Sign in attendance. 

Doug welcomed SAAC members and introductions were completed.

2006 Baldrige Feedback Report

Faith provided a review of the key recommendations for improvement in the Baldrige report.  These included benchmarking with other similar school districts locally and nationally; establishing built-in processes to evaluate, improve and share in a systemic way. 

Issues raised by SAAC members:

a.       Some schools were trained in Baldrige methods.  Did this occur in central office?

b.      School staff selects from a wide array of curriculum protocols—however there may not be sufficient coordination across schools to cover the same curriculum.  “Each school is an island.”

c.       It would be helpful to have more opportunities for schools to engage in sharing of ideas and best practices.—the district does not seem to support such sharing.  Too much competition between schools.

Recommendation: 

¨      Baldrige report should be posted on the MCPS website.

Gifted and Talented Advisory Committee Recommendations

Doug presented some background information about the committee.  Doug focused on the recommendation of enhancing accountability measures.  There is a disparity in the way GT programs and services are implemented across schools. 

Doug also reported that the GT committee discussed the concern that students are not prepared –there is a push for increased participation in GT classes, but students may not be prepared for the work.  Melanie supported this point.

MCPS does not have documentation for each student identified as GT and the GT services provided to each student.

SAAC members voiced concern that students may be recommended for the GT center programs, but the student and/or his/her family does not want the student to leave the home school, friends, etc. to attend a center program.

Questions:  How can DSA help?

1. Are there student indicators to predict whether students would benefit for GT classes?
2. Center programs have about 200 spaces for students.  Doug suggested that there should be a Needs Assessment on what data can be used for early identification of GT students. 

Recommendation: 

¨         Next year SAAC will discuss GT policies and how to improve the student identification process. 

Senior Exit Surveys

Cindy provided some background information regarding the MSDE graduate survey and the MCPS Senior Exit survey. 

a.         Most of the questions are the same on both surveys. 

b.         SAAC members questioned who uses the information? 

Schools use for advising students interested in applying to particular colleges/universities. 

Clare and Faith mentioned that schools have obtained a software program that tracks this information.

Melanie reported that she is a junior at Whitman HS and has used information from electronic software programs in her school for college planning. 

Recommendation: 

¨         Most of SAAC members agreed to recommend that since the two surveys collect similar information, only the MSDE survey be administered in the future.  .

Faith reported she will take the recommendation to the Deputies for a final decision.

Surveys of School Environment—“NOT” questions

SAAC considered the NOT questions on the Student Surveys of School Environment.  Faith reported that in order to make any changes to the survey questions, the workgroup would need to be reconvened. 

Discussion that students, particularly elementary-aged, are confused by the NOT questions and meaning. 

Clare suggested that since the student surveys are available online, DSA will do an analysis next year of rewording the NOT questions—taking out “NOT.”

Recommendation:

¨         The paper versions of the student surveys will remain with the NOT questions.  The online versions will be reworded to delete the NOT.  DSA will analyze the results to see if there are any differences between survey results for students that respond to the NOT questions and those that respond to the online questions with the NOT removed. 

¨         DSA will report the results to the SAAC at the end of next school year.

Summary

Doug and Kay thanked everyone for participating on the SAAC. 

Recommendation:

¨         SAAC members recommended that on the DSA website there should be a description of the SAAC, the charge of the committee, a summary of the SAAC meeting notes, and SAAC accomplishments.  SAAC members agreed with Kay’s suggestions.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:45 pm.  Next meeting: 2007–2008 school year. 

February 13, 2007  Cancelled due to inclement weather

November 20, 2006  Meeting Notes

November 20, 2006

6:00 – 7:30 pm

CESC Cafeteria

Handouts        Meeting Agenda; 2006–2007 Charge for SAAC; Examples:  Home Report for the High School Assessment, Montgomery County; Home Report from Maryland State Department of Education

Welcome and Introductions

Sign in attendance. 

Doug welcomed SAAC members and thanked everyone for attending the first meeting of the 2006–2007 school year. 

