High+School+Department+Meeting+Agenda

Thomas D. Monteverde SED551: Field Experience I Prof. Meyer 27 March 2009

__Professional Meeting: 16 March 2009 High School Dept. Meeting Agenda__ The meeting was held after school and ran for approximately one hour in Joseph Sorrentino's classroom who is the head of the science department at Pine Bush Central High School. The meeting consisted of thirteen professionals which were all science teachers of differing disciplines. The teachers sat in the students' desks while the department head stood at the front of the class. The head of the department began the meeting by passing out a meeting agenda and promising the teachers that he would make the meeting as short as possible. The first topic of the meeting was regarding the Summer Science Academy at SUNY Cortland's Outdoor Education Center. The Summer Science Academy is a program where students spend seven days at a nature retreat in upstate New York and study chemistry, earth science, and biology through real world applications. The teachers were told that the summer program would not count towards college credit and that the summer program was not to be used as a means to obtain mandatory high school science credit. Their was an issue with the guidance department signing students up for the Summer Science Academy who were failing their current science classes as a means to obtain the students' mandatory science credits for graduation, but guidance was then informed that the program was to only be utilized as an elective credit. Joseph Sorrentino said that the program could only take thirty Pine Bush students and he has already received more than enough applications. The next topic of the meeting was regarding the perspective academy candidates. The teachers reviewed the applications of each student and decided whether they were capable of attending the academy. The teachers decided that freshman applicants would not be accepted because they felt that the older students should have seniority and that the freshman students would have opportunities in the future to attend the academy. Other students were rejected based on their maturity level and whether they could handle the responsibility of being away from their parents for an entire week. A few candidates were rejected due to their classifications. One student was rejected because he was classified as having dysgraphia and the program will require a lot of reading and writing. The rejection of the classified students based primarily on the fact that they were classified was unsettling. Candidates regardless with learning disabilities should have received equal treatment during the reviewing process. The head of the department then informed the teachers that the raffle for the motorcycle built by the students of Pine Bush high school was still going on and that if any of them wished to buy raffle tickets he could sell the raffle tickets to them after the meeting. Part of the proceeds from the raffle will go towards funding the Summer Science Academy. The motorcycle was built at Pine Bush High School by students during and after school. This was a great idea because the students learned a valuable trade and their hard work helped to fund academic programs for the school. The next topic of the meeting was the issue of mandatory laboratory letters. The head of the department stated his concern about whether some students will obtain enough laboratory hours to sit for the regents examination. Joseph Sorrentino recommended that the teachers hold after school detention for students who have missing or incomplete laboratory reports. A discussion began about the disinterest of some of the students and the unreasonable demands of the Board of Education. Pine Bush has approximately ninety three percent of the chemistry students sit for the regents examination. The issue with the remaining seven percent is that most are absent to often and miss laboratory or do not complete the laboratories in which they participate. The discussion arose about whether a non regents chemistry class should be developed to accommodate the lower achieving students. The idea of developing a non regents chemistry class in order to fix the issue of mandatory labs seems like tracking some students for success and other students for failure. The teachers decided that they would take turns holding mandatory laboratory detention where students could make up laboratory hours. The final topic of the department meeting was the science department order for the 2009-2010 school year. Teachers were told to get in their final orders. The teachers were also told to notify the department head of any faulty equipment received from the previous year so that the same equipment was not reordered. One teacher expressed their disappointment with plastic titration tubes that were ordered in replace of Pyrex titration tubes. After all the scheduled topics of the meeting were covered the head of the department asked if their were any issues anyone else would like to discuss with the group. The topic of what the science department should use to replace the current IB Chemistry course arose. One teacher suggested that they begin to offer an Advanced Placement Chemistry course. The teachers than began to discuss which courses they were qualified to teach and whether any of the teachers were qualified to teach Advanced Placement Chemistry. A few were capable to teach Advanced Placement Chemistry and were willing to teach it the next year. Joseph Sorrentino said that he would recommend the replacement of IB Chemistry for Advanced Placement Chemistry to the Board of Education. The main theme of the meeting was how to offer a wide variety of science instruction to students of different achievement levels on a decreased budget and at the same time motivate students to preform at the Board of Education's level of expectation. All of the teachers that attended the meeting offered opinions and recommendations for attaining the departments goal. Some ideas were better than others, but all teachers seemed genuinely interested in the development of all students at Pine Bush.