Here
are my notes from the first parent council meeting held October 14,
2010.
District
Administrator Dan Nerad welcomed us and spoke about how this new parent
council
is the district’s attempt to reach out to stakeholders. He
said the new teacher
council had met immediately prior to the parent council meeting. Both
groups should serve as important conduits
for information from and to the district from all school buildings.
Deputy
Superintendent Sue Abplanalp and Assistant Superintendents Pam Nash,
and Jennie
Allen led the discussion on several topics the rest of the evening. The
first topic on the agenda was the alignment
of K-12 and transitions from level to level. What
does literacy look like from K through
grade 12? A literacy committee has been trying to develop answers to
this
question and will announce its findings in December.
What
does the transition from grade 5 to 6 or
from grade 8 to 9 include?
The district
hopes to wrap needed services around the kids and have transitions in
the
schools look alike.
According to Sue,
Madison has islands of excellence, but we need to create a system of
excellence
in which standards are aligned across the district—we need to
ensure that what
we do in kindergarten leads to the outcome we expect in 12th
grade,
graduation.
The
second topic was the high
school plan.
The common core standards in
math and language arts have been adopted in
Wisconsin.
However, the Madison High
Schools are very different in which courses they offer to their
students.
The district wants to retain
the individual
“flavor” of each high school, but it does not want
geography to determine which
courses a student may take in 9-12. All
students need access to rigorous courses—the district wants
to make pathways
open to all.
Pam discussed the growth in
the Madison Virtual Campus and the AVID system (Advancement via
Individual
Determination) as positive developments.
We
next discussed the Assessment
Committee.
The statewide student
assessments, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts
Exams or WKCE, are going away.
The new
assessment will be based on the ACT. A
district-wide committee is studying how future assessments should look
in
Madison.
Several participants raised
questions about the lack of feedback their children receive in the
elementary
grades as conferences are rarely held and the first ones not held until
November 11th. A
new
professional development department has been created in the district
office
with six staffers.
This move should
strengthen the district’s efforts to develop better teachers
in all schools.
The
participants ended the evening by suggesting topics for the group to
discuss at
its next meeting on November 11. If
you
have questions you believe the Lapham-Marquette PTG should take to the
district’s parent council, please bring them to the regular
monthly PTG
meeting.