Criteria Suggestions for Frameworks Committee Community Forum

We hope you have all been well informed about the upcoming Frameworks Community Forum this Monday, November 24th from 6-8pm in the WCS cafeteria. We want to reinforce how important this meeting is and encourage everyone to come and express what you value most for our schools. This meeting WILL make a difference and WILL be an important part of the decision making process of the Frameworks Committee. (Click read more to continue reading this post.)

In preparation for Monday's Community Forum, we recommend you read the information emailed to you from school on Friday.

One of the 3 main things you will be asked to do on Monday night is to come up with any additional criteria which are important for you regarding configuration and then prioritize them. The criteria which the Frameworks Committee and the teachers have come up with are on the email you received on Friday and are also posted below on our blog. Several criteria are clearly universal and would be expected of/could fit any configuration considered. Others are clearly more favorable of the current house system, while others support a different/new configuation.

You will be asked to vote on the top ten criteria you value most. We suggest you vote for those which will make the biggest impact and NOT ones which are universal.

As supporters of change, we feel the following criteria support a change and we encourage you to consider them a part of your top ten. (Please feel free to print these out for Monday night.)

1. More frequent transitions in school will expose students to different teaching styles and peer groupings and will better prepare them to adapt to changes in their environment. (Change is constant in the 21st Century...let's practice it.)

2. Configuration allows for grade based curriculum rotations which are consistent with other local school districts for ease of transitions with transfers. (All 8th graders study US history in most schools...our kids should too.)

3. Configuration should promote pride and teamwork in students' class/grade as well as their school. (Class pride vs "house" pride and/or competition.)

4. All students of a given grade must have equal access to all services/experiences. (All students of one grade under one roof with the same library, music/chorus, PE, art options...)

5. Configuration must minimize inequality within the district. (Equal opportunity for all students.)

6. Allows for regular planning time for teaching teams both within a grade and within a subject. (Reduces duplication of services and allows teachers to learn from and support each other.)

7. Allows for grouping students by ability levels within a grade for specific subject areas. (e.g.: all 6th graders have reading, and math at the same time so students can be grouped by ability level with their grade matched peers.)

8. Students are grouped with a wide variety of same age/grade and gender matched peers both academically and socially throughout their K-8 education. (Students in each grade are randomly mixed up regularly [1x/year or 1x/2years...] to expand friendships and academic ties.)

9. Allows upper grade teachers to focus on their subject strengths and reduces the number of curriculum areas they must master. (Teachers can focus on 1 or 2 subjects/grade spans instead of 4 grades and/or multiple subject areas.)

10. Configuration must be flexible enough to readily accommodate fluctuations in student population over time. (Population fluctuations are a consistent issue and resulted in extremely poor configuration decisions this year.)

If you are unable to attend the forum and wish for your ideas/input to be known and perhaps counted, we encourage you to contact the Frameworks Facilitator, Mary Jane Shelley, maryjane@trifocalconsulting.com . We do not know if she/they will consider votes sent in by email, but we do know that they welcome your input/feedback. We would hope that your votes will count whether you can attend or not. Please include your name, address and phone number to authenticate yourself as a Williston Community Member when emailing.

Your opinion is valuable. We hope to see you on Monday night whether you agree or disagree with our ideas.

Thank you.

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Combined Top 10 Criteria from Teachers and Frameworks Committee

Combined Top 10 Criteria for Evaluating Configuration Options
from the Teachers’ Forum ( with additional criteria from teachers and the
Conceptual Frameworks Committee.

The Community will be asked to add to the list of Criteria below and then to vote on their own top ten criteria for Evaluating Configuration Options:

A-J are the Top 10 Criteria from the Teachers. The rest of the criteria are a
random combination of those listed as important to teachers and the
Conceptual Frameworks Committee

A. Foster a strong sense of community and rich relationships over time, with
continuity for students, families, and teachers.
Continuity of family/teacher/student relationships
B. Foster opportunities for flexible grouping and individualized, student-based
learning.
Flexible academic groupings meet individual student differences
C. Small class sizes
D. Foster academic rigor and achievement, promote intellectual development
and the development of well-rounded, creative, expressive students.
Academic rigor/challenging
E. Foster opportunities for student leadership, mentoring, and role modeling.
Opportunities for older and younger students to interact
F. Maintain the philosophy and best practices of elementary and middle
school, as supported by current research.
G. Establish and maintain an atmosphere of respect and safety
Configuration supports safe and respectful behavior throughout the school
H. Considers the developmental (social, emotional) needs of every student age
group.
Opportunity to interact with others in their grade socially and academically
I. Fosters 21st century skills focus: project based, collaborative, with meaningful
use of technology.
J. Opportunities for common planning time for teaching teams
K. Opportunities for students to have a variety of more than four teachers in four
years
L. Transitions: The fewer the better but none is not good
M. Small team size <90
N. Impact of configuration on facilities (e.g. loss of program space)
O. Equity in grade population dispersion
P. Flexibility to meet differing population sizes
Q. Share student services, technology and other resources effectively.
R. Balances sense of team, sense of school, and sense of community
S. Teachers teach to their subject strengths
T. Encourages innovation in education
U. Are supported by a variety of assessments that measure student
achievement and well-being

