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laurenbrewer

January 29, 2024 SCC Meeting

By SCC

1/29/24
SCC Meeting

Safe Routes to School- Meeting with Orem City They’re working on getting funding from multiple sources. Looking to see if a signal is warranted at 200 N and 800 E. Substandard crosswalks- not wide. A possible cut-in lane to widen the drive thru area. There are bollards or delineators that are an option as well. We could create a parking district. We could add crossing guards. Paint over the bus pick up/drop off in the front.

Add crossing guard at 800 E and 200 N on the west side of the street. Add crossing guard on 400 E and 200 N. Looking at crossing guard on 800 E and 200 N, but a signal is coming in the near future.

We will be notified before our next SCC meeting.

DLI will be continuing. DLI is looking to make it so the students will go to China as part of the program.

Stakeholder report was handed out.

They may disband DCC. The SCC chairs would attend the cluster meetings and other meetings
that DCC has been attending.

December 6, 2022 SCC Meeting

By SCC

Attendees
Darrin Johnson
Tiffinie Littlefield
Amber Noel
Julia Buell
Zoe Tang
Malana Clayson
Kaitlin Fehlberg
Rachel Hall

Not in attendance Rebecca Peterson

  • Darrin Johnson introduced the school goals from the Principal Dashboard. Spoke regarding what the goals are and how they are tracked.
    ○ Meeting with the area supervisor.
    ○ Growth goals
    ○ ELL growth. The number of ELLs at the school is growing
    ○ The student connection on attendance
  • Showed tracking of growth goals and PM
    ○ Interventions
    ○ 95% Pull-out and in class
    ○ PM
  • Went over Cascade’s letter grade of “B”
  • Had a conversation regarding start times (earlier or later.)
    ○ Contract times
    ○ LTTRS Training for teachers
  • Parent-teacher conference change
    ○ Moving to a more flexible plan
  • Safety on 200 North parking close to the stop sign and kids darting in front of cars
    ○ Spoke to interdistrict personnel to try and change the curb to red
  • Show a video of Building an Airplane while Flying.

The next meeting will be held on January 10th at 10:00 am

October 5, 2017 SCC Meeting

By SCC

Cascade Elementary SCC minutes 10-5-17

Business:
Mr. Campbell introduced the council to Grace Rex who attended our meeting today. She is the DCC member, i.e. our SCC district representative. It was great to have Grace at our meeting.

There was some discussion about the Cascade re-build and possible move. The decision was postponed by the school board until November. We await their decision. They are considering the effects on the entire district as a whole, on good spending practices and what will be best in the end. Change is hard but usually turns out well. Example: Hillcrest spends roughly $8,000/student/year while Cascade spends roughly $5,000/student/year.

Amending this year’s budget:
Mr. Campbell sought feedback from other schools that purchased Dibels for the older grades (4-6) and all the feedback was that it wasn’t worth it. With resources such as Lexia and Wonders, we will use those to assess grades 4-6. This makes a necessary change to the school goal wordage on this year’s trustland plan. It also saves us $3840.

Collaboration cost $4000 less than we planned, saving us another $4000.

Attendance Advocate: Mr. Campbell wrote a grant and received funding toward additional pay for our Attendance Advocate Heather Peay. This saved us an additional $4000.

Mr. Campbell suggested 1) we increase spending for the STEM resources so that each teacher gets $100 to use. $1800 would go here. 2)Pay for school aide Jennifer Nelson to do double-dose for grades 4-6 in reading before/after. Budget $5000 3) This leaves $5040 for Professional Development conference and subs for Ron Clark attendees. (More than double what he had hoped.)

Shelley Colton moved to approve Mr. Campbell’s suggestions. Julie Walker seconded the motion.
Motion was unanimously approved.

SCC Elections/meeting Rules of Order:
Elections will be via email over the next couple of weeks as in the past. Discussion regarding adopting something similar to Hillcrest’s rules of order for meetings. We discussed membership numbers. Shelley Colton motioned to adopt putting a cap on our SCC numbers of 15 with a minimum/maximum for employee members of 3/5. Doug Wyatt seconded the motion. Motion approved unanimously.

Agenda items for the upcoming year:

  • School design
  • Get a group to tour newer schools for input.
  • Hope for single-story plan (district has 2 basic new school floor plans. One is single floor, one 2-story. We as a SCC will have the opportunity to five input to modifications and unique needs of Cascade.
  • We will make a list of suggestions and ideas at our January meeting with the opportunity of looking at the floor plan options. Include safety issues with our plan suggestions.
  • STEM FEST- plans for projects will be made available for Eagle Scout projects. Tracy Naval will contact Dr. Shumway for plans for the earthquake simulator.