Charge and Mission Statement of SAAC

Committee reviewed the Charge of the SAAC and confirmed the wording and focus for the 2006–2007 school year. Introduce new DSA staff

Advisory Group Updates

Faith reported that there had been some staffing changes in DSA. 

• Program Evaluation: focus groups for Grading and Reporting; advisory groups that include cross-section of all stakeholders have been helpful to bring new expertise to the table and gets buy-in from end-users
• Useful method for DSA to gather feedback from stakeholders

Testing Unit Mapping Process and Focus Groups

Carlos explained the Testing Unit’s mapping process and use of focus groups to gather feedback on:

(1) streamlining dissemination of results

(2) asking schools to have option to print their own reports even though DSA will still mail home reports in order to get data to schools faster, asks advisory group to comment

Carlos asked the SAAC to look at the examples presented:  How to get student test data out to parents sooner?  Home Reports for HSA (MSDE vs. MCPS versions)

Discussion by SAAC members:

• ES principals prefer to have reports provided rather than print at school
• MS principal says would like to have the option but don’t want to do it in lieu of that
• Concern about some schools getting data out and other schools being bombarded because they did not get data out sooner
• Get reports to community superintendents and directors as soon as possible but have centralized dissemination so everyone gets data at the same time

Questions from SAAC:

• Why don’t reports go out sooner? 
  • Limited resources in DSA; should we look at cost for getting this out sooner?
    • Estimates to produce and distribute home reports
    • MSA- $24,629 and 135 additional man hours
    • HSA- $10,266 and an additional 119 man hours
    • TN/2—$4,495 and an additional 35 man hours
  • Could students get results that come from MSDE with students’ report cards (now MSDE reports are shredded and reprinted by MCPS) 
    • Schools need data 2 weeks before the last day of school
    • OSP says sending with final report card would be viable
    • SAAC recommended that SAAC principals bring this up at principals’ meetings as an option
• If MSDE school reports (which have no address) could go to schools 2 weeks before end of the school year would schools “stuff” information into end of year envelopes that are sent to students’ homes? 
  • Alison, Dennis, Bonnie will communicate back to Carlos
    • Middle School Principals’ liaison, Alison, reported the following to DSA in response to question:  Middle school principals overwhelmingly supported that MCPS continue to send out MSA scores centrally even if it means the current timeline.  Principals felt they did not have the time or resources to get the reports out to parents of students.
    • Middle school principals also asked whether other LEAs received more information from MSDE in regard to item analyses and if yes, could MCPS also receive such information?
• Carlos asked the SAAC to look at the two versions of the “home” reports.  How do they compare? 
  • Compromise between speed and thoroughness in the report: 
    • Do we mail out reports as they come in by subject or mail out report when final report comes in from MSDE (more than a month later);
      • Cannot give a status report on path to graduation until all scores are in;
      • Consensus of SAAC is to get valid data to parents as soon as possible.  If there is a delay of more than 2 weeks, then MCPS should get out incrementally;
        • Question:  Is there any way incremental report can mention that other scores will be coming later?

Applied Research Unit

Clare reported that to address issues of requirements for MCPS to report on the achievement gap and other NCLB requirements, should survey data be reported by race/ethnicity?

Discussion by SAAC:

• Important opportunity to identify differences within the community; would disaggregate by race/ethnicity within school but no two-way interactions; would show multi-race for individuals that respond to more than one racial/ethnic group
• May need to ask about child’s race/ethnicity and parent’s race/ethnicity.  Currently report is about child’s race/ethnicity.  What does SAAC feel about adding question to ask about parents’ and students race/ethnicity?
  • SAAC felt it would be okay to ask parents to report their own race/ethnicity as well as child’s
  • Next year, MCPS will be required to report race/ethnicity similar to federal government:  Hispanic/nonHispanic and race/ethnicity

