Melrose School Improvement Team

Meeting Minutes

Arpil 27, 2006

Present: K. Almanzor, S. Schott, J. Wright, L. Carlisle, K. Chandler, D. Murphy, J. Krauss, N. Santamour, J. Warner

1. Service Learning/Food Drive.

A recap was done regarding the food drive, what worked well and things that could be improved on in the future. In the future, more notice will be given to teachers.

2. Differentiated Learning Plans/Teacher Feedback

K. Almanzor reported back on discussion at a faculty meeting regarding DLP's. Many teachers also returned a survey asking their thoughts on the usefulness of the DLP's and any needs they might have. Some teachers felt a need to revisit the DLP's during the year. They can write the results to parents on the report cards. Teachers discussed how they differentiate all day but that it is hard to describe. Overall, they found them helpful for beginning of the year conferences and as a tool to help them get to know the student, but at times they were finding some challenges to execution.

Feedback was not positive regarding using looping mainly because of the size of our district and that one room per grade is already an inclusive room.

Everyday Mathematics will be in grades K-4 next year.

3. Fourth/Fifth Transition

The need for a better transition was discussed. The fifth grade teachers are coming to Melrose and observing at the end of the year, and teachers will meet together with substitutes running their classrooms. The desire to move fifth grade to Melrose was discussed.

4. Salt Study Results/Discussion

Results of the Salt Surveys were summarized. Copies were given to all committee members.