Attendance: Tracy S., Matt J, Michelle K., Ann D., Joyce S., Karen P., Mary A., Ana Y., Mr. Kinzer, Clara C., Amber B.,Mrs. Boshka, Scarlett S.

Agenda:

Review of Instructional forum guidelines and procedures

Nomination and Election of Chair and Secretary positions:

Scarlett Sherman Chair

Amber Britt Sec.

Business: Feedback from the team

~Tracy, Intervention: creating a path to intervention, Changed the intervention plan collaborated with k-5 team to make changes.

Working on letting the staff know about the new intervention plan

~Michelle: Social studies reports a very positive group and getting a good start on things

k-4 records on paper, standards, benchmarks, well on their way, format is working well for this team.

~Ann Dorr: Math team, doing well with cross alignment on the curriculum. Have compared CIT scores and finding it very helpful, and enjoyable. Would like to be able to meet as a k4 team so they could line up assessments with each other. To make sure all the grade levels are on the same page with alignment is a goal.

~Joyce Singleton k-4 lang. arts. Have been working on K4 reading scope and sequence. Finding gaps, and finding creative ways to work on the curriculum. Information they are finding is very informative and helpful, making progress.

~Clara Clark: Goal for this team is to have a solid look at what is missing in the curriculum in order to look at individual grade levels and go from there.

~Karen Pogachar: Meeting CRT at 10^th grade, trying to make the curriculum meet the standards. Asking parents what they would like to see from the students as far as expectations. Making progress. “Do we prepare the students to take the test, or prepare them for moving further into the field of science beyond”.

~Mary Ahnert: Careers, Focus is on k12 career education. Noticing weekness in careers for k12 being taught. Collaborating with 9^th grade teachers to find out what is valuable for this goal. Changing the name from the transitions course to career focus.

MCIS, online portfolios, apps, and career exploration are some of the ideas this team has.

~Ana Young, spanish: looking at the standards to make alignment. What applies, what is covered, what do they need to work on and develop a plan. Making progress

~Amber: for the Arts: Goals: meet with other schools to collaborate on subject to make sure they have the curriculum information that is hand; starting with swan river. Starting the blog will help with allowing other staff members, parents, students can access the information online. We are making phenomenal progress with the curriculum guide.

Mr. Kinzer reports Shop is making progress

Scarlett: Tech team is working on infusing technology into everyone’s curriculum, and making huge progress on this and is implementing this already.

FORUM on 6/3

Forum Minutes
June 3, 2009

I. Attendance
¸ K-2: Shults
¸ 3-5: Deskins-President
¸ 6-8: Howie
¸ 9th grade: --------?
¸ 10th: Appleby
¸ 11/12: Boshka
¸ Tech: Sherman
¸ Intervention: -------?
¸ Admin: Boshka, Kinzer, Jensen, Loeffler

II. Good News from Teams
¸ High School reported most seniors got good scholarships
¸ Graduation was short but very sincere
¸ First time for baccalaureate
¸ Elementary school reported Kindergarten graduation at Sliters park went well
¸ L Losing 3 teachers at the Elem level: Deskins, Howie, Moul
¸ 8th grade trip leaves for their trip on Thursday- looks like they have lots of fun planned
¸ 5th has been at Ravenwood this week! Going well!!
¸ Multi-age went to Ravenwood last week and it went really well!

