Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Live reporting - high school improvement plan

c. Franklin High School’s School Improvement Plan – Peter Light

The presentation for this section was posted to Franklin Matters earlier Tuesday. You can view it here:
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/10/franklin-high-school-improvement-plan.html


10% target, actually increased 48% on advanced placement courses taken

MCAS is all about Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in the subgroups (special education in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math)

Principals Council (see members listed in presentation above)

teacher goals being tied into 2 of the 3 goals of the improvement plan (the first three are multi-year goals and school wide)

Mullen - have you considered not doing summer reading?
Light - how do you increase the passion for reading with students who are reluctant to read? We want students to learn, that excites them over the summer and are going that way.

Sabolinski - we need to define the purpose for summer reading? Having a hiatus year is good to provide the time to sit back and reflect on what we are doing and what we should do.



Franklin, MA

Live reporting - FHS Update

b. Franklin High School Update – Peter Light
DiLorenzo, Folan

reconfigured office personnel and responsibilities

reduced overall infractions from 4907 (07-08) to 4228 (08-09) to 3580 (09-10)
disruptive behavior dropped from 614 to 563 to 239 for same periods
cutting class only area of concern 157 to 140 to 277 showing an increase in the same periods
Possession of a controlled substance 3 to 2 to 2 (for a population of 1600 students)

out of school suspensions
07-08   187
08-09   190
09-10   114

team effort in the building, keeping students in the classrooms
The Alternative Discipline Program, an eight session program, part counseling part academics
Social suspensions - if a student is suspended for a period of time, can't participate in school activities or functions while on suspension

continuous improvement
focus on school culture - Rachel's Challenge (continuing as Friends of Rachel)
bullying and peer interaction, respectful relationships

instructional support teams - being put into place for the second half of the year

(need to add audio of the Peter Light re-telling of the Rachel Challenge presenter story)

on Athletic front, impact concussion testing is underway, started with the spring to establish a baseline in event that a student athlete did get a concussion, we would have some data to work with

looking to add five instructional support teams, to be implemented in the second half of the year
targeting 50-60 students in danger of failing a single subject for the year
an advance form of Response To Intervention (RTI) being implemented in the elementary and middle schools

Special Education Services Assessment being planned for Sp 2011

Arts Academy functioning for grade 11 with plans for that class to move up next year in grade 12 and then expand downward to grade 10 to cover three grades

Alternative Learning Program now located in H wing and by being integrated into the building provide greater access to the programs being offered in the school for the students

Robert Lima - Data Dashboard

"a vehicle to access state-wide and national test summaries for FHS"
sound of motorcycle revving up


  • convenient one stop shopping
  • click and view
  • provide lens into the data

comparison to Hockomock League as well as the DESE 'comparable' schools

wonderful comparison to the schools with the click of a link, chart and table data available

can't wait to see this in production, especially the cost per student comparisons are staggering
Franklin does get a big bang for the dollars we spend and the results the students get

benefits

  1. centralized in-house source for data
  2. data being incorporated into strategic planning
  3. online delivery of testing reports, moving further to a paperless system

access to the data will be available next Weds, Oct 20th

Cafasso - are you going to take this to the middle schools and PCC's?
Light - yes, we did this last year and plan on doing so this year. I think it was beneficial but the real ipact would be for the parents, if it helped them make a decision. At the end of the day, our students do compete with others for seats in the college class.

You won't need to have an Edline account to access the data, the data dashboard will be available on the FHS homepage and available to all

The reports are prepared secure PDF files, other interactive options can be requested, other data sets can be requested, it would take time to prepare and would be available in a later version.

Sabolinski - we are changing the culture on how we are using the data, the K-8 data will be available, both for transparency and analysis for program improvement

Roy - I do want to echo Roberta's comment on opening this to the greater community. Imagine if you only gave us a little more resources, look were we could go. We did try to go from good to great and have had to put that aside



Franklin, MA

live reporting - Senior Project

2. Guests/Presentations:
a. Franklin High School – Senior Project Presentation – Sascha Werner D’Angelo, Peter Light

a workplace/career environment during the last quarter of the high school senior year

  • long term skill building
  • research paper writing skills
  • experiential learning
  • Long lasting impact on learning

Student centered, parent involved, Senior Project Proposal Panel
Project Mentor
Site advisor

The 5 P's for the Senor Project:

  1. Proposal
  2. Paper
  3. Project
  4. Portfolio
  5. Presentation

3rd quarter course to help prepare
research methodologies, business ethics, communication skills, etc.

Courses are completed during 3rd quarter, 4th quarter is solely the project full time

a huge variety of site used for the Senior Project

71% strongly agree had a positive effect, 29% agree

60% strongly agreed that the project helped to determine the career choice

57% strongly agreed that the project helped their transition to college

54% strongly agreed that they learned communications skills

100% recommended that incoming seniors should consider taking the course

63 seniors in the program this year, up from 21 three years ago

Looking to expand the project into other areas in the future. Adding a leadership/community portion, an academic portion, an arts project - to create a capstone type program

Cafasso - I hope you will pursue the other types of projects.

 Sabolinski - there is a great deal of work on the capstone aspect of the senior year

Roy - how have the colleges received this program?
All the colleges (about 15 thus far this year) were impressed with the program at this level, it has helped the students college application status

All sites have provided positive feedback and looking for more students to continue in the future

Sabolinski - imitation is good flattery, other districts are inquiring on how we are doing this program.

Franklin, MA

Live reporting - School Committee Meeting

Present: Douglas, Rohrbach, Mullen, Roy, Trahan, Glynn
Absent: Cafasso


1. Routine Business
meeting recorded by Franklin Matters in addition to Verizon and Comcast
Citizen’s Comments
Review of Agenda
Minutes: I recommend approval of the minutes from the September 28, 2010 School Committee Meeting. motion to approve, passed 6-0, 1 abstain

Payment of Bills Mr. Glynn motion to approve, passed 7-0
Payroll Mrs. Douglas
FHS Student Representatives
Panther Pride for all 8th graders, next Weds evening (10/20)

Correspondence: none


Franklin, MA

Franklin High School - Improvement Plan 2010-2011

The School Improvement Plan for 2010-2011 for Franklin High School is on the agenda for the School Committee meeting, Tuesday, Oct 12th. The document they will use for the presentation and discussion can be viewed here:

FHS School Improvement Plan 2010-11

Note: email subscribers will need to click through to Franklin Matters to view the document.

Franklin, MA


You can help the Franklin Food Pantry

The Franklin Food Pantry is looking for the following items to service their clients as they approach the holiday season.

Franklin Food Pantry Needs Fall2010

The items can be left at the Food Pantry during their open hours, or in the wooden box on the porch.

Please check the 'good though" or "use by" dates before leaving your donation. If the items are expired, the Pantry can not use them.

Note: email subscribers will need to click through to Franklin Matters to view the document.


Franklin, MA

Calling all media makers!

Local bloggers, photographers, writers; we are all media makers. Let's get together to share and learn from each other on what we do and how we accomplish it. The Southern New England Media Makers are gathering Sunday, October 17th at Morin's Diner in Attleboro.

You can respond via the Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155543284473392

Or leave a comment or email me.



Franklin, MA