Advisory Council meeting notes 2009-10
Members
Teachers:
Matt Meyer Miranda Thorman Carl Rogers Peter Rodrigues
Admin:
Ashley Milton Amy Frey
Students:
Ben Johnson (So) Cora Regas (Sr) Chairese Culberson (Jr)
Richard Raya (Jr) Nicholas Lee (Sr)
Parents:
Steve McConnell Lorrie Williams Gina Abrams Michael Katz
12.2.09
Graduation: Student committee wants to move it to Pauley Ballroom @ UCB, 600 seated; $2K to rent + permits & security, perhaps $3K-$4K total (less if we have a UCB staff or student reserve the room). Food would be additional (might just ask PAG to have parents do this, though then there are permit issues), also need linens & cutlery and other extras. Students want a semi-formal affair; still have to work out what program will be. Student fundraising committee is working on ideas: restaurant, T-shirt sales, bake sales. Students would get up to 3 extra tickets; might be able to purchase more if not all are claimed.
CAS hours: Ashley visiting Jr history classes to give updates, get hours logged. Checking individually with seniors before winter break. Hours due Feb. 1. Should she mail individual student updates home? Instead will try to do in-class lab.
Schedule: Trimester didn't pass SGC vote. Schools' lead teachers trying to figure out how to build advisory into current sked ($1M+ fed grant at stake). Proposed changes for 2010-11 are
- Move lunch to after 4th period
- Start school ~5 minutes earlier
- Extend passing period betw. 2nd & 3rd period to 15 min. for nutrition break
- Eliminate 2nd period announcement broadcast, replace with scrolling vid screens
This allows 2-period "blocks" of classes. BIHS will try to put English-history cores into contiguous blocks. BIHS still working out how advisory curriculum gets built into this sked, and who are advisors. Intent is to have same advisor all 4 years.
Will keep BIHS houses, trying to figure out how this works w/master sked, and how it would fit w/desire for looping (same teacher in subject for multiple years)
Reallocating FTE to pursue equity goals (i.e. replace science lab w/literacy support class)
Parent Nights: 12/9 Families of Color night; students & parents invited. 6 breakouts: EE, CAS, IB classes, TOK, intervention, counselors. Students will speak in each session about experiences. How to build attendance: Have students make announcement in class
["People of Color" may be PC, but it turns off some in community]. Next week is Latino parent night; need to have translation or dual/bilingual sessions.
Money: Got paid back for soph. field trip; extra payments into Field Trip fund for future. Book replacement got only partial repayment grant; BIHS still paying $1100. Teachers need to adhere to policy on textbook checkouts.
BIHS account has $33K, of which $6K going to pay teachers for summer retreat.
New proposals:
- Ashley: $400 for 6 microphones for senior English classes, world language IB exam assessments -- OK
- Ben Sanoff: $100 for additional wireless router for 1st floor C building -- OK
- $425 for food for AfAm/Latino parent nights -- OK
- Matt: Take $9,600 dedicated funds for additional computers, add $10K from BIHS – Provisonal OK, fundable in 2 weeks unless teachers deliver other costly proposals that would conflict with this
Transcripts: EE/CAS on transcript proposal in limbo, grading & other issues to be discussed by teachers.
Next meeting: 4:00 to 5:15 on January 13
10.21.09
Budget: MattM hasn't checked balance/outstanding expenses since Back2School night. Review of process (and emergency exceptions). Since last AC meeting:
- JBaird got $1,495 to replace books, hopefully as bridge to BPEF grant funds
- Sophomore field trip to CalShakes: Advanced $1,000 to parent for tickets, should be recovered from student payments
Got $2,850 from BHSDG for IB test fee subsidies
Spirit Week: Oct. 26-30, need to tighten student behavior expectations, esp. for out-of-class w/o authorization or drug/alcohol infractions. No food/bev containers on Friday. Teachers under heavy pressure from admin to maintain academics – no parties. Will be back-from-lunch searches, other security before rally.
CAS/EE/ToK: Teachers objected to linking CAS/EE completion to graduation participation, approved last month by AC. New proposal: ToK becomes 3-quarter class (¾ credit); 4th quarter is senior project w/presentation (¼ credit) that can draw from CAS, EE, ToK, other classes. Will be a common rubric, and grades (minimum of C if completed) will come from AMilton, EE adviser, ToK teacher and a 4th invited evaluator. Some of this final month of ToK/English/History class time will be spent planning celebration. Much discussion & confusion about how this occurs & how it gets rolled out. May need to do differently for class of 2010 because of how EE has been handled to date.