III. HPT Restructure
¸ Right now the school improvement system is bogged down. We need to re-align the entire process. All teams will be restructured by discipline and by grade-level.
¸ Next year we will be working on: Curriculum, Instructive and best practices. This is the time to focus on our students and the curriculum
¸ Next Fall one of those September days will be used for this re-alignment
¸ Content teams will be one big vertical team and then break down into smaller focus groups within the team.
¸ Benchmarks will be assessed.
¸ Next year specific goals will be articulated.
¸ Here are the teams:
¸ Math: Epperley, Bach, Pitz, Dorr, Gross, Pierce, McAnally, Tennant, Johnson, Dolezal, Swope, New
¸ Language Arts: Singleton, Lamar, Shults, Morley, Henion, Bonner, White, Blinn, Pierce, Ball, Appleby, Sullivan, Boskha, Clark
¸ Science: Brown, Trembath, Pogy, Bodenhammer, White, Heupel
¸ Social Studies: Perleberg, Manders, Carter, Aldrich, Taylor
¸ Sped: Wisher, Richter, Pilskalns, Wallin, Hanson, Raab (Aides: Manicke, Standley, Stodghill, Lyons
¸ Art: Britt, Taylor
¸ Music: Blinn, Peters, Richter
¸ Counselors: Wood, Ahnert, Nadeau, Willison, Strong
¸ PE: Epperley, Loeffler
¸ Shop: Melkioty
¸ Spanish: Young, Trenerry
¸ Tech: Richardson, Roberts, Zielanski, Shanks, Porrrovecchio, Sherman, New
¸ *****All questions/concerns will be answered this fall!! There will also be some flexibility in these teams!

IV. The Inservice Days (The First Four Days of School TENTATIVE SCHEDULE)
¸ Orientation/Cluster Day 1
¸ HPT Restructureing Day 2-3
¸ Building Preperations/Meetings Day 3-4

V. MEA Days (October)
¸ You need to have a plan
¸ MEA days are contracturally required
¸ There will be flexibility if you have made prior arrangements to fullful your PIR if prior arrangements have been made (Summer workshops)
¸ Otherwise things will be offered at our school
¸ MEA is in Billings this year

VI. Cluster Day Ideas
o AGATE
o ANKEL TAPING
o SCHOOL ATTOURNEY
o TECH
o INDIAN ED
o SUMMER INSTITURE FROM THE CO-OP
o BIG 6
o Anyone with ideas please contact Scarlett
o You get DOUBLE PIR if you teach one of the classes!!
o Teams planning on presenting a cluster need to put something in writing
o Here is the tentative schedule:

Tues Sept 1st
8:00 Greeting/Orientation
8:30-10:00 Guest Speaker
10-10:15 Break
10:15-11:30 Cluster
11:30-12:30 Lunch
12:30-1:45 Cluster
1:45-2:00 Break
2:00-3:15 Cluster

Wed. Sept 2nd Thur. Sept. 3rd Fri Sept. 4th ----T.B.A.

Subject: 2009 Totally Wired Teacher Award

Our humble colleage, Mike Roberts received the following email from Bri Brewer Head of Community Development for Dell’s Education community.

I would like to personally extend my congratulations to you on being
nominated (multiple entries) and ultimately selected for the
Ypulse 2009 Totally Wired Teacher Award!!

You were selected from more than 200 nominees for your dedication to technology supporting instruction and your commitment to being an advocate for its potential in education.
http://www.ypulse.com/the-2009-totally-wired-teacher-ismike-roberts

Tech HPT

Still working on the finishing touches of the tech plan.

Did you know that as a teacher at Bigfork Schools you can become a tech mentor or mentee? You can also ask for University of Bigfork Credit, PIR time, or personal days as a result???
Ask your building rep for more info!

Elem/Middle School Rep:Scarlett Sherman, Greg Moul, Mike Roberts
High School Rep: Sue Zielanski, Matt Porrovecchio

6-8 HPT

The 6-8 team spent yesterday's HPT meeting recommending sixth and seventh grade students to next year's leadership class. We are looking to involve students that have demonstrated the ability to sway their peers, in either a positive or negative direction. The goal is to teach these natural leaders the skills they need to use their abilities to create a positive social and educational environment. The leadership course will likely be a combination of character education, and a civics curriculum.

10th Grade HPT

Tenth HPT continued to talk about next year's goals, those we hope to still accomplish no matter how the HPT system works next year. We tried to nail down a large community based project for each quarter. 1st: A motto and logo contest along with a What's Good About Bigfork English discussion. 2nd: Food Drive (With the graduation of this year's class it will be interesting to see if the kids really get behind this like they have in the past.) #rd: Empty bowl, a huge project involving the entire high school, more on that later. 4th: Community service day. A day for kids to go out into the community and do some good, picking up trash, doing yard work, going planting trees, etc.