Doug Wyatt motioned to adjourn. April Chrystal seconded the motion. Motion approved unanimously.

In Attendance:
Boyce Campbell
Doug Wyatt
Tracy Naval
Julie Johnson
Julie Walker
April Chrystal
Shelley Colton
Grace Rex (DCC visitor)

March 16, 2017 SCC Meeting

By SCC

Cascade SCC Minutes 3-16-2017
In Attendance:
Julie Walker
Jessica Nelson
Sara Mead
Doug Wyatt
Tracy Naval
Shelley Colton
Boyce Campbell

Discussion:
Mr. Campbell explained that along with the Core Standards, each grade’s teachers (as part of collaboration) picks out the “Essential Standards,” skills students MUST master each particular year. These are typically focused on during Target Time at Cascade.

The district is considering, and allowing the schools at their discretion at this point, altering the grading
system as follows:

Currently, K-3 have report cards that are skill-based (3-4 pages of individual skill mastery line items with points 1-4 given, or NE if the skill hasn’t yet been introduced/addressed). Grades 4-6 have letter-grade reporting: A,B,C,D and F.

The discussion was whether grades 4-6 should change the reporting system to an essential skill-based report for the parents rather than the letter grades, and should this become a district-wide way of reporting? The district is asking for feedback from the SCCs and Mr. Campbell will report our opinions
and concerns to the district.

The new reporting would not be the full 3-4 pages of skills we currently see with K-3. It is a front/back of one sheet that addresses just the Essential Skills for that grade level. (Chinese would be a separate sheet). This changes the focus to essential skill mastery rather than the letter grades that often aren’t a
true reflection of skill mastery.

With collaboration happening district wide, and the general focus changing to measurable reporting on knowledge and skills, along with training at Ron Clark academy for our teachers, this kind of skill-based reporting makes sense. There was general agreement of reporting in the higher grades with a focus on skill-mastery, with the following concerns discussed:

Julie Walker brought up one concern: Would this make it harder on the teachers? Specifically, teachers would have to know where each student stood, individually. Would this be a factor in making it more work for the teachers?

The teachers already know the skill-level for individual students and use this for Target Time. Sara Mead, a teacher, who worked previously at a school who utilized essential skill-based reporting said that what can make it harder is that Skyward’s reporting is not set up the same way as the skill-based reporting, so having to come up with ways to enter in grades, or having to do both letter-grade based and skill-based reporting can be frustrating from the teachers’ standpoints. Also, parents may get frustrated when they see no credit on Skyward for certain subjects because there won’t be a grade reported there until a final assessment. It would require parent/teacher communication and it would take time to help parents understand, a paradigm shift.

She also brought up the issue she has seen from experience that the essential skill-based reporting may not necessarily break their mastery into learning components, because it groups certain skills together in the reporting.

Some examples were given in the area of science. Mr. Campbell and the council looked at those areas. Effort is made to group together learning components where the mastery of one component naturally goes with the others. In other words, the students couldn’t really learn one without learning the other.

Charles brought up the concern that by sixth grade, he would like to see his children have the skills of achieving letter grades, of turning in assignments on time, organizing their time, preparing for exams, etc., in order to prepare for Jr. High. Everyone agreed that sixth grade is considered middle school and is a good time to be introduced to letter grades. Also, in order to apply for certain Jr. High honors classes, there are letter-grade requirements for sixth grade.

The questions were posed: could sixth grade teachers do BOTH kinds of reporting? Can Skyward be altered by the district so that it goes along more with the skill-based reporting?

Along with this discussion, the subject of Cascade having an inordinately high amount of homework came up. All the parents agreed to the tune of too much daily homework, and making it a pain for parents having to sign so much. Particularly second-grade seems to be a culprit of having even more homework than the upper grades. And all parents strongly agreed that the kids need to come home and just be kids, that homework should be largely limited to reading, and that the instruction and learning needs to take place during the hours they are at school.

Tracy Naval, a teacher, also strongly agreed with the need for less homework, and kids needing to just be kids. She affirmed that studies show that students do better in school and with learning when they can leave learning at school and go home and play.

Everyone agreed that reading should happen every day, but that other homework should be limited and
that there should be a school-wide homework policy to that effect.

