HELIX HIGH SCHOOL

The meeting was called to order at 2:30 p.m.

1. Literacy Planning Day: A Literacy Planning Day was held on Thursday, April 6, 2006, to discuss the possibility of implementing a Helix Literacy Plan. Doug Fisher, from Hoover High School was the consultant who shared their model and ideas. Two outcomes came from this planning day. 1) A smaller group will draft a Helix Professional Literacy Plan, and 2) shared strategies will be developed for the whole school to use across the curricular areas. This Literacy Focus Group will meet on June 8th to discuss strategies and plan to have a draft to share with the staff by the end of the school year.

2. Day Care Planning Day: Barbara Dagman met with John Quann, Licensing Program Analyst, here in San Diego who attended the Day Care Design Day (Thursday, Feb. 23) to discuss the possibility of opening a co-op Day Care facility this August. The facility is planned to be located at the Windsor Hills Church, directly behind Helix. The Day Care Focus Group will meet next week, April 26, to further discuss issues such as funding for insurance, employees, etc., and if there are enough staff members interested in using the facility. (Location of meeting is Library Office; all interested are welcome to attend.) The goal is to eventually open a Helix-run day care on our own campus. The group is interested in researching day care facilities that support and maintain multiple day cares and the cost for that service. If you know of any day cares that would do this, please let our Focus Group know, so that we can contact them ASAP. (644-1940, ext. 161)

3. “Paperless Campus” Design Day: Will Jacoway reported the ideas that were a result of last week’s “Paperless Campus” Design Day (April 7, 2006, held at South County Regional Education Center). He passed out the Action Plan that was developed identifying the following areas: Communication and Work Flow (CWF), Information Management Systems (IMS), Course Management Systems (CMS), Community Access (CA) and Direct Access (DA). The Tech Committee will be in charge of supporting this Action Plan and establishing the responsible individuals for tasks, deadlines, and evaluations. Staff members are welcome and encouraged to participate as members on the Tech Committee. Contact Doug, Will or Dianne if you are interested in being a member of the Tech Committee.

Click on each item below to view:

Action Plan: Community Access Course Management System

Communication & Work Flow Direct Access

Info Management System Paperless Campus Action Plan

4. Grading Task Force: No report. This Task Force will meet soon. Doug Smith is the Lead.

5. CLT Reports on Goals for This Year: See CLT Report-out attachments. It is always interesting to hear what each Department at Helix is working on. Each CLT often thinks that they are the only ones who are working hard within our own Course Level Team, but then at a Restructuring Meeting we hear other Teams and Departments are also working within hard to make a difference for their students, looking at the data and revamping their own teaching to improve their student learning. Visiting a Restructuring Meeting at least once in awhile is a great way to stay current on what is happening on the Helix campus!

Algebra CLT reports more multiple choice questions and they are on rotation for textbooks. Geometry is using common assessments. David reported percentages for third quarter, which his team is questioning the reasons for numbers of students passing mid-terms vs 3^rd quarter tests (see their report-out). These are the types of questions which help us to improve our teaching. Photography is looking at the statistics of their tests, which they are discovering are difficult to interpret. Library has increased circulation, using book talks to ExL and 9^th grade English classes. They have purchased many new fiction books, a large number are book requests from students. PE is working on physical fitness. Since student scores in strength are down, the teachers have decided to test every two weeks, hoping this will improve the low scores. English Freshman Team is assembling packets and working on the literacy devices. Sophomore Team is reading vocablulary and working on their careers unit. Senior Team is working on Prep test for English Placement at Cal State schools, where Helix is admitting more students (we have gone from 50 to 75 pass rate). Foreign Language 1^st & 2^nd year is testing every quarter to keep adding to the Skills Test so that by the 3^rd and 4^th year the Skills Test will be easy for students. Kids are showing improvement. At first they don’t take it seriously, but by the upper years of language class, they realize how important the skills test is, and see their own improvement. FL-AP work on 3^rd and 4^th year as well as AP material and are hitting all the marks and progressing well.

Science Biology and Chemistry Teams are realigning tests to look like the CSTs. Biology is working to see if added time in the cell biology unit will show improvement in CSTs scores. Physics is establishing a Physics Lab in Room 470. All 3 CLTs are coordinating with Will Jacoway on a web site vehicle online program like Moodle which teachers can use for teaching. Beyond the CLTs is the implementation of 9^th grade science for the next school year, probably Earth Science, which affects Helix’s API and AYP scores. There is more realignment going on currently in the department.

Special Education LH and DHH are working on academic vocabulary in inclusion classes, CST style work sheets, especially multiple-meaning words. They are aligning and developing self-contained standards in English and later in Social Science and have requested novels for their students to use to stay current with the titles they need for English class readings. Special Education SH and MH have created a brochure for incoming parents with in-depth course description information, a real need.

Social Science 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th grade CLTs are looking at the CSTs and aligning to these tests. They are also looking at student grades to see what students are actually learning in order to improve teaching. Student Support has changed its focus from A to G requirements to look at the students. The team is looking at conflict resolution. They are working on their presentations to the 10^th grade classes, so that they can go again into these classes to make presentations. AVID has collected 3^rd quarter data and begun the evaluation, comparing it to other quarters and terms. This quarter is looking quite good (see their report-out), with students taking AP and honors courses. Robert Berg asks teachers to please contact him if they want help with a particular student. The college mentors can help out.

Business/Tech Discoveries is looking at ELA sample test questions with every sample test question online so students can practice using this method. They are using PhotoShop, a graphics program, to ask questions on the steps of the tutorial, using product descriptions. Quiz Star is used by the teachers now instead of their reflective journals. They also are using Blogs and use this testing format. The use of iWeb, as an online portfolio to build a welcome page and About Me page is something that students can use in other classes. Students can use iWeb in any classroom setting. Teachers may want to learn more about this, so they can have students use these formats in their class assignments.

6. Nominations for the 2006/2007 Restructuring Committee Chairperson(s): The following were nominated: Paula Ann Trevino, Dianne Beltran, and Becky Rotsart. Voting will take place at the next Restructuring meeting in May.

Meeting Adjourned 3:45

Next Restructuring Meeting is scheduled for May 9, 2006

Agenda Item: Choosing New Restructuring Chair