That's where we are right now, any ideas or additions would be great.

3-5 in May

The last two early releases have either been consumed with math (Ms. Math was here. I think she has a real name, maybe Rachel?) or grade levels planning end of year trips. As a team we have not seen very much of each other but we take comfort knowing we are planning the end of the year.

It seems there has been a lot of work happening involving math with a lot more to come. Hopefully someone with some actual insight will post too! 3rd recently visited a museum (I know, I should remember the name!), 4th just returned from another successful overnight adventure to Great Falls, and 5th is about to embark on yet another two night-er to Ravenwood the first week of June!

intervention

The Intervention Team was mostly involved in other meetings, scheduling, and athletics but those who could meet did so briefly and talked more about some students who were in danger of losing credits through failing, notably the seniors.

Tech HPT on May 13

At our last tech HPT meeting we met with a revised copy of the tech plan. We our making changes to the plan to fit the needs of OPI requirements. We also asked for one full school day with sub release time to work on this large endeavor. The plan also needs to be ready with monetary figures when stimulus money becomes available.

Also, we constantly talk about the Technology Mentor/Mentee program that the plan has set up. Hey Staff!! Did you know you can further your technology education with the help of the school district as laid out in the tech plan? Ask one of your tech members for more info!!!

Pardon me, but I must....

Please accept my invitation to nominate Mr. Michael Roberts for the Ypulse 2009 Totally Wired Teacher Award. It has been my privilege to be mentored by Mr. Roberts over the last seven months . I have watched as he has played point person, driving Bigfork School District to embrace 21st Century Technology . I have observed his enthusiasm in the classroom as he shares his passion with students and they respond. We are fortunate to have this rare resource in our midst and this is a unique opportunity to acknowledge him. Please visit Ypulse and fill in the brief nomination form.

HPT 10

Well, a week and a half ago when we met, we prepared for our Sophomore field trip to Nine Pipes lodge and Beardance trail. It was a hit. the kids enjoyed themselves and learned a lot. They also had a great opportunity to work hard and do something good for the environment by planting trees and clearing away brush that could cause wildfires.

We also continued talks about the Empty Bowl program that we plan to reinstate next year, with the full blessings of the Forum and Administration, of course.

We are still pushing to be the All Things Positive group, and we will continue to look for ways to set Bigfork apart as a place that kids want to be.

11/12 team report

At the last HPT the 11/12 team discussed goals for next year. We are considering "critical thinking" curriculum, gifted and talented identification, and intervention. We also discussed concerns about next year's calendar. Senior projects were a great success and I will be posting pictures of the presentations. The interactive board was perfect for this type of assignment. Mike B.

6-8 HPT

Our HPT meeting was spent planning for a track and field day for the morning of May 27th. This day will be led by the 7th and 8th grade students and teachers and attended by third and fourth grade students. We brainstormed a series of events, so that each student will visit around eight stations during the morning. Some events will be traditional, and others have been highly adapted to accommodate our age range and number of students. It should be a fun day for all participating!

Insurance Discussion

Here are Clara's Comments. This blog is open to FRIENDLY discussion about our insurance choices. You can also click your choice on the unformal poll! Currenlty I am also leaning towards MUST b/c of the HSA option. Please keep in mind these are opinions and the blog is a great place to share!!! Scarlett


Dear All,
Last night I made the time to attend the MUST meeting. I'm glad I did.
After listening to the Blue Cross-Blue Shield presentation, I was ready
to vote in favor of switching our health insurance company. No so,
any longer! My reasoning is as follows:
MUST raised the maximum lifetime benefit from 3 million to 5 million
MUST has a basic medical plan - the Blue's don't - we do have members
on this plan
MUST has a built-in $!0,000 life insurance policy with the district
paying for another $10,000. I purchased a $50,000 policy
for about $18 per month. Great rate. I'm not real clear on
the Blue's, but I believe if we wanted that, it would raise the
premium?
MUST has a built-in long term disability insurance - the Blue's
don't. You can purchase it.
MUST deals with schools only.
MUST and Blue's dental and vision plans are comparable, however,
if you use a flex account or a health savings account, you will
not spend as much in the end. When you add up the premiums
paid and subtract you benefits, the insurance is not cost effective.
MUST also offers opportunities for us, as a district, to lower our
premiums through wellness incentive plans. One of the opportunities
mentioned was if 90% of the insured participated, we could save up to
3% on our premiums. Granted that may be only $12 - $13 per month,
and that depends on your plan and deductible, but $140 to $150
per year would but something fun?
MUST premiums may be a couple dollars more, but the benefits outweigh
the cost risks.
I know I'm not covering all the points. Perhaps those in attendance can lend
their memories and support.
Union members will be voting soon to decide which insurance company
we will be using as a district.
Thanks for listening/reading about my obvious choice.