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ABS and WCS Building Configuration Options for Community Forum

After voting on the top 10 Configuration Options you will be asked to comment on each of these possible "Building Configuration Options" below and how they meet or do not meet the criteria which were identified. You will also be asked to comment on the diffent "Grade Grouping" and "Grade Span Options" below.

General Building Configuration Options

Option A
· Pre-K through 2 at Allenbrook School
· 3-8 at Williston Central School - WCS would lose a special education “office”
space to create the one additional classroom space needed

Option B
· K-3 at Allenbrook School
· Pre-K (EEE) and 4-8 at Williston Central School

Option C· 1-4 at Allenbrook - ABS would need to eliminate the music room and art
room to create the 2 additional classroom spaces needed
· PreK, K, 5-8 at Williston Central School
Option D Current building configuration with options for different grade span
configuration and age groupings (single, multi, looping) within those grades
· Pre K, K, 1-4 at Allenbrook School
· 1-4 and 5-8 at Williston Central School

Option E
Current building configuration and current house system with focus on
improving equity among the houses

Options D and E
Are combined for the purpose of the Teachers’ and Community
Forums, as they both involve the current building configuration option.

*Grade Grouping and Grade Span Options (see below for definitions)

1. Single grade, single year
2. Multi-age
3. Looping
4. 2-4 Year Grade Span

*Definitions“Grade grouping” means how students are arranged by grades (single, multiage,
or looping).
“Grade span” means how many years students are with the same teacher or
teacher teams (1, 2, 3, or 4)
“Multiage” means multiple grades in the same classroom (2, 3, or 4 grades learning
together)
“Looping” means single grade of students learn together with the same teacher or
teacher team for multiple years (2 or 3).

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Frameworks Committee Members have been Announced

The School Board has announced the members of the "Frameworks Committtee." The Board selected the committee members during their school board retreat on June 18th. Although they did have 2 students apply to be on the committee, one student was not selected as he will be a 9th grader this fall and no longer a "WCS" student. We are not certain if a second student has since volunteered.

MEMBERS INCLUDE:

Community Members: Cindy O'Farrell (FAP), Wendy Bliss (FAP), Charlie Magill, Steve Mount, Mairead Harris, Abby Klein, Kevin Mara, Marsha Drake
Alternate: Tess Swett

Students: Evan Grey, 2nd student to be appointed

School Board Members: Laura Gigliotti (WSD), Deb Baker-Moody (WSD), Wendy Goodrich (St. George)

Teachers: Mary Beth Morrissey (1-4), Deb McConnell (5-8), Susan Stewart (1-4), Carol Bick (WCS Guidance)
Alternate: Kathy Rossier (5-8)

Administrators: Jackie Parks (Campus Leader WCS) and Carter Smith ( Director of Special Education)

Jude Newman (Director of Curriculum and Instruction for CSSU) will provide support as needed.
Cynthia Reyes (UVM Professor in middle school education) will provide support as needed.

Facilitator: Mary Jane Shelley - TriFocal Consulting LLC

Read more!

"June 2, 2008 Forum Questions and Answers" from Walter Nardelli

June 2, 2008 Forum Questions and Answers

Question 1: How can we overcome some of the differences between houses?

Answer:
The curriculum and expected outcomes are the same. It is available on our web site under curriculum and in more detail at the CSSU web site under departments. That is the document that is guiding instruction and is based on our national and state standards. Teachers do bring different strengths to their instruction and this creates slightly different experiences in each house. For example, every single lesson on the Civil War isn’t exactly the same, but they all study the Civil War and expect students to know the causes of the war. The areas that we are hearing the least concerns about are mathematics and literacy. These are curriculum areas that we have worked on aligning the most. In both math and literacy we have many common assessments in place. This is the work that needs to happen in science and social studies.

Concern 2: Parents worry if children are placed in the right house.

Answer: There is no right or wrong house. Each house has different strengths and no matter where your child ends up he/she will have opportunities to grow and learn. Our hope is by opening up house changes at the end of 2nd and 6th grade, parents will be less worried about their child being placed on a house for four years.

Question 3: What is the make-up of students in Full House?

Answer: There are 31 students in grade eight assigned to Full House.

Question 4: How can we better balance the identity of the house with the identity of the school?