• Do we need to do something else besides surveys to gather parent feedback?  Are there other groups operating in conjunction with the school systems that could provide information via structured interviews or focus groups?  These might give us more information that we’re getting now. 
• What are SAAC suggestions for increasing response rates for students and parents? 
  • SAAC school representatives discussed concern about the amount of time needed for on-line student survey (e.g., impact on instructional schedule).  Wanted option to have paper available as in some elementary schools, computer lab is in library and scheduling students for the online option means closing down library
• What are these surveys for?  What about questions about bathrooms and heating and cooling?  Does anyone see results and do something about issues?
• SAAC discussed that support from principal at elementary schools can increase response rates.  However middle and high school students are more like adults in that they don’t want to answer a survey; other methods of data collection may be more informative.  Suggested that survey is too “cold” and older students less likely to complete.
• SAAC suggested that DSA could chat with high-responding schools to identify best practices
• What has been done to increase parent response rates? 
  • Steve describes experiment conducted to increase response rates showing that follow-up survey packets raised response rate by about 10 percentage points
• SAAC suggested that DSA follow-up with other groups less homogeneous than PTA to get ideas for increasing parent response rates.  Perhaps ask Student Board member as well as county-wide SGAs.
• Get back at next meeting with suggestions

Adjournment and Next Meeting

The meeting was adjourned at 7:45 pm.  Next meeting: February 13, 2007. 

May 10, 2006  Meeting Notes

        May 10, 2006

5:45–7:15 pm

CESC Cafeteria

Facilitators:                Ms. Kay Romero, (Co-Chair)

Recorder:                   Cynthia Loeb

Members present:

            Jean Bone, MCEA, Forest Oak Middle School

            Kay Romero, MCCPTA, Special Education Advisory Committee

George Wimberly, DSA

E. Grace Chesney, OCIP

Betty Collins, OOD

Shaphar Modarresi, DSA

Monica Huang, student, Montgomery Blair High School

Felicia Piacente, DPSERS

Faith Connolly, DSA

Handouts        Meeting Agenda; Evaluation Briefs (working drafts)

Welcome and Introductions

Sign in attendance. 

Kay welcomed SAAC members and thanked everyone for attending the meeting of the 2005–2006 school year.  Faith reported that Jose Stevenson, Coordinator for Testing Unit would be leaving MCPS. Faith told group that the position would be advertised and a national search would be conducted.

Grading and Reporting

Shahpar updated the group on Grading and Reporting.  Shahpar asked the group to review the Research Briefs in their packets.  Some of the Grading and Reporting limitations reported in the Briefs were being addressed.

            Other Highlights from the Briefs:

                        Respondents did not necessarily understand Grading and Reporting procedures

                        More training is recommended

                        Special Education and ESOL populations—there is some particular confusion about Grading and Reporting procedures for these groups.

Parent Survey—Survey to find out about implementation of report card policy

17 schools; conducted focus groups

Reassessing Students

Discussion that teachers not consistent about what “reassessing” means.  Group

Shahpar reported that the challenge the evaluation is facing is how to recruit parents, students, and staff to obtain their feedback.  It is very important to gather feedback from all 3 groups in order to gather a balanced perspective for evaluation.  Shahpar asked the group for suggestions on how to recruit students and parents and what methods should be used to obtain feedback (i.e., interviews, surveys, focus groups)

            Suggestions from the group:

Recruiting Students: 

§         Contact SGA leaders/presidents for helping to recruit students. 

§         Schools have listservs where messages could be posted.  Comments from group members were that students do not necessarily know of opportunities to participate in such studies.

§         Do the student surveys during scheduled school assemblies when students are already gathered together

Recruiting Parents: 

§         To recruit special education parents, a recommendation from the group was to make the parents feel it is something important affecting their children

§         Telephone Interviews:  Parents would not have to attend a meeting—could do at home.

§         ESOL parents—go to already scheduled parent education group meetings.

Recruiting Staff: 

§         Suggest going to MCEA to gain support of the project

§         Present plan to Council on Teaching and Learning to gain support

Shaphar reported that this year interviews, focus groups, web surveys, written surveys will be used.

Update on revisions of the Surveys of School Environment (SSE)

George reported that after receiving feedback last year from the SAAC and a survey workgroup, the SSE surveys were shortened.  Went from about 80 questions to about 35questions.  The revisions were approved by the MCPS leadership and the recommendation to do an on-line student survey option also was approved.  DSA piloted the on-line student version in an elementary and middle school in spring 2005.  The on-line electronic was enthusiastically received by students in the pilot schools.  The advantages of the electronic format are that the DSA receives the results immediately.  One drawback is that teachers must schedule their classes for the school’s computer lab so that students can do the electronic version during the same scheduled class period.