Have a GREAT DAY!
Clara

I Team

Intervention Team met last week and went through the updated F and nearly-failing list. Christina Nadeau shared some of the interventions in place for students struggling with math. Our discussion centered on what we are doing as a high school to intervene in skill deficits among students in all areas. Elementary strategies were also discussed including the math interventions that have had success in their program. Christina informed team members how we're working on a plan for next year to take out the "negativity" associated with some intervention programs, and anticipating success with the new strategies.

4.29.09 Tech Team

At the tech meeting we talked about the tech plan and how we continually have to update it. The updates we need to make include:
-a timeline for the network and its infrastruture, a mobile lab for the high school this year and next, a forcast for room 201 in the middle school, how many new machines will be purchased a year for teachers, and VHS

3 and 4 and 5 HPT

The 3-5 team separated into its component parts Wednesday needing to discuss the upcoming enrichment clusters, last minute report card details, and end of year trips. As grade levels we were also able to utilize some much needed meeting time to keep up with reading and RTI, our foremost team goal.

K-2 HPT

We started off talking about extending the lunch time for primary students for next year, as they are rushed to eat, or throw their food away because they want to get out to recess. Discussed different ways this might be possible, and will bring it up to Mrs. Boshka for further discussion. Earth Day activities were brought up and paint has been ordered to start painting the animal tracks on the sidewalks for those grade level sections of the campus that have a paintable surface to work with. We tallied the Internet Survey that was sent home with students.
Do you have a computer at home? 95Y 5N
Do you have internet access? 84Y 16N
Is your child allowed to get on internet sites without supervision? 1Y 99N
Do you have child safety protection instaled on your computer? 26Y 43N (Not all teachers asked this question)
Sharon Lamar is participating in the Pennies for Peace campaign again this year and invited the other primary classrooms to participate if they wanted too.

9th HPT

We chose a representative principal advisary. We discussed new possibilities for the School Picnic. Many suggestions were made. We also brought up many concerns for our representative to take to principal advisory. We edited and copied the freshman school supply list to be sent home for the current 8th graders and would appreciate any input from other staff of anything that needs to be added to that list. Unfortunately, we are still waiting to hear back from the bike company in regards to lowering the costs of our 9th grade field trip.

11/12 team discussed the calendar for next year, problems accessing the computer lab, and greed to examine some web sites on critical thinking at our next meeting.  MB

Tenth HPT spent the time doing several different things. Hans and Stormy went to the parks department and set up our tree planting day set for May 1st. We will be taking all of the sophomore class to plant trees at Beardance Trail and Nine Pipes lodge, with a picnic between.
We also spoke about a reworking of the picnic, perhaps asking student council to come up with a little more structure, and adding an assembly to show off all of the good things that we have done this year, awards, scholarships, etc.

6-8 HPT

The 6-8 team did some problem-solving and some brainstorming during this weeks meeting. One issue was students being released from classes early and then lingering in hallways, disturbing other classes. Solutions involved synchronizing clocks, and urging teachers who don't have bells to carefully watch the clock and keep students until the appropriate time.

Next, grade checks for the current track season were organized, followed by a brainstorming session on how to organize some of the elementary school into a track and field day later in the spring. Planning is still in process, but will involve advisory teams organizing and running track events for some elementary students in a fun and community-building afternoon in May.

