work-based learning
experience outside of the school.
My whole reason for this is that it's very important that every student at least once
have an experience outside of the building where they are actually learning what
it's like in a workforce-type environment. So what I would like to see is that every
students before they graduate participate in at least one work-based learning
experience. And that could be a tour of a facility, it could be actually job
shadowing, interning, or co-oping, that's what I would like to see and that's what I
meant by the actual headline. >> Does that experience encompass students that
already have jobs? >> Actually, the job could be one of their experiences. It
doesn't necessarily have to be -- the job could be that experience. Absolutely.
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Family partnership.
All right, for family partnership, I think what I was thinking with this was creating
almost like a team with the student, the parent, and the teacher where they work
together to set long-term and short-term goals for their education. Something at
the Middle School I noticed was lack of parent involvement. I don't know that the
kids really see the future of where they want to be in the next few years. Offering
opportunities for parents and the students to be in working with the teacher, might
also change the mindset of student seeing the parent and the child are also
working with the teacher, so we're kind of like a team, not one person against
another.
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And that's kind of an umbrella idea and some of the things that came to mind
immediately were mentoring. Students knowing that people in the community care
about them and are invested in them. Developing something called "a school to
job pipeline" with students having hope when they go to school that there are jobs
that they will be connected to as they get out of school. That we foster internships,
externships, that we develop more community programs, that we have our
schools thought of as community investments like parks, services, needs analysis
of our families, that we foster volunteerism and community service both in our
schools and outside of our schools and that we do that with a high level of
transparency and intent.
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for lack of better word. >> I think embedding would be best to ultimately leverage
to get at some of the other skills they need to learn.
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One family.
I think we are one district, one family. There are 12 schools in the district, so we're
12 members of the family. I think we just need to make sure as a district we
communicate with one another. High- school communicates with middle, as well
as elementary because we, if we come together as one, we can solve some of the
issues instead of once the child has moved to the next building, trying to figure out
what works best for the child. If someone had worked on that in elementary and
they could pass that on, then we wouldn't have to recreate the will, we could just
go ahead and take them to the next level. >> Are you specifically talking in terms
of interventions for kids or are you talking about something else? When you talk
about communicating and taking things to the next level? >> Everything, someone
had mentioned students that are already at a higher level, let's take them even
higher. So every student.
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mostly academic? >> Both of those. >> When you mean realignment, would you
also be looking at number of kids and the resources they command around those
numbers? >> Yeah, that would be one of the key things. If you look at the
numbers and how that would come into play, you would have, I think, a better
opportunity to have more resources at some of those levels if you realigned those.
>> So would your main focus be students that are, like, having trouble with the
transition or just all students in general? >> I think all student we would need to
look at the programming for every student. >> Does your idea include anything
around sports programs and things like that? >> Yes, that's one of the underlying
things, but it's not the main piece. There's lots of other things that go in that. >>
To go along with Mr. Shepherd's comments about numbers, would the
realignment of students in grades affect the school zoning as far as the seven
elementary schools? >> Probably, that would basically be part of the plan to look
at what schools we have, the structures around those schools, the allocation of
students, and your teachers that go along with them. And then you would have to
reallocate based on facilities, it may take, and I don't want to say this out loud, but
referendum future, but that's just a planning process now.
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thinking about an early childhood center? >> I would love an early childhood
center, yes.
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So this idea actually touches on a couple of things and I kind of heard it from
Sean and it seems like around the room it was a re-occurring idea of highly
qualified teachers, great teachers. So I think meaningful evaluations and feedback
help develop teachers so that all students have the opportunity for great learning
experiences. We can't grow without meaningful evaluation or meaningful
feedback. It also goes back to my first headline talking about more integrated
lessons and project-based learning and things like that, which in order to be
effective need to be monitored or it can turn into the wild, wild west quite quickly. I
am probably a minority, but I'm in favor of more walk-throughs or observations,
whether it's by administrations, coaches or peers, followed by feedback. Currently
PB360 is a long extensive checklist of an evaluation tool that if I were being quite
honest is very meaningless to me. To develop, I think teachers should know what
they do well. I think they should know what they can improve on. I think hearing
feedback from different team members give different perspectives and, therefore,
more opportunities to grow as an educator. And to steal my friend Michelle's
words, we wouldn't give feedback to our students like that if we wanted them to
grow, so why do we do that to our students?
