LISD Academic Advocates

1. Call to Order and Pledge. President E. Frey called the meeting to order at 7:03 pm and those present recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

2. Minutes & Correspondence. The minutes of the March 26 meeting were approved unanimously as presented.

3. Treasurer's report. F. Hashemi reported the total cash flow for the year beginning with a starting balance of $1359.97. Memberships accounted for $415.25 in deposits and expenditures including website fees, scholarship disbursement, ad placement and postal fees totaling $939.94 resulting in a final balance of $835.02.

4. Nominating committee report and election of 2003-04 officers. The proposed slate of officers included: President - Elizabeth Frey; Vice-President - Chris Cavalli; Secretary - Erika Mittag; Treasurer - Fattenah Hashemi; High School Coordinator - Chris Kay; Middle School Coordinator - Marilyn Hosier; Elementary Coordinator - Susan Johnson; Publicity - Naomi Boyar; and Membership: Ray Cowperthwaite and Michelle Bubnis. The slate was approved unanimously.

5. Scholarship committee report. C. Cavalli reported that we have received 4 staff scholarship applications and 8 student applications. Erika Mittag, Karen Johnson and Adrian Ivey will be reviewing the applications. There was a brief discussion on scoring with the consensus being that 20 points would be apportioned for having a complete application (signatures, transcripts, etc.) and 40 points would be awarded based on grammar and spelling, creativity/originality, writing skill and relevance to the topic. Winners will be announced if possible for inclusion in their respective awards banquets and at our May 14 meeting.

6. Speaker program: Elementary Advanced Math. Charlotte Flowers, math facilitator, Carol Nelson, math facilitator; JoJo Fentress, 2nd grade classroom teacher; and Deb Arnold, 5th grade classroom teacher, described the criteria and participation level in this brand new program. The program includes 1st through 5th graders who, at the beginning of the year, test above 85% (1-3 grade) or 80% (4-5 grade) of the expectations for exiting that grade level. The assessment also includes teacher observation and evaluation of student interest. District wide students qualified as follows: grade 1-197 of possible 1410 children; grade 2 - 227 of possible 1389 students; grade 3 - 177 of possible 1319 students; grade 4 - 156 of possible 1303 students; and grade 5 - 311 of possible 1355 students. A teacher at each grade level in each school was designated to work with these advanced students and moved them more quickly and more deeply into the material. The adopted curriculum, Everyday Math, is already a challenging course with a philosophic focus on flexible problem solving and finding alternative methods. Students in the advanced program work on skills and concepts that are part of the next grade level TEKS/curriculum learning matrix. The teachers shared examples of specific activities used in the classroom as well as describing the Accelerated Math computer program (similar to Accelerated Reader) which is used to work on skills, but is not used for grading. As an example, one word problem could be presented with exactly the same words however, depending on the student's math level, she might be working with two digit, three digit or even four digit numbers to increase the complexity of the problem. The program will be evaluated and additional plans for improvement will be implemented as the teachers, administrators, students and parents become more familiar with the program.

Middle School Differentiation Pilot. Sandy Trujillo, Leander Middle School principal, Kimberly Golden, assistant principal, and teachers Karen Criddle and Michelle Smith described this program which is in the first year of a three year pilot. The program began with a book study of Differentiation in the Classroom, by Carol Ann Tomlinson, who sees children, not climbing a stairwell with different landing levels, but moving ever upward on an escalator toward reaching their own highest potential. Twenty LMS teachers volunteered to take an intensive 3 day immersion course over the summer and became team leaders working with other teachers in the school on a regular basis over the year to introduce differentiation skills and classroom implementation strategies. The goal was that 15% of classroom instruction throughout the school would be in differentiated mode by the end of the first year. A differentiated classroom provides different avenues to acquiring content, to processing or making sense of ideas, and to developing products. A teacher can differentiate the content, process, or product. The differentiation is based on a student's readiness, interest, or learning profile. Differentiated instruction is a teacher's response to learners' needs guided by general principles of differentiation such as respectful tasks, flexible grouping, ongoing assessment, adjustment, etc., Ms. Smith ended the presentation with a couple of short video clips of student presentations exemplifying the results of differentiated instruction. The teachers were unanimous in their assessment that one of the great strengths of this modality is that the students take more control and ownership of their own learning, first by understanding their own learning styles, strengths and weaknesses and then by deliberately choosing (within limits) the process and/or product which either takes advantage of their strengths or offers opportunity to stretch and grow in weaker areas.

7. Announcements.
School Board Elections - Please vote May 3.
Next meeting May 14 (final meeting of the school year)

8. The meeting adjourned at 8:47 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Erika Mittag
Secretary