Cherry Creek High School Accountability Committee Minutes

Cherry Creek High School Accountability Committee Minutes September 16, 2014

Attendees: Paula Romero Schmitt, Payy Galloway, Kelly Purcell, Karen Fisher, Laura Gill, Chuck Blook, Paul Trollinger, Rick Sall, Shelly Smith, Ryan Silva, Marcus McDavid, Stephanie Kallet, Amy Winterfeld, Judy Sussman, Michael Mazenko, Seanna Mulligan, Mark Cohen, L. Joelle Hogue, T.J. Gordon

Co-chairs Patty Galloway and Paula Schmitt opened the school year’s first SAC meeting with introductions.

District Accountability Committee (DAC) update, Judy Sussman: • Judy attended four break-out roundtable discussion sessions with Auxiliary Services People • Elizabeth Wallace, Dir. of Food & Nutrition Services: discussion of impact of Healthy Hunger-Free Food Act, which has goal of providing healthy food choices where there is more fruit and veggies; less sodium, fat, and sugar. Unintended consequences are causing some controversy in many public school districts. One Creek SAC member adds that there are lobbying efforts to ease the fundraising guidelines. • Rebecca Lopez: Academic best practices for twice exceptional students • Dr. Ron Lee, Dir. of Mental Health Services: discussion of suicide and bullying issues, depression, SOS classes, building response teams, life skills • Dr. Holly Porter, Dir. of English Language Acquisition: ELA students 40% Spanish, 126 languages, issue of identifying students, civil rights issues—can’t force kids into ELA classes. • Other roundtables included Randy Councell, Dir. of Safety & Security; Dr. Tony Poole, Exe, Dir. of Student achievement Services; Susanne Oro, Dir. of Health Services; Dr. Floyd Cobb, Exec. Dir. of Curriculum & Instruction, speaking on behalf of Gifted & Talented Program

Principal Ryan Silva, “State of Creek”: • TCAP results very similar to year before • excellent results on AP exams: • increased participation by 51 students for total of 1,093 students and by 73 exams for total of 2, 357 over previous year • percentage of students who passed (score of 3 or better) increased to 91.9 %. State avg.=62.2%, Global avg.=61.3% • on nine different subject areas, 100% of students passed; on six others, only 1 or 2 students did not pass • AP Lang scores continue to improve and AP Calc BC continues to achieve outstanding results • AP Comp Sci: 100% of students passed and only one student did not receive a perfect score of 5 (but that student did not actually take the class) • ACT avg. score was second highest ever at 25, second only to previous year’s 25.1 avg. • Many celebrations over summer include: • Teacher David Rowe (Eng.) was selected KBCO Teacher of the Year, which came with $18K toward Masters degree • Student Lubin Deng won the National Trig title! Math teacher Dotty Dady won Teacher of the Year for the National Trig competition. • Yoon Park had part of his book published • Grace Kim won an art award and scholarship from Greenwood Village • Five of six students from CCSD who scored a perfect 36 on the ACT are from Creek. Four of them achieved the score on the state testing day. • Debate went to nationals over summer and won award for overall excellence. They are a top 20 program in U.S. Teacher Carlye Holladay won award. • FCCLA (Family Community Career Leaders of America) had all six students win gold! • New medical careers class at Creek from 6-6:50 am • open to all students in district, students of all academic levels • 114 students enrolled, at least 90 present each day • medical professionals teach the class • class will go to a robotics and a cadaver lab • CCHS has 16 National Merit Scholars this year and 4 National Hispanic scholars • College Readiness Day will be on Tues., Sept. 26. Freshmen and sophomores will take ASPIRE (replacing EXPLORE/PLAN), juniors will take practice ACT, seniors will have class photo and attend assembly where Katie Kessler will speak on the topic of date rape. • Homecoming Spirit Week begins Oct. 6 and will include Jazz on the Green, Creek Cup Challenge, and Movie on the Baseball Field; lip-dub, pep assembly, carnival, and football game on Oct. 10; dance on Oct. 11 • 3,520 students is right on projection • opened an Enviro, CP World Hist, and CP Alg1 class at beginning of year • theatre and STEM classroom construction over summer is very close to complete, pool construction ongoing • had secure perimeter drill today. Drill is for response to threat off- campus. Mr. Silva talked about lock down, evacuation, and shelter over speaker. Drill within 7 min. with 3 min at end for stragglers=10 min. Doors locked at 7 min. • 2015 Back to School Night will be on August 20th • CAFÉ: • West being run by Dist. Food Services • IC Bruin’s Cup run by DECA and Student Achievement Services. Sells products out of Dist. Food Services • With new changes, larger number of students going off campus • West Café busier 4th & 6th than 5th • West Café has bigger menu than IC had last year • general feedback on West Café: It’s “okay” • Michael Mazenko leading Café Task Force, which will do survey and determine from feedback and research what potential is for change • DECA’s work/study continues, but $$ gone. Before, they were able to completely fund themselves and make around $30K, which went into tech at Creek • DECA will now have to be funded, which takes $$ away from other groups/areas • concerns about increase in students leaving campus for lunch: more accidents and tardies • only 600-650 meals per day being served by school

Co-chairs announced Dr. Judy Skupa, CCSD Asst. Superintendent, Performance Improvement, will be the guest speaker at the October 21 meeting on the topic of the new state standardized testing.

Tour of renovations to Creek, led by Mr. Silva: • North Gym: new bleachers, floor redone, ceiling painted white • Trophy Hall: new storefronts • Shillinglaw: new folding desktop seating and carpet. Ceiling and lighting replaced previous year • many bathrooms, ceilings, and roofs renovated • West lockers painted and repaired • new classroom door locks • Engineering-physics classroom & lab redone • Comp Sci room beautifully renovated. Can write on specially painted walls. • new front for Registrar’s Office • IC Bruin’s Cup: new furniture and red tile floor around perimeter • Fine Arts: new storefronts and lockers, plus beautiful new windows in art studio • Theatre: new carpet in lobby and theatre (carpet at top of aisles will be redone because cut too narrow), new seats, new lighting for steps • girls’ locker rooms are finished and boys’ currently under renovation • Administration currently has 3-4 page punch list of details to be completed

Submitted by Shelly Smith