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being able to reach out for advice from adults. We want them to be able to learn
how to work and persevere through situations. It's okay if you make that mistake.
Gain the advice from the adults. Work through what the problems are, and then
come back to it. And then that feedback from the adults is so critical, but it has to,
of course, be done in a respectful manner. We have to be able to help the student
build their self-esteem and how they work and continue on. And then I think from
this, the students will be able to learn how to question and push boundaries
respectfully and professionally. We are trying to teach them some of the work
ethics as they go on and get prepared for life, but we want them to be able to help
figure out, how do I go about doing it? Not just lashing out or, you know, some of
the manners that they do.
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Commitment
I put commitment because I thought of the importance of a shared vision and a
shared path that's clearly articulated. Because I think that sometimes we don't
involve key stakeholders and we make decisions without all the facts or
information. And so I think it kind of lends itself to the whole piece about
transparency. So we really, to ensure that excellent education, I think, again, we
have to be on the same page. And so that's why I put commitment. To be
committed to those goals.
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and we can work in what's the best interest for the kids. And I think if we find, we
won't always have to pay staff to stay after. We will stay after working on writing
those grants. We'll give you our ideas. I think it's about relationships. And if we're
able to do the same things with our students. Students will work like mad for a
coach because they have that relationship. People take that time. So across the
Board, if adults are able to generate those supportive, trusting relationships with
our kids, too, I think overall we will be more successful.
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Safe
By safe, I meant physically safe, that our kids feel safe to come to school, that
somebody is not going to beat them up or whatever, gossip about them, that kind
of thing. I think we need to be environmentally safe. We shouldn't have mold in
our buildings and bad air. I think that we need to be emotionally safe. Adults and
kids. And I think that when we have those that that enables risk-taking, that
enables risk-taking with our teachers to try new things. And in risk taking, we were
talking like 8 out of 10 times we fail, but it's those two times we learn something
new and new ways to reach kids. And I think when kids feel safe, they will take
more risks, too. And somebody else said, okay, so we fail. Well, all right. We have
learned when we fail. I think that, also, if we feel safe we, all of us together, that
increases attendance as well and that improves school climate as well.
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another teacher implement, you know, strategies in the hallway with them and
things like that. I think that would go a long way in having our teachers feel more
open to trying these things with students. The empowered piece for me is some of
my best conversations with teachers are over problem-solving with our
challenging kids. And the number of ideas that I have stolen from teachers with
behavioral strategies is amazing. The creativity and openness to trying new things
is great. But I think even in my short time in education, I've noticed that's kind of
falling. And I don't know if it's because they are scared that if they try something,
you know, let the kid walk around the room instead of sitting at their desk, or if
they are on a different schedule than the other kid that during the walk-through
they will get in trouble because they are not following the schedule and those
types of things. I would like to go back to that empowerment. Just try something
because they all have the tools and drive to have all their kids succeed.
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are the different end points? And how would we backtrack them to make sure,
starting at preschool and kindergarten, we have set up a path for every one of
those different possible pathways? And that we have the articulation all the way
through and we don't wait until freshman year, oh, you are not able to do that
because you didn't get what you needed at Middle School. Or at central, no, you
can't take that class because you didn't take the prerequisite at William Henry. We
need to make sure we have backtracked, not just one. And individual interests, I
think the interests of the kids also need to be taken into account. >> Are you
thinking about how students might jump across threads? >> Yeah, I would agree
that they need to have -- that we need to make sure that we haven't
predetermined any of those, right? That they have to have opportunities to move
and we need to think about how those natural break points which we can't -- I
guess we could, but we could consider, right, a preschool to 12 school and those
break points would be less, but that just isn't going to happen, right? So we have
to really be conscious of the break points to make sure that it's smooth as they
move through that continuum.
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and progression. How we progress students from what we call grade to grade
may be about progressing through standards and allowing students to move
through those standards at the time and place that their individual needs reflect. It
might be accelerated. It might take more time. It might be on what we consider a
traditional school year, but allowing students to move as they are ready to move.
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New building.
What I was eluding to with this is years ago before we were approved to get the
new high school, some of us sat on a committee to look at grade realignment and
what we were going to do. Now that we have our extra piece of property, my
feeling was bringing in 3-year-olds, putting them with pre-K and kindergarten at
the hold Dover High School. Putting 5th grade back so it would be 1-5. And
having two 6, 7, and 8th grade at William Henry and have them specialized in
maybe the arts in one building and something in the other building. And leading
into, a lot of the new programs we have at the Middle School level, building right
into the program we have at Dover High.