Intervention and Tech collaborate

The Intervention and Tech teams that were able to meet together did just that and discussed the upcoming Cinco de Mayo lunch collaboration. To those who could not attend, please check your email for your specific assignment.

Three of the team members met and discussed Moodle, and tried to download the program to begin using this new technological hybrid. Unfortunately due to administrative issues, we could not in fact use or later uninstall the zipped files, and will wait for further instruction as to where the program will have to be housed. For you who are completely lost by this discussion, do not despair as it will undoubtedly resurface in coming weeks. If you are interested, check out moodle.org online and see what you think.

The Intervention team will meet again to discuss students who are jeopardizing credits by not passing classes, and how we can redirect them toward success.

Tech Team on 4.15

The tech team spent individual time researching different aspects of Web 2.0 tools. For example I learned about Twitter. Sue spent some time researching Moodle and talking to other teams about Moodle. And Roberts spent time updating the tech plan with our new goals and looking through the stimulus package to see what was available.

Will We Be Ready For Her?

She's posed for learning in the digital world! She will come to school unafraid of technology and she will be skilled at using it to produce creative work. Using technology will expand her vocabulary and deepen her ability to think critically. She might even teach herself to read! The notion of literacy for her will be much expanded beyond the traditional print literacy.

Thank you TECH HPT for pushing us to become more comfortable with using technology. We might not become as tech savy as our digital natives but we can be open to developing our expertise.

11-12 HPT-Agate

The 11-12 hpt will examine ways to increase critical thinking in the curriculum and our assignments. I will attend the AGATE conference in Missoulla later in April.

K-2 team early release meeting

During our meeting, we discussed the question; What is the potential and use of this blog site? Obviously it can be a great communication tool for all staff K-12, as long as it focuses on professional issues and is accessed by all staff. Time factor is the first thought that comes to mind for most of primary. During the day, because we work with such young children who need constant direction and attention, it is rare to find even a moment; unless it is our prep time, when there is a priority list of things to be done,to read the blog. To access it later at home would not be possible for all of the primary teachers, as 5 do not have a computer at home. It could also be a huge time saver, in not physically attending meetings that some times go in complete circles and it seems like there is alot of talk but nothing is accomplished. But then again, blog discussions can also go down rabbit trails. Some of the questions that arose were: Would it at any time be used as decision making tool? or just as an informative venue to keep the teams in touch?

3-5 on 3/25

The 3-5 team had a lively discussion on 3/25 about the nature and intent of RTI and what it should look like next year. All agreed there were some definite benefits but some tweaking is needed when it comes to scheduling and equitable distribution of Title resources. 3rd and 4th have some kids who are not receiving the much needed "daily double dose" of reading and 5th has Tracy Swope fitting one group of intensive kids into her tight schedule.

It is possible to be a part of RTI and still teach reading to your "homeroom" kids while also best meeting their individual abilities. RTI is not a verb, it is not something we "do", but an approach to help students receive the interventions they need when they need them. We should be looking at how students respond to the interventions we provide and use those responses to drive our teaching. 3-5 expressed some concern that RTI is not more consistent K-5  and that during the spring teachers from each grade level should get together to look at the future of this idea. Many would like to see math included next year and 5th is very happy using RTI for math this year.It was noted that as we are not consistent, we are unable to use the RTI process and its accumulation of data to identify kids for services. RTI is intended to circumvent the traditional "wait to fail/discrepancy" approach to qualifying students for special education.

As a team we also discussed just how incredibly talented our K-5 teachers are at teaching reading. The students of Bigfork Elementary are incredibly fortunate. This was celebrated while at the same time we look to the future to see how we can continue to provide top notch reading instruction consistently for all students.

We briefly discussed the blog but for the most part we had run out of steam. It was bantered about that there wasn't enough time in the day (always true), but it was also discussed how it is meant to be a time saving option. 

9th HPT

This year's Freshman HPT group has dicussed the following topics:
4 day school week
Freshman supply list
Interventions to be made with 9th grade students
A mandatory typing and computer class for incoming Freshmen
Robin Burns worked with the Math Department in vertical meeings looking to install a 3 year math graduation requirement. We also support the ALC with Mrs. Burns in math. Last week out HTP put on a St. Patrick's Day luncheon for the High School staff.
Currently we are working on trying to find funding for our Freshmen Trip down the Hiawatha trail for the beginning of the year.