Budget Proposal 2017-2018
Charles added up the proposed line items in a spreadsheet and they totaled closer to $80,000. This was approximately $12,000 over budget, with several line items being negotiable but hopeful. This gave the council an idea of what to cut from the negotiable items. It was decided that there would
be one new literacy aide hired, not two, cutting that line item from $10,000 to $5,000. Also, because the council feels that Summer Collaboration and Professional Development are similar, and there is already so much in Summer Collaberation, Professional Development would be cut completely for now, and then when we know the actual allocation amount, which is usually higher, we will put the extra, or slush-fund amount toward Professional Development, as we have in the past, and get what we can out of it.

That put the total of the line items to $69,140, close enough to the estimate that we can bridge the gap when we know final numbers.

Motion to adjourn. Adjourned.

February 23, 2017 SCC Meeting

By SCC

Cascade Elementary Minutes SCC 02/23/2017
Discussion
Private Donor Donation: Mrs. Li, Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Cao joined us to discuss the disbursement
of the $5000 donation (from a private donor). The donation is to be used for Chinese
Literacy. The needs discussed (in order of preferred priority) include:

  • Leveled books that are INTERESTING or FUN.
  • Classroom library books-including audiobooks
  • Take Home books-similar to the English Take Home Library we have–there was
    discussion about how if there is not enough money for individual grade levels to have
    their own Chinese Take Home Library, then to have one larger take home library
    available in the actual library in addition to the limited Chinese books available in the
    library
  • Higher level Read Aloud books- two copies-one for the teacher to read, and the other to
    be placed on an Elmo or projector of some sort so the students can follow alone
  • Books that include subjects covered in Science for the various grade levels
  • Magic School Bus in Chinese
  • Science videos in Chinese

The books to be purchased need to include pictures/illustrations, pinyin AND
characters. Ideally these are fun books that are interesting for the students. Amazon.cn and
tao dao (sp) ?? were suggested as sites from which we may be able to purchase more
economically.
Hawk System has been put on hold until we get the plans for the new school narrowed
down. Once we have those plans, we can go back to the city to get this reviewed again.
Looking ahead to next year:
Estimated amount $68433. Suggestions for the extra monies, in addition to what we usually
spend:

  • Dibels for all students-state pays for K-3. It will be approx $4000 for 4th-6th grade ($12
    per student)
  • Chinese take home library–$ in addition to the $5k donation. Discussed the possibility
    of “wish lists” to be sent home with the Chinese book orders. We may have the
    teachers review the book orders and re-evaluate the grade levels listed on the orders so
    they are more applicable to the Cascade students.
  • Additional Devices–Cascade received a grant (21st Century Grant) for more
    electronics. Would like to have a 2:1 student to device ratio next year
  • Literacy advocates/Aides $10k
  • $ to replace old/dying Elmos, audio systems, printers, and other various electronic
    devices that are wearing out.

Teachers going to Ron Clarke Academy this year:
Mrs. Redford
Mrs. Hutchison
Mrs. Hoffman
Mrs. Wheatley
Ms. Livingston
Mrs. Draney

Next meeting March 16th
Roll for today:
Jessica Nelson
Julie Walker
Julie Johnson
April Crystal
Cindy Cao
Yan Li
Yuling Lin
Boyce Campbell
Tracy Naval
Charles Schultheiss
Doug Wyatt

October 27, 2016 SCC Meeting

By SCC

Cascade SCC Minutes October 27, 2016
Officers nominated and elected:
Chair: Charles Schultheiss
Vice-chair: Julie Johnson
Secretary: Shelley Colton
We decided to meet each 3rd Thursday of each month EXCEPT in April it will be the 2nd
Thursday. (Since then, the November meeting was postponed to Dec. 1)
Agenda for the upcoming year:
• Safety/Crosswalks re-visited
• Computer Safety (SCC responsibility)
• Trustland Funds
We talked about voting “FOR” Utah Constitutional Amendment B. We worked to get Cascade on
the bond, and now we need to get that bond approved.
We discussed Collaboration and the Ron Clark academy, Double-Dosing w/ Mrs. Howard,
STAR tutoring- Americorp: need volunteers for reading.
Several Teachers having babies:
Mrs. Schultz due Nov.- boy Leaving, interviewing for new 3rd-grade teacher
Mrs. Keil- girl
Mrs. Ditto- boy
Mrs. Cao- boy
Mrs. Sackett- boy
Mrs. Maughan- over the summer