Welcome and Thank You!

MINUTES November 12, 2009 Attendees: Mark Scott, Dennis Nemes, LeAnn Stitzel, Carissa Snyder, Angela Traub, Merrie Hrinkovich, Mike Weber, Alice Nass-Yepsen

 Welcome and thank you! LeAnn welcomed all to the meeting and explained the purpose of Task Force was to prioritize the recommendations and develop action plans to carry out those recommendations.

 Review Recommendations and Prioritize The group reviewed the recommendations and prioritized the Bullying Prevention Program and long-range individual career planning. Please see the Action Plan for details on each of those steps. Discussion Points: Bullying Prevention – this is not a program, but a culture that will need to involve all staff and the community, which we envision will be probably a three-year project just to get up and running. One of the biggest hurdles that will need to be overcome is the feeling that this is something that ALL staff will need to do, not just Guidance. It was agreed that we will investigate the following: Merrie – the Web Program, Angie & Carissa – Restorative Practices, Nancy – Olweus, Mike – Second Step??, Mark – Healthy High 5 & information from the IU. Summer School – It was determined by the group that this may not be an area that they wish to prioritize at this time, since switching the online provider to Educere has led to an increase in the % of kids passing courses. The HS counselors thought that this was probably because Educere provided a Learning Coach to keep track of each student’s progress more closely. Dennis cautioned us that the rate of pay for in-house summer school teachers (approx. $4,000) may result in significant costs for our District. HS IST Team – Mark led a discussion regarding Response to Intervention, and the initiative by PDE to make this a mandatory program at all grade levels in the near future. All agreed that this topic is larger in scope than just the Guidance Curriculum piece, and will probably be dealt with through Intervention Teams at all building levels when the mandate comes through. Individual Career Planning – All agreed that tackling this issue may help take care of the other Recommendations. We first need to identify the philosophy at each building level, then identify possible gaps where this is not being addressed. There is a problem with the Special Education kids in Futures I, since they are already required to have a transition plan by age 14. Thus, they already have done a portion of this course before 9th grade. It will be important to have Guidance work with the FCS/Business/Technology staff at the HS as we develop this further.

 Action Planning o Development of action steps for each recommendation

 Next meeting o Thursday, December 3rd from 12:00pm – 3:00pm in the Admin. Conference Room