Verified EESAC Meeting Minutes

Approval of minutes: Mrs. Robledo called the meeting to order at 8:21 a.m. The minutes from September 12, 2006, were reviewed and approved.

Principal’s message: Mrs. Gonzalez informed that the School Improvement Plan has been submitted and she will have a copy of the School Improvement Plan objectives for the next meeting. “We have very, very high expectations,” said Mrs. Gonzalez. “We’re going to shoot for the stars. Any growth and any improvement will be good.” In addition, Red Ribbon Week and Hispanic Heritage Month activities are taking place this month, all without interfering with classroom instruction. Mrs. Stroleny then continued the Principal’s message by explaining the 2005-06 No Child Left Behind report. She said the packet provides a snapshot, another view of Carver. This is putting what we do into numbers. Page one includes the progress made breakdown of various demographic groups. Pages two, three and four pertain only to high schools. Pages five and six deal with college placement test results, and Carver is not listed even though our students take Advanced Placement tests in foreign languages. The data here deals with AP reading, writing, and mathematics only. “Our kids and our teachers are doing an incredible job,” said Stroleny. Page seven is student performance as evaluated by the FCAT. Page eight has writing scores: 100 percent of last year’s eighth-graders scored 3 or better, but in 2007 the passing score goes up to 3.5. Page nine is the Sunshine State Standards mathematics assessment with 97 percent at 3 or above. “All of our students are doing very well. It’s not just one population or just one sub group,” added Stroleny. Also, Carver had only four students listed as disabled (ESE) last year; for this reason the percentages are high. Page 10 does not apply to Carver. Page eleven refers to the NRT component of the FCAT, where the median score is 50. Scores again are very high; this test compares students across the United States. Page twelve is about school safety and environment, and Carver has been documented as a very safe school and has not had major incidents. Page thirteen is about the instructional staff: 12.5 percent were new to the school, whereas the district had 18 percent new teachers. “Mrs. Gonzalez is famous for hiring veteran teachers. They walk into our school and know exactly what they are doing,” said Stroleny. The report also includes advanced academic degrees of the staff, and Carver again ranks very high compared with other schools in the district. “Our teachers have an advantage. They have sought out additional education,” said Stroleny. Mrs. Robledo pointed out that National Board Certified Teachers are not indicated in this report. Page fourteen is about in-field versus out-of-field teachers: 98.2 percent of Carver teachers are in field. The 1.8 percent of out-of-field teachers may be in the process of attaining the requirements. Page fifteen is the school performance grade, and Carver is an A school again. Carver also met adequate yearly progress (AYP) according to the NCLB guidelines, which (among other criteria) asks whether the lowest quartile moves up significantly; all of our data has shown that we move that population up significantly. Carver also showed AYP with other subgroups. The criteria given for AYP is specified in the report, which also states that 95 percent of the students in each subgroup had to be tested. Additionally, a list of schools that did not make AYP is provided in the report.

Open Forum: Mrs. Robledo commended the report. Mrs. Gonzalez then informed the Council of important upcoming dates: October 24 for the parent writing workshop and November 2 for the parent math workshop, which Mrs. Fernandez will coordinate. Both are at 7 p.m. and help parents assist students to score well on the FCAT. October 19 will feature a no-homework pass for students whose parents join PTSA and another no-homework pass is set for November 29. The Halloween Social is October 27 when kids can wear costumes or jeans but no masks. Mrs. Robledo commented that the wonderful part of the No Child Left Behind Act is that there is no gap between demographic groups. She also informed that Carver is the only middle school nationally and internationally whose students take the AP exams. Mrs. Gonzalez said that she would like to use some of the EESAC funds already approved for technology to purchase a DVD player for every teacher in the school because instead of buying video tapes, the school is buying DVDs. The Council approved the motion to spend $4,000 for DVD players for all teachers.

Adjournment: Mrs. Robledo adjourned the meeting at 8:55 a.m.