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Okay, in this statement I think the key terms are "threshold" and "believe in." What
I mean by that is that we need to widen our collective belief about what students
can do. Nearly all students can perform at really high levels. And so when we
establish a threshold expectation, I'm going to go math on us, I think what I'm kind
of talking about is that ladder towards career and college readiness, that end
mark. So if we're going to have students successfully at Capital School District in
mathematics, we know they have to be able to be successful in algebra 2 by the
end of the 11th grade. That's the threshold expectation. So we need to build
backwards to figure out how we're going to get every kid to have that opportunity
to be successful in algebra II by the end of 11th grade. That doesn't mean we're
going to hold any students back. If they can succeed at that at an earlier time,
then we have to figure out a way to make that happen, too. But we really have to
make sure there are enough supports for them to have that success by the end of
11th grade. The "believe in" part is really important because I think we have a
societal feeling that you are either a math person or you are not and I actually
don't think that's at all true. I think everybody can be a math person. And every
time a teacher or a parent or anyone says in front of kids, oh, well, I'm just not a
math person. Or -- somehow we kind of create a little bit of an exit route or excuse
for kids, so I would hope we would kind of refrain from letting kids know that, you
know, maybe you struggled with math, but that doesn't mean our kids have to
struggle with it. They can all be successful.
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Teacher walk-throughs.
I'm a big sports person, so I look at teaching as a team. I feel teacher facilitator
walk-throughs maybe during PLC time where teachers can walk into their
colleagues classrooms, sit down and observe and they can sit down and see what
is going on because a lot of teachers in the building are doing great things but
their colleagues aren't seeing them because they are just as busy. I love when the
district people come into my classroom, but I do have a healthy fear of you. You
do scare me a little bit. I had a teacher come in this morning and do an
observation on me and the feedback I got was just beyond words. Like I'm still
thinking about it and it was great feedback I will take with me into my instruction
when I come back on Monday.
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a lot of students, some staff. We just had a reduction in hours. We haven't had a
raise in over 11 years. And we do, most of us do everything that the teacher does,
on top of having to deal with a lot of the disrespect that the daily teacher doesn't
get because they are the daily teacher.
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Senator pride.
I know it's kind of similar, but it's going to be different. This is coming as my parent
of a 10th grader hat. Nothing makes me more irritated than ton out in public or
see on social media a Capital School District talking negatively about Capital
School District or a specific school. I actually am a Caesar Rodney graduate and I
would say I bleed blue and white. I don't have any ways to solve it. I don't even
know what to say about that. And I don't except everybody to intervene or say
something, but I do. I don't expect people to be unrealistic about what goes on,
but to have proud and to talk about the positive stuff, not just the negative stuff.
>> Are you saying sometimes we're our own worst enemy? >> Sometimes, yes.
>> You don't just mean our projection to the greater public, but I assume you also
mean our respect towards one another within the district? >> Of course.
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our feedback. Like somebody said, is it would be nice to have a different type of
feedback, but we're using a system that doesn't allow that. They just have
different checks. Our referral system, we are using somebody else's. Child
information, so all of it can go into the same system, the grades, the report cards,
so it's all in one area instead of having different places to find different things.
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same path, maybe at different levels, but just really streamlining what we need to
do and keep that focus instead of bringing in all these different initiatives and
throwing them on there and thinking that we can make it work with everything else
that has been piled on. So determining what we need, how we need to do it, but
also keeping the focus on the common theme so that we're not overloading
ourself continuously.
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that, my thought process was doing away with all of these textbooks and putting
them on the technology that we have, in addition to getting rid of our copy
machines that we use in all of those reams of paper that we pay for. And truly
going green. We already offer in the district a Comcast deal for parenting to be
able to get Internet at their house at a very reduced rate. If we put everything in
their hands, we would be saving in some many additional areas by putting our
textbooks alone on there, let alone getting rid of our copy machines.
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full-time related arts teachers so they are not bouncing around to multiple schools.
I'm talking about a principal and assistant in every Elementary School. If other
districts in the state can do it, and we want to be the premier district in the state,
we can do it, too. We just have to find a way to do it. You know, and the same
thing that I say about art teachers relates to psychologists, anybody bouncing
around from building to building, it makes the job harder of ensuring an excellent
education for our students, which is why every single one of us goes to work
every day.
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