10th HPT

After an exciting and particularly productive meeting yesterday the 10th grade team has many ideas and a whole philosophy we'd like to adopt for next year.

As we move to a B school we decided that now was a perfect time to do some serious marketing for our little village school. The ideas started pouring, but basically all of them involved a way to get all of the good things about our small school out into the public. We thought about making a list of all of our pros and cons, much like a teen aged boy might do when trying to figure out which girl to ask to prom. We are the girl, and we need more boys asking us to prom. We don't just want to keep the kids we have, we want those kids who feel their current school isn't right for them. If kids are leaving Bigfork because it is too small, it stands to reason that there are kids at Flathead that want to leave because it is too big, because they don't like their coach, or because they feel like they haven't had the ability to shine. Let's get them!

We also loked into several ideas that would give the students and the faculty a more conected feeling to the school. Such as a teacher section of the bulletin that could include actions that happened at the board meetings, field trips, projects, etc. We thought of a contest for students to come up with a new school logo and 'motto.' We thought of an idea that was done before called empty bowl, a community fund raiser where every kid in the school makes a bowl and we sell them with soup (Mrs. Taylor may punch me for bringing this up).

This led to our philosophical idea:
We believe it should be our goal to create opportunities to not only do great things, (BE PROACTIVE) but to show them off as well. Our empty bowl could be an open house that shows off pictures of the vehicles that the auto-shop has donated, art work and photography, photos or tree planting, Bio Club activities, sewing projects, food drive photos, reading at nursing home, litter pickup, Interact as elves, etc. It's amazing how long the list becomes. We should do something for the community every quarter.

It should be our goal to be printed in the newspaper not just for our sports but for our community based deeds as well.

It should be our goal to create opportunities for our kids to shine . . . and that will be the best possible marketing campaign of all.

What we are looking for: A list, literally, of what we have to offer students. Let's ask our kids what they like about our school as opposed to what they want to change, and let's build a list right here that we can share with community members and ourselves to help us feel good about where we work.

Other proactive ideas that we can implement that, 1 gives kids an opportunity to show off their talents, 2 gets us good press instead of bad, 3 plays on a new era at Bigfork High School (not the littlest little A school, but a mighty and proud B school.)

10th HPT thanks you for your time and for all you do for kids.

Tech Team

Today at our meeting we met with Mr. Jensen and discussed technology at our school. Mr. Jensen and our team came up with 2 objectives to integrate and move forward with technology at our school. These two objectives align with the tech plan that we have written and are integrating.

1. Build a system that supports mobile learning labs and facilitate the bandwidth necessary for web 2.0 tools.

2. Seek training for the understanding of and practical use of a mobile lab which adds online components to the traditional classroom.

Our definition of "Online" - the use of web sites, tutorials, discussion boards and other web 2.0 tools.

Thank You

I want to thank all of the forum reps for dutifully accepting invites to the blog as authors. Also this post is to generate an e-mail to reps to see if my setting changes worked. Let me know please.

6-8 HPT

6.8 team discussion

Our first conversation revolved around future potential and use for the district blog. Possibilities involved the potential for ‘direct’ interaction with the community, the accurate transfer of information, and a sounding board for school improvement ideas. Concerns involved having time for staff training to ensure that everyone realized the uses and possibilities for the blog, and what to do to ensure that all staff was checking it regularly.

We then shared how the CRISS strategies that Tracy Swope has been providing us with were working; think, pair, share was highly successful in several classes and showed increased retention in students.

Our year-long goals were re-evaluated;
-Indian Education for All will be covered with the visit of Chip Jasmine next week, as well as upcoming units in Social Studies. 6th grade completed a unit of Montana tribes in January.
-RTI has been implemented and progress monitoring has been thorough. Students have been assessed regularly, and Tracy has been testing as young as 4th graders to be prepared for next years 5th grade interventions.
-Suggested additional goals for next year: add a study skills intervention, and focus on attendance and tardies.