Answer: This has already been established with faculty as a goal to on next year. We are currently working on building a schedule that allows all of our 5/6 students and 7/8 students to go to lunch and recess together. We are also brainstorming and implementing other ways to create a stronger sense of school. This year the graduation speeches are not being selected by house. Instead, all students were invited to respond to a prompt and two from the middle school were chosen to be read at graduation. Our school Climate Committee will write their goals this summer to include other ways to grow our sense of school. We’ve asked every person in the school to think about what they can do to increase our sense of school and with everyone working on this issue we will be able to balance the sense of school and house better.

Question 5: How was the decision to go to full day Kindergarten related to the change in configuration?

Answer: It wasn’t. We would have reduced the number of classroom sections regardless of whether kindergarten was added or not. We knew that for the past two years our student population was declining. With pressure from the community of Williston to bring in a budget with a reasonable percent of increase, this was the year to act.

Question 6: How was the community engaged in the reconfiguration process?

Answer: We surveyed the community. We had seven hundred and forty-two responses. We then took the information gained by the survey to craft a first step solution for next year. Along the way, information was shared/discussed with the FAPAC and at public school board meetings. Before going further, more information and more community dialogue would be needed.

Concern 7: House balance gender issue

Answer: Any time you allow parents to have an opportunity around black and white issues (grades/no grades, kiva/ no kiva, siblings) there is a potential to create imbalance in houses. If you honor the parent’s request (especially at this time when students were being moved due to the dissolving of houses) then it has the potential to throw the balance off and in this case gender. If we do not honor parent input, then we are told we did not listen. We are working to rectify this situation. This will have to be studied very carefully as we talk about offering more configuration options.

Question 8: Are we meeting the State of Vermont requirement of 120 hours of instruction for social studies and science in the middle grades?

Answer: We believe that we are or very close to the 120 hours requirement when taking into account both direct instruction and instruction that is integrated within other areas. We are currently conducting an audit to tally the time. This process is complex as some of the instruction takes place directly in a science or social studies class and some takes place within other instructional areas. An example of this is literature circles. Most houses spend some time reading books related to social studies. Both social studies concepts and reading strategy work are part of the instruction. As a school, we are making a determination as to how much of the time should be counted as social studies and how much as language arts.

Question 9: Can the school intentionally share “best practices” across houses as a way to increase consistency of houses?

Answer: Yes, this work was actually started in the upper houses this year. Teachers brainstormed topics together and intentionally shared house practices related to these topics at faculty meetings. This work will continue well into next year.

Question 10: How will the school ensure that all students who moved to different houses don’t miss any of the required science and social studies curriculum?

Answer: Now that students have been placed, the science and social studies committees are aligning students with where they are in the 4-year curriculum rotations and identifying the potential gaps and overlaps. Once that has been completed, the school will tap into a variety of existing school resources to provide students with instruction in the areas needed.

Question 11: If the enrollment continues to decline or if it increases, how will the house system adjust to this?

Answer: The current model was put together with that thought in mind. It can be adjusted to meet the student population numbers. In addition, the Williston School Board is forming a committee to review the Williston Conceptual Frameworks which will also address this issue.

Question 12: How are our students with lower socio-economic backgrounds performing?

Answer: We are not making AYP (annual yearly progress) in this category in both reading and math. Over the past few years, we have been boosting our resources to address this issue. This year we have added all day kindergarten. We have also increased our math interventionist to 100%. We have increased our Reading Recovery resources by another .5 position. We have also added another .5 home-school coordinator to help families access the basic resources that they are entitled to. In the past, we created another EEE classroom due to high numbers. All of these initiatives directly impact this student population and their academic needs.

Question 13: How can my student have more music instruction than science or social studies instruction?

Answer: All upper house students take one 6-week rotation of keyboarding each year. In addition, students may choose to participate in band or chorus or both. Band and chorus take place during the 11:05 block each day and each meet 4 days per week. A small number of students choose to participate in both band and chorus, along with their required keyboarding class. If you compare this time allocation to direct science or social studies instruction, it might look concerning. However, you need to compare both the direct instructional time and the integrated time together to get a fair comparison.

Question 14: How can we all work together to decrease the negative tone in the community and work together on behalf of our students?

Answer: Communication. We have FAPAC meetings every month where administration, teachers and parents discuss issues, communication in general, the budget and more. Please take time to attend. In addition, we have created an administrative page in the “Bell” and a way the community can reach us and ask questions. We will also be more proactive in getting information out about programs and practices that parents should be aware of. The School Board will also host curriculum information nights as part of school board meetings on a regular basis.

Question 15: How will the administration communicate better with the parent community?

Answer: In response to some of the concerns around communication, the administration is providing the parents with weekly updates in the School Bell. In addition, an e-mail account has been established for parents to ask questions at any time. Throughout the summer, we will be posting updates about next year on our website for parents to access.

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