PSAT: Update coming from Matt by email
Testing: Need teacher/admin intervention to encourage some students to take IB tests, spread info about fee subsidies
Exchange programs: New policy says students can leave BIHS on sophomore-year exchange program and be guaranteed re-entry to BIHS as juniors. Already have reciprocal agreement w/other IB schools about Jr-year exchange. (No one can enter BIHS as a senior.)
Leadership: Ross will distribute info on who was elected, Leadership will appoint members to plan graduation
Homework: Need way to make sure that 11th/12th grade students aren't being overloaded across all classes, and that policies on late homework are consistent. BIHS admin/leads will be gathering more info, making proposal. Will need buy-in from teachers to make this work.
Trips: CloseUp to DC planning going great; it's not an all-BHS trip, though vast majority of 50 students who have applied are BIHS. Fundraising has begun. Parent info mtg will be Tuesday 10/27 before senior parent info night. Int'l trip has already had first parent info mtg, probably Yucatan again though not yet certain.
Schedule: SGC is to vote on 11/12, proposal (if approved) goes to BUSD board 11/18, but won't be decision until December; then BFT would have to approve. There are ways to maintain BIHS program and offer IB diploma w/trimester sked, though tradeoffs will be required and some aspects of BIHS program would be lost. BUSD is addressing the "UC issue"; other CA schools with trimesters have solved this so it may be a nonissue.
9.23.09
Introduction: Individual introductions and explanation of AC expectations & process (decisions by consensus when possible, by vote if not; some discussions are AC only). Matt will facilitate meetings, Steve will take notes, Ashley will manage agenda/timekeeping
Parent info nights: Four grade-specific sessions in October, info going out via etree and postcard. How can we get message out more widely to encourage more parents to come?
PSAT: How to encourage more minority sophomores PSAT participation? (Only 65% minority participation last year, vs. 100% for whites.) Students suggest some nonparticipants have already decided against 4-yr college; they say extra credit for taking test would be good motivation. Suggest PSAT info sheet sent home & requiring parent signature. Could try to offer extra-credit slip for teacher of your choice, but will need to get all BIHS core teachers to agree to this. Other promotional ideas: BIHS phone blast, flyer at parent info night, skit by students. [150 Jr/Sr in BIHS still have not passed state exit exam]
Summer bridge: A pre-HS intervention to help struggling students get into the culture of school; funds available from Kalpna Mistry memorial fund. More team-building fun activities, not summer school. Forming a teacher-student planning committee to design & execute; talk to Matt if interested. Students point out that we need to be careful how we label participants to avoid stigmatizing. Also suggest carrying some support through 9th grade.
Student feedback: Confusion & excessive demands in science classes. Obama speech inspiring. Schedules messed up. Jr. year lots harder; some students were ready for that, others are already far behind. Senior friends who "had issues" in school have already dropped out or aren't coming (more BIHS students are staying in); BIHS homework for seniors is very manageable. Seniors are stressing instead about college apps, extended essay.
Etree: Want to make BIHS etree more relevant & useful. Promote BIHS etree in daily bulletin & BHS etree, create flyers for Info Nights & Back-to-School night and at Latino & black student orgs.
EE/CAS credit: Have OK to add to transcript as exceptional/complete/incomplete. This will be explained/noted in letter from BHS accompanying transcript. If students do not complete EE/CAS, they can not participate in BIHS graduation (though they still graduate from BHS). Teachers & Ashley will be making special efforts with current seniors to help as many as possible complete requirements. Students also urge that we take another look at deadlines & communications surrounding BIHS requirements.
Budget: Matt working on an accounting of last year's spending. Current account has about $10K, but there are outstanding needs, and need to check on whether T-shirts have been paid for. Computer lab cart: Tech Dept. has started to work on cloning hard drives for existing 32 PCs. Will be about $10K left in computer fund to buy Macbooks.
IB tests: Students have forms, and they'll be on website soon.
Next meeting: Wednesday Oct. 21 3:45; location TBA