To close, we talked logistics about the upcoming 8th grade trip, as well as graduation plans.

Intervention Team HPT

At today's "I" Team meeting, the discussion centered around our focus for the remainder of this year. With the advent of Administrative Advisory and Attendance Review Committees, the group agreed that we should fall back to our previous direction and focus on identifying students who for whatever reason are struggling in school.

In the past, the "I" team has supported the counselor, administrators and teachers in suggesting and implementing strategies to assist students in need, whether academically or personally. Sometimes the need for confidentiality supersedes direct involvement with the team members, and appropriate steps are taken to insure privacy of students and families. Through referrals, meetings and communication with staff, the I team successfully guided some students through rough waters, so to speak.

Once again we'll be looking at seniors and some juniors, time permitting, who are in danger of credit loss prior to graduation. Team members will most likely be visiting other high school teams for suggestions or referrals from teachers. We hope to work in conjunction with the student assistance program and help direct students to group involvement.

As a final note, the team wondered what happened to the discussion regarding whether or not teachers chose to meet one day per month for HPT as opposed to early releases. Are we out of the loop or what?

10th Grade HPT

Okay. Let's see how well this dissemination of information works.

The 10th grade team along with several other teachers in the high school have noted the terrible price a 1:00 PM lunch is having on the nutrition and morale of the student body. This is not a new issue, but because of our ties with the elementary and middle school there seemed very little we could do about it.

10th HPt has two ideas that should be seriously looked into.

a. a 10-15 minute break after third period where students can: go to the store and purchase a muffin, use the vending machines, refill their water bottles (apparently our kids are suffering from a major case of dehydration), socialize with their friends (i.e. cut down on tardies) and refuel before the long haul to lunch.

This plan would require the middle school's approval and would also add about 6-10 minutes to the school day . . ahhhh! (totally worth it around fifth period when the kids are zombies because they haven't eaten since six o'clock the night before).

b. Due to the new much larger and luxurious cafeteria we could possibly move lunch up a whole period so that kids would get to eat after 4th period (11:53 pm).

After everyone has had a chance to look this over I will be posting a poll to see how everyone feels on the subject. This will gauge interest, communicate to the calendar committee our needs and to see how well we do with this new technology.

We put forth this proposal and would like to hear comments and considerations.

Happy Reading

HPT Blog simplified

Here is a little informational movie on what the HPT blog is supposed to do. The main processes are Posting and Commenting. The idea is to enhance communication between HPT's and between HPT's and the Forum. Forum reps as authors can post on behalf of their HPT with issues from their meetings. They can also post on behalf of the Forum. Administrators are as usual all-powerful. They can post whenever they feel the urge. What is a post? You are reading one. Anyone on the staff then can comment on an individual post. At present communication between the HPT's sometimes loses meaning when it travels to Forum and back to HPT's. The hope is that the postings, which stay available on the blog and can be archived remain on the blog to be observed and commented upon. Other functions can be added later. One nice addition could be a Poll. If we wanted to poll the staff on an issue, it could be done quickly with the results shown immediately. Please play the movie just below for a audio/visual explanation.

6/8 test

Hey blog followers,
I just wanted to do a test post, on behalf of the 6-8 team, to see if the authorship attempts worked out.

*monica

Articles on Blogging & Twitter!

We live in a digital age, it's not coming, it's here. And if you think you can avoid blogging, face booking, etc. think again. Were you one of those who wasn't going to be burdened with a cell phone 10 years ago? That's what you thought!!! This is a time of instant information, and that's what your students are expecting! They want the info instantly!

Check out this article about Blogging and the student in the classroom.
Joyce Valenza writes about 21st Century Writing in her School Library Journal blog:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/1540041554.html



Here's a great article on Twitter too!!
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6573999.html?q=3Dtwitter

RTI

I'm looking for feedback in Math and Reading in  regards to the RTI process that began this fall. Do feel the process is working, signs of improvement and your overall views. Please do not note scheduling as I am aware this has been a problem. This will be addressed for next fall.

