MISSOULA COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD OF TRUSTEES TEACHING & LEARNING COMMITTEE MINUTES Monday, January 5, 2015, 12:00 p.m. (noon) Business Building Boardroom 915 South Avenue West Committee Members: Trustees Michael Beers, Marcia Holland, Jim Sadler-Chair, Heidi Kendall, Jennifer Newbold Other MCPS Trustees: Debbie Dupree, Joe Knapp (Board Chair), Diane Lorenzen, Mike Smith, Julie Tompkins, Ann Wake Trustees present: Michael Beers, Jim Sadler-Chair, Heidi Kendall, Jennifer Newbold, Mike Smith. Minutes The meeting was called to order at 12:01 p.m. Quorum was established with Trustees Jennifer Newbold, Heidi Kendall, Jim Sadler & Mike Smith not a committee member. Others present: Hatton Littman, Trevor Laboski, Heather Davis Schmidt, Karen Allen, Alex Apostle via polycom, Ted Fuller, Shirley Lindberg, Michael Beers arrived at 12:02 p.m. 1. Public Comment – Committee Chair Background Information: Public comment will be allowed at the beginning of the meeting to accommodate those members of the public who are unable to wait until the end of the meeting to comment. Notes: No public comment. 2. Approve December 1, 2014 T&L Committee Meeting Minutes – Committee Chair (Discussion/Action)(Elem/Sec) Background Information: In accordance with BP1230 – Committees, at each monthly meeting of the Committee, minutes from the previous month’s Committee meeting will be reviewed, revised if need be, and approved by the Committee. Notes: Sadler: asks for any changes Summary/Direction: The December 1, 2014 minutes are approved and submitted. The minutes are accepted as published. 3. Approve Sentinel High School Digital Media Academy Grant Application Summaries – Ted Fuller, Principal, Sentinel High School, Jenn Keintz, Journalism Teacher and Cindy Schultz, Media Arts Teacher (Discussion/Action)(Sec) The Anthony Robins Foundation Missoula Community Foundation Rieman Foundation The O.P. and W.E. Edwards Foundation Dorsey & Whitney Foundation IECA Foundation (Independent Educational Consultants Association) 1 Background Information: Ted Fuller, Sentinel High School principal, Jenn Keintz, Journalism teacher, and Cindy Schultz, Media Arts teacher will discuss approval of various grants to the support of the Digital Media Youth Leadership Program through the Digital Media Academy. This project is orchestrated by Missoula County Public School (MCPS) in collaboration with MCAT and creates opportunities for our community’s underserved youth to achieve skills in digital media arts and journalism while gaining college credit. The grant application summaries are attached. Administrative Recommendation: Administration recommends that the Committee approve the grant application summaries and forward to the January 13, 2015 regular Board meeting on the Consent Agenda. Notes: Ted Fuller: Ms. Keintz couldn’t make it so I apologize on her behalf. We have an addition to our team from Sentinel High School, Ms. Jessie Rogers who is from MCAT, is the grant writer that has submitted these grant applications. While we are on the topic of MCAT I cannot say enough in terms of MCAT’s efforts to support the digital media work at Sentinel both in terms of providing expertise and guidance but also resources. If you haven’t had a chance to get over to Sentinel and out in the 500 building and see what MCAT has made possible in terms of journalism, broadcast journalism in particular, television studio, editing equipment, it’s really extraordinary. That would not be possible without the technology provided by MCAT so we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I just wanted to take a second and thank them publicly for that. So the six grants that we’re hoping to have approved today, a couple of them I should note, Jessie received a “not at this time response.” Not an outright no but a not at this time response, that would be the Anthony Robbins Foundation and Ryman Foundation. A $20,000 grant and a $25,000 grant those are currently on hold. But the other four are all still in the queue waiting whether or not those get approved by the various granting organizations. All of these grants are specific to something called the Digital Media Youth Leadership Program. The mission of that program is to take high school kids who are learning digital media skills at Sentinel High School in either media arts or in our AV broadcasting program and have them in middle schools providing education, leadership and mentoring for middle school students around topics of digital media, social media, internet awareness and all of those really important issues. Digital media literacy is something that gets established at that foundational, very young level. That is the mission of the