George reported that DSA would like to entertain the idea of doing the staff survey on line.  Some issues that need to be addressed are confidentiality and a staff member completing the survey only one time.  A member of the SAAC suggested using a randomly assigned password that would give the staff member access.  The passwords could be distributed during a staff meeting to maintain anonymity of results.

Parent Surveys:  George reported that the DSA has been approved to do a parent satisfaction survey rather than the Surveys of School Environment.  Over the years, the response rates for parents have been decreasing.  The DSA will be piloting several methods during the 2005–2006 school year in order to determine the best method for obtaining a higher response rate from parents.

Adjournment and Next Meeting

The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 pm.  Next meeting January 18, 2006. 

October 17, 2005  Meeting Notes

October 17, 2005

5:45–7:15 pm

CESC Cafeteria

Facilitators:                Ms. Kay Romero, (Co-Chair)

Recorder:                   Cynthia Loeb

Members present:

            Jean Bone, MCEA, Forest Oak Middle School

            Kay Romero, MCCPTA, Special Education Advisory Committee

Ruth Orland, IQMS

George Wimberly, DSA

Stephen Bedford, OSP

E. Grace Chesney, OCIP

Betty Collins, OOD

Jose Stevenson, DSA

Shaphar Modarresi, DSA

Monica Huang, student, Montgomery Blair High School

Morgan Aronson, student, Montgomery Blair High School

Felicia Piacente, DPSERS

Faith Connolly, DSA

Handouts        Meeting Agenda; Charge to the Shared Accountability Advisory Committee; Making Adequate Yearly Progress in Maryland in 2005, Elementary and Middle Schools; Evaluation of Grading and Reporting 2005–2006

Welcome and Introductions

Sign in attendance. 

Kay welcomed SAAC members and thanked everyone for attending the first meeting for the 2005–2006 school year.  Kay reviewed Charge of the SAAC; group agreed no changes were needed to the SAAC’s Charge.  The Charge from 2004-2005 remains in effect.

Testing Information Updates

Jose reported on new requirements from the state for Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) calculations.

For High School Assessments, Reading MSA Grade 10 will be combined with the English HSA and the new assessment will be called English 2.  It will fulfill the federal requirement for having a measure of reading and used for measuring HSA and AYP.

Geometry will be discontinued as a high school assessment.  Algebra will be used in its place and be counted for HSA and MSA.  This will begin in May 2006. There will be four high school assessments in the following courses Algebra, Biology, Government, and English.

He also described the process for what happens when a school does not meet AYP.  Schools can appeal AYP status using the Mod-MSA as a reason.

Jose reported about Alt-MSA and Mod-MSA.  This is to meet a change in NCLB.  Mod-MSA will begin next school year (2006-2007).  Schools will need to document whether a student qualifies for the Mod-MSA.  However, at this time the state has not clarified issues pertaining to graduation requirements.

Grading and Reporting

Shahpar explained the evaluation of the grading and reporting policy.  Explained the process and selection of schools involved in the evaluation.  Evaluation is not static—will continue to change as feedback is given on various components.  Group commented that implementation thus far of the grading and reporting policy is varied by school and individual teacher.  Group suggested that evaluation should have very targeted questions to specific issues.  Questions such as “Has this happened to you?”

Shahpar reported that the challenge the evaluation is facing is how to recruit parents, students, and staff to obtain their feedback.  It is very important to gather feedback from all 3 groups in order to gather a balanced perspective for evaluation.  Shahpar asked the group for suggestions on how to recruit students and parents and what methods should be used to obtain feedback (i.e., interviews, surveys, focus groups)

            Suggestions from the group:

Recruiting Students: 

§         Contact SGA leaders/presidents for helping to recruit students. 

§         Schools have listservs where messages could be posted.  Comments from group members were that students do not necessarily know of opportunities to participate in such studies.

