The Next Generation:

January 10th

January 10, 2007 Meeting Summary: 

Committee Members in Attendance:

Don Bremner, Darby Brown, Jeremy Buss, Barbara Cadiente-Nelson, Phyllis Carlson, Cheri Carson, Chris Carte, Sonja Engle, Ron Flint, Clay Good, Cory Hansen, Larry Harris, Alberta Jones, Joyce Kitka, Jackie Kookesh, Tracy Kubley, Gary Lehnhart, Nia Maake, Sarah Marino, Haley Nelson, Joe Nelson, Sandra Pahlke, Bill Ralston, Destiny Sargeant, Laury Scandling, Carlton Smith, Bernie Sorenson, Roberta Stell, Jackie Tagaban, Teri Tibbett, Chrissy Walker, Shea Wilcox, Charla Wright  

Goals of the meeting:

o    Continue to build sense of community

o    Further clarify our mission as a committee

o    Be able to communicate why we need to develop an educational plan for the high schools in Juneau

Trios Conversations:

The work of the evening began with a dialogue protocol called “Trios.”  In this activity, people form groups of three, introduce themselves, and then respond to a specific question.  Once everyone in a group has shared, new groups are formed, and the process is repeated with a new question.  Not only does this activity provide the opportunity to meet and listen to six different people, but it also affords everyone a chance to speak and be listened to.  The questions that the group answered were as follows:
1.    Describe a learning environment that you do not want in the high schools.
2.    Describe a learning environment that you would like to see in the high schools.
3.    Describe what you want a graduate of the Juneau high schools to—whether yourself, your child, or any student—look like.
When asked what they learned from other people during this activity, committee members mentioned that it seemed that they shared the same thoughts regardless of age, that we need conversation, that until you talk and hear the words, you don’t have full meaning of ideas, and that it was interesting to see the different perspectives on the same situation.

What Our Schools Can Be: 

A powerpoint presentation, What Our Schools Can Be:  Developing Vision to Change Our Current Reality, focused on the three stages of school reform:  Sharing with people WHY we need to change our schools, Using good data to determine WHAT needs to change, and ultimately, determining HOW to change schools.  Reasons for why this is so difficult were shared.  The ultimate goal for the group this evening was shared, and this was to begin to articulate why we need to develop an educational plan for high schools in Juneau.

The group then spent time looking at the newly revised and longer data sheets.  Groups created summary statements from the data, after which they determined implications from these statements for the future work of this committee.  They are as follows:

Statement:  If you’re Native, you’re male, and you’re in poverty, the system is not working for you.

Implications:

o    Increase flexibility, choices, culturally relevant curriculum, and education experiences.
o    Curriculum needs to be relevant to today’s learner (modernize)
o    Make education flexible to accommodate different lifestyles/home lives.

o    There is no one option that works for all students.  More options are better
o    Students need to have more access to “real people” advocates who can offer them 1:1 support

o    Look at instructional design, engagement, and rigor
o    Removal of barriers (funding) to improve access for advanced classes and activities
o    Look at successful students; survey students using assets model
o    Continual teacher training so they can prepare students for the real world

o    Concern over the high proficiency rate of dropouts.
o    Under representation of Alaska Nations in AP courses (possible reasons include no connections to teachers, cost)
o    We’d like more supporting data—this represents only one cohort group of kids.
o    What are the predictors for success?
o    More girls are enrolling in AP courses
o    More Caucasian students are enrolling in AP courses
o    Juneau ACE/SAT scores are higher than the rest of Alaska
o    Most reliable data as compiled here is recent (in last five years).  However, it has become more reliable
o    Current data appears not to be a radical departure from prior trends (5+ years and longer)
o    Alaska Native graduation rate increased over 10% between 05 and 06
o    Poverty increased by 4%, but the dropout rate did not.
o    Freshmen Alaska Native students are at a higher risk of dropping out if they have two or more Fs.
o    Girls are doing better than boys.
o    Freshmen with two or more Fs represent a third of all students.  Note:  Most of the Fs were in P.E. –62 of 69)

Some additional data was requested, and if possible, the additional information will be posted on the website.  This includes the following:
o    Percentage of Alaska Native students earning 3.0+ GPA
o    Compare Juneau achievement data to Fairbanks and Anchorage, not just all of Alaska
o    Include percentages of students rather than numbers for freshmen with Fs
o    Add Tlingit language stats to world languages data (23 students)

 21st Century Skills and District Goals:

The Advisory Group then discussed the article that they read for homework, “21st Century Skills That Matter,” and the School District Goals.  Their task was to then determine the implications from these two documents for the work of the committee.

Implications:
o    We need to agree on 21st Century Skills before we determine program
o    Need staff development—ongoing and continual--to help teachers learn to prepare kids for 21st century skills
o    Importance of showing relevance
o    Need to explore core and technical education at a high level—in an authentic context
o    Comparisons to Japan have issues—we’re inclusive and they’re not
o    Colleges tell us that kids are not prepared for college work
o    District goals look good, but how are we doing operationally?  Are they really practiced?
o    How do we define and practice rigor?
o    What does rigor mean to the individual, teacher, and/or classroom
o    We need to hear much more from students at the high schools…

Closing: 

Barbara shared with the group that while attending a conference in Arizona, the parents of boys killed in Iraq spoke.  They asked that schools teach children so that they have choices.  Their sons felt that the only choice open to them to gain an education or technical experience was to join the armed services.  They wanted schools to provide choices for students so that they will not feel forced into doing something that they really don’t want to do. 

Homework: 

Read the packet on best practices in your notebook.  In addition to focusing on best practices at the next meeting, we should be able to share with you input from the first two public forums.

Forums: 

We invite everyone to attend any of the public forums that are scheduled in order to hear first hand what the community has to say.  All forums are listed on the website, The first three are as follows:

Next Meeting: 

Wednesday, January 24th.