SCAC Minutes
February 25, 2003

Eileen Kugler called the meeting to order and called on Paul Regnier for updates since Alan Leis had not yet arrived.

Kugler noted that Elaine Filadelfo was the newly appointed student member of SCAC.

Regnier discussed the number of snow days that had already been taken and described the existing School Board policy on makeup days. Seven snow days had already been taken. Three of these were built into the regular calendar and need not be made up. Another day was scheduled to be made up on April 7, and the rest were scheduled to be added on at the end of the school year. The School Board was scheduled to consider options for dealing with this at its regular meeting on Thursday, February 27. (Subsequent to this meeting, the School Board voted to extend the school day by thirty minutes beginning April 21 and ending May 16, 2003.)

Regnier described the situation at Floris Elementary School, where a roof had collapsed over part of the school on the previous Saturday morning, requiring that the building be closed for repairs. Over the weekend, a number of neighboring schools had volunteered to accept Floris students and these students began attending school in their temporary locations on February 25. (The students returned to Floris ES on March 17, 2003.)

Jeanine Martin asked if the state might provide waivers for some of the days missed. Regnier said that current state regulations required that a school system lose ten school days before seeking a waiver for five days.

Ellen Oppenheim said she did not support adding time to the end of school days to make up time, since this would be bad for younger children, and after-school activities would suffer.

Karen Weaver noted that if state law did not prohibit schools from opening before Labor Day, much of this problem could be avoided. Nell Hurley said she would support adding time to the end of the school day only after daylight savings time is in effect.

Kugler said that, in her experience, an added half hour in the school day is not wasted.

Jamie Bradshaw said that people should lobby the School Board on this issue.

Mary Tycz suggested asking the state to postpone the SOL tests for a week. Regnier noted that the writing test had already been postponed.

Pam Latt said that she did not support the added half hour in the school day the last time this had been done but that she now believed that this was better than the other options. She said that last time this had been done the time had been well used. Clay Sande agreed.

Kugler introduced Judy Matlock and Mel Riddile for a presentation on preparing students, especially minority students, to meet the SOL requirements.

Matlock distributed material (attachments 1 and 2). She noted that SOL scores are up for all students, including minority students.

Janet Oleszek said the data show there are still large numbers of Black and Hispanic students who are not passing these tests. Matlock said this is true but that the numbers and percentages of those who are passing are increasing. We are making progress.

Matlock described the many things FCPS is doing to increase the percentage of students who pass the tests, including staff development for teachers and student opportunities for remediation. Students can retake a test immediately after completing a remediation program; the percent of such students who pass the tests is quite high.

Mel Riddile distributed material (attached). He noted that he deals at the micro level with the issues that Matlock had just covered. He said that Stuart High School, where he is principal, has a very ethnically and socioeconomically diverse student body.

Riddile said that, when he came to Stuart five years ago, 25 percent of students read at grade level; now 80 percent pass the SOLs. He said we know what to do for each student, and student preparation levels vary substantially (e.g., some students have kept up in school in their home countries and others arrive in high school with third grade reading levels. He said that, at Stuart, he and his staff will do whatever it takes for each student to succeed; some students need more time to learn. Stuart's modified calendar allows for 240 days per year of school for students who need the extra time. Stuart mandates after -school learning programs for about 500 students.

Stuart is a Focus 2004 school (similar to elementary Excel schools). Stuart puts its additional resources into reducing class size, which makes a big difference for Stuart students. All Stuart teachers teach reading, and a full-time reading coach helps teachers of all subjects to teach reading. A wide range of course offerings meet the needs of different students.

Brenda Greene asked whether the school meets the social and health needs of students as well as their academic needs. Riddile said that although he had been talking about meeting academic needs, these other needs are also met.

Boyce Williams asked if improving test scores were a result of "teaching to the test." Riddile and Matlock said that this may be the case but that there is nothing wrong with this as long as the test is good and that SOL tests are (generally) good.

Lynne Dysart noted that all groups' scores declined in 8th grade English. Matlock said she did not know why this happened.

Riddile said Stuart students do well because FCPS funds and supports Stuart programs.

Nell Hurley said she would like to have information beyond what is on the chart that was distributed.

Brad Center said he would like to see data on other tests and data tracking individual students over time.

Suzanne Levy asked about the status of special education students on SOL tests. Matlock said that academically rigorous special education programs have improved these students' scores dramatically.

Lynn Terhar asked whether students who do not pass the U.S .history SOL test need to retake the course before taking the test again. Matlock said they did not.

Dysart said she would like to see a breakout of students who are limited-English-proficient from those who are not.

Kugler introduced members' issues.

Greene mentioned that residents can make donations to the FCPS Education Foundation through a checkoff on their tax bills.

K. Lynch asked if proposed cuts in Impact Aid would affect FCPS. Leis said probably not much.

Hurley asked if FCPS has class sizes over 30. Leis said very few classes are this large; the Superintendent had asked principals if they preferred to have all class sizes lower or to have selected classes with lower sizes, and principals preferred the latter. Pam Latt said the increases vary by level, but, at the high school level, class sizes have increased by 2 1/2 students over the past five years.

Kugler noted that next month's SCAC subject would be "creative financing" and asked members to send her ideas on this.

The meeting was adjourned.