§         Do the student surveys during scheduled school assemblies when students are already gathered together

Recruiting Parents: 

§         To recruit special education parents, a recommendation from the group was to make the parents feel it is something important affecting their children

§         Telephone Interviews:  Parents would not have to attend a meeting—could do at home.

§         ESOL parents—go to already scheduled parent education group meetings.

Recruiting Staff: 

§         Suggest going to MCEA to gain support of the project

§         Present plan to Council on Teaching and Learning to gain support

Shaphar reported that this year interviews, focus groups, web surveys, written surveys will be used.

Update on revisions of the Surveys of School Environment (SSE)

George reported that after receiving feedback last year from the SAAC and a survey workgroup, the SSE surveys were shortened.  Went from about 80 questions to about 35 questions.  The revisions were approved by the MCPS leadership and the recommendation to do an on-line student survey option also was approved.  DSA piloted the on-line student version in an elementary and middle school in spring 2005.  The on-line electronic was enthusiastically received by students in the pilot schools.  The advantages of the electronic format are that the DSA receives the results immediately.  One drawback is that teachers must schedule their classes for the school’s computer lab so that students can do the electronic version during the same scheduled class period.

George reported that DSA would like to entertain the idea of doing the staff survey on line.  Some issues that need to be addressed are confidentiality and a staff member completing the survey only one time.  A member of the SAAC suggested using a randomly assigned password that would give the staff member access.  The passwords could be distributed during a staff meeting to maintain anonymity of results.

Parent Surveys:  George reported that the DSA has been approved to do a parent satisfaction survey rather than the Surveys of School Environment.  Over the years, the response rates for parents have been decreasing.  The DSA will be piloting several methods during the 2005–2006 school year in order to determine the best method for obtaining a higher response rate from parents.

Adjournment and Next Meeting

The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 pm.  Next meeting January 18, 2006. 

March 23, 2005  Meeting Notes

March 23, 2005

6:00-8:00 pm

CESC Cafeteria

Next meeting:            SAAC members suggested next meeting to occur sometime in May 2005. 

Facilitators:                Mr. Doug McManus, (Co-Chair), Ms. Kay Romero, (Co-Chair), Dr. Terry Alban, Dr. Faith Connolly

Recorder:               Cynthia Loeb

Members present:

            Mike Perich, Office of Chief Operating Office

            Betty Montgomery, Office of Organizational Development/SEIU Local 500

            Jean Bone, MCEA, Forest Oak Middle School

            Kay Romero, MCCPTA, Special Education Advisory Committee,

            Carol Blum, Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs (High School)

            Cynthia Loeb, DSA

            Alfred Sklarew, MCAASP, Principal, Candlewood ES

            Barbara Leister, MCAASP, Principal, Wyngate ES

Faith Connolly, DSA

George Wimberly, DSA

Doug McManus, Parent, MCBRE

Terry Alban, DSA

Steve Bedford, Office of School Performance

Carol Schatz, DSA

Janice Faden, School Based Curriculum Specialist/OCIP

Felicia Piacente Department of School Based Special Education Services

David Bernstein, DSA

Handouts        Meeting agenda; High School Academic Attainment Framework; Student Survey of School Environment, Survey Structure/Broad Areas; Student Survey of School Environment, (elementary, middle, high school), School Year 2005-2006.

Welcome and Introductions

Doug welcomed SAAC members and participants introduced themselves.

Changes in the Department of Shared Accountability

Terry announced that she was leaving MCPS for family reasons and would be joining the Howard County Public Schools as director of the office similar to DSA.  Terry introduced Faith as acting Director of DSA and George as acting Coordinator of Applied Research.  MCPS will conduct a national search for the Director’s position before final appointments are made.

High School Academic Attainment Work Group

The HSAA Work Group has been working on proposed changes to the High School Academic Attainment to better reflect the postsecondary preparations of all Grade 12 students, particularly in terms of NCLB and the new HSA graduation requirements.  The HSAA Work Group discussed some possible measures that could be used to create an index.  A description of the possible HSAA Framework was distributed to SAAC members.  SAAC members discussed some additional measures that might be useful to include (e.g. the number of licenses students qualify for from career and technology education programs, mean scores from SAT).