Bigfork School District Staff:

All users of this Blog site are subject to Board of Trustee policies. Please also review the requirements of Board Policy 5229, Use of Technology Resources. Board policies can be accessed from the following link:http://suse.bigfork.k12.mt.us/district/Policies.htm

Please maintain appropriate professional standards when posting or commenting to this Blog.

American Administrators hear what is about to disrupt schools.

Here is an excerpt from an eschoolnews post. If you want to read the rest the link is below.

If Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen is right, half of all instruction will take place online within the next 10 years--and schools had better get into the online-learning market or risk losing their students to other providers.

Christensen was at the American Association of School Administrators conference in San Francisco Feb. 19 to discuss his book Disrupting Class, which looks at why schools have struggled to improve through the lens of "disruptive innovation."

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=57419

Timely Articles

The most recent issue of Eduational Leadership magazine from ASCD was devoted entirely to the discussion of the role of technology in schools. This is very timely in light of the discussion that has been started by the Tech HPT. Listed below are just a few of the titles, there are many more. If intrigued, you can go to the website, read the abstracts or the articles and share your thoughts about them!

One article, Deep Reading, explored the question of whether the immediacy of the digital world might hinder the formation of the neural circuits necessary to develop an expert reading brain. It gives suggestions how we can use technology such as webquests, online tutoring programs and strategic models to promote deep reading online.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/current_issue.aspx

The Joy of Blogging: A weekly blogging class enhances students' communication skills.

Orchestrating the Media Collage: New forms of expression emerge when sound, moving images, and text coalesce.

Mastering Multitasking: Does multitasking overtask the brain? How should teachers respond?

The Best of Both Literacies: Three ways to bolster students' literacy levels in an online environment.

Are Digital Media Changing Language? Our shifting attitudes about language may signal lasting change.

Stepping Beyond Wikipedia: Students need to know that research might begin, but not end, with a Wikipedia search.

Plagiarism in the Internet Age: Beyond the logistics of citation, students must learn how to think about the information they find.

R U Safe? Eighth graders mentor 6th graders in Web safety.

Welts on Your Head.

Since Greg Moul's blog is named All Children Get Ahead, I felt compelled to name my blog something comparable. I thought it appropriate to name it, All Teachers Bump Their Heads because we all do when it comes to technology. Some of us have more welts than others. Anyway, a little levity isn't a bad thing. I can always change the name later. At present I am the author of this blog. However, my intent is to change the settings to add all HPT reps as authors. This would be a HPT blog and not one specific to technology.

My first post here is to request feedback on the presentations that I gave at the high school and grade school. I would like everyone to make some honest response. My main goal is to start a conversation that everyone is in on. There are a lot of issues with technology and its use in schools. Things like access, support, troubleshooting, security, knowledge and time all deter people from the use of technology. I for one, will not be deterred.

Also for those people that have never made a comment to a blog you can have that experience and possibly see the potential for such dialogue as colleagues. We will offer a PIR on blogs and use in the classroom in the coming weeks. I will post some blogging rules soon. The main one is to be civil in your responses to anyone.

HPT TECH and MATH INTERVENTION

Given budget constraints and available manpower, it is incumbent upon us to use the resources at our disposal. One such resource is online content. The concept would be to develop an online guide that would be available for students to access independently or with a peer tutor or “Title” personnel, which would be more productive.

The “challenged” student would have their teacher and the text, as well as access to the online text, computer activities, digital tutorials and a tutor to guide them through and assist them in utilizing the available resources. This endeavor would necessitate a collaboration between the Vertical Math Team, Tech Team and the district community. The resources accessible online are substantial. The Vertical Math Team members would identify what areas of the curriculum need to be supported, Tech Team members would locate the online resources, then Vertical Team Members would evaluate their merit, having the most useful resources placed on a Website or Blog by the Tech Team for student use.

The following list of links is a preliminary survey of the types of resources available for ALGEBRAIC FOUNDATIONS / Pre-Algebra:

• MATH.COM

• Algebra.com

• BBC Algebra

• EMINTS- Pre-Algebra

• Quizlet-Middle School Math/Pre-Algebra (loads slowly)