Adding to the HSAA work group will be findings from the Pathways project which is looking at course taking patterns before and after they take Algebra 1.  The Pathways project will investigate the relationships between students’ course-taking experiences before Algebra 1 and other courses-taking history such as honors AP courses, as students continue through high school.

Comments will be shared with the HSAA work group and continue to report to the SAAC on the progress of the HSAA work group.

Student Surveys of School Environment Work Group

Activities from the SSE workgroups were shared.  The work groups felt shortening the surveys was a priority.  A special schools work group met in early February, as the student SSE may not be applicable for students with more severe disabilities.  Representatives on the special schools work group reported that the SSE as they are currently written are still one more reminder to parents that their children are different and what their children cannot do.  The purpose of the SSE is to provide data to schools for school improvement purposes.

The group discussed capturing SSE data that truly capture a racial or ethnic group.  These data are important for the school system to learn about what different ethnic groups feel about MCPS.  DSA has some concerns that the current sampling plan does may not provide samples which can be generalized for racial/ethnic groups for individual schools.

SAAC reviewed the items on the handouts for the Student SSE.  SAAC members discussed incorporating bullying questions on the student surveys.  The SAAC felt that teasing items might be appropriate for elementary age students and bullying questions might be more appropriate for middle/high school students.  DSA will look at some national surveys as examples for wording the bullying questions.  The SAAC made recommendations to the wording of various student survey items in terms of readability for elementary school students and negatively worded items.

Possible NCLB Changes

MSDE may make some changes in reporting of:

• Grade 10 reading test to meet MSA and HAS requirements (combine English 9 together with Grade 10 MSA),
• Students would count “once” as part of multiple categories, and
• Some different ways of calculating AYP.  If a school system did not make AYP because of deficiencies in the same subgroup for 2 consecutive years, then the district would be considered not meeting AYP.  However, this standard would not apply to individual schools.  

Question:  What happens if student is absent during 1 testing session?  There is no indication in the student’s file to indicate his/her absence.

Adjournment and Next Meeting

Meeting adjourned at 7:45 pm.  Next meeting sometime in May 2005.  DSA will send out information to SAAC members for the May meeting date.

October 27, 2004  Meeting Notes

October 27, 2004

6:00-8:00 pm

CESC Cafeteria

Next meeting:            SAAC members suggested next meeting to occur sometime in February 2005. 

Facilitators:                Mr. Doug McManus, (Co-Chair), Ms. Kay Romero, (Co-Chair), Dr. Terry Alban, Mrs. Cynthia Loeb

Recorder:                  Cynthia Loeb

Members present:

            Mike Perich, OCOO

            Betty Montgomery, OOD

            Jean Bone, MCEA, Forest Oak Middle School

            Kay Romero, MCCPTA, Special Education Advisory Committee,

            Carol Blum, OCIP (High School)

            Cynthia Loeb, DSA

            Alfred Sklarew, MCAASP, Candlewood ES

            Barbara Leister, MCAASP, Wyngate ES

            Jessica Nesmith, Student, Magruder HS

Faith Connolly, DSA

Betty Collins, OOD

G.J. Tarazi, OCIP (Middle School)

Doug McManus, Parent,

Terry Alban, DSA

Steve Bedford, OSP

Handouts        Meeting agenda, Charge for the Committee, List of SAAC Participants with email addresses, Technical Changes for 2004-2005 Surveys of School Environment, “Montgomery County Board of Education Community Forums (2004) Summary of Participants’ Input,” and presentation outline of “GT Accountability Measures”
Welcome and Introductions

Kay and Doug welcomed members and participants introduced themselves.

Committee Charge and Responsibilities

Committee reviewed SAAC Charge from last year (2003-2004) and discussed proposed changes for 2004-2005.  Terry mentioned that the reorganization of OSA to two separate departments, Department of Shared Accountability (DSA) and Department of Reporting and Regulatory Accountability (DRRA) had resulted in a new mission and vision statement.  The new charge statement reflects SAAC’s support of that mission. 

Question rose about how DSA measures its performance in the organization.  Terry mentioned that DSA had compiled a book of all of the reports completed and other major activities DSA had done during last year.  The book was completed for Mr. John Q. Porter to inform that Office on what DSA does.  Terry also mentioned that DSA continues to focus on getting information out on a timely basis and to make reports user-friendly so the information can be used.

Reorganization of Administrative Offices

Terry discussed the reorganization of OSA into two departments and the responsibilities of each department.

Surveys of School Environment Modifications

Cindy reported about the response rates from the 2003-2004 Surveys of School Environment.  School-based Staff response rates are up (high for elementary schools to 45%).  Parent response rates have been declining over the past 3 years.  Student response rates are okay, but DSA did not report some schools’ student data because the response rate was less than 50% of the surveyed population.  DSA felt this may be the result of uneven administration (e.g., did not survey a particular grade level), thus making the results not valid.

Cindy asked the group to provide feedback on ways to improve the parent response rates.  Suggestions included: sending principals electronic messages with information about the surveys that could be incorporated into principals’ newsletters that go out to the community; information that could be given at Back to School Night to let parents know the importance of completing the surveys; advertising the surveys on Channel 34; contacting different community groups (e.g., Hispanic Association, Asian Association, African-American organizations) to include information about the surveys; providing information that could be posted to schools’ listservs; and sharing information with Kay for PTA newsletters. 

Some discussion about the fact that some principals still have not “bought in” to using the surveys or see the need for the surveys.  The Committee felt we need to work on changing this attitude by providing reasons and ways the survey data can be used to help schools. 

Issue of the length of the surveys was discussed.  SAAC members felt it was too long, takes too much time.  Respondents tend to “put aside for another time” and then not complete it; respondents think, “time has expired” to send back.

Discussion about questions pertaining to facilities—some principals feel that parents are not in a position to respond to those questions, particularly if they have only been in a school once or twice and that was when a “building was undergoing repair and it looked messy.”

Another topic mentioned was whether a “concept” such as “Social Environment" has meaning to groups who are non-English speakers.  What does it mean in other cultures?

Cindy presented the idea of piloting an “on-line” student survey and asked SAAC for feedback about the idea.  One principal was extremely enthusiastic but said not necessarily feasible in many schools (takes too much time, getting students to computer labs; not all schools have computer labs; skills in using the computer for younger students).  SAAC members discussed that this might be more feasible for secondary schools.  High School students are used to completing on-line surveys—do it all the time.  Terry noted that DSA plans to look at revisions to surveys for 2005-2006.  SAAC will be asked to provide support throughout this process.

Testing Information Update

Terry updated the SAAC members about the various times that MCPS receives student tests scores and the impact for reporting the information to parents (AYP information given 3 different times and with partial information that then changes).  These changes make it very difficult for MCPS to report out on a timely basis, as the data must be uploaded to the mainframe before it can be matched with students’ home address information then mailed out to parents

Question was raised about the ALT-MSA taken by students with disabilities.  Schools are not receiving information back from the State that helps teachers to make program improvements.  Particularly frustrating for schools that serve students with severe disabilities as almost no feedback is given to staff for program improvement.  Steve Bedford asked whether a letter could be written from the SAAC that asks the State to provide “hard copies” back to schools of materials students who take the ALT-MSA completed.  These materials would be helpful for to school staff as these artifacts are the only information schools have to help students improve their achievement.  Terry volunteered to consult with Jose Stevenson and to write a first draft.

GT Data Models

Doug McManus presented a model for measuring GT Accountability that had been developed by the Superintendent’s GT Advisory Committee.  Doug outlined “outcome measures” the GT Advisory Committee was recommending for monitoring.  The SAAC members discussed and made recommendations for changes in the model.

Follow-Up to Community Budget Forums

Time had run out and Terry suggested that SAAC members read over the summary of issues that had resulted from the Community budget Forums and email her with feedback as to whether the list of issues are important and whether there are any others that should be added to the list.  Terry reported that each office/department was asked to present the summary to advisory groups and report back to the Office of the Chief Operating Officer.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05 pm.  Next meeting February 10, 2005.  A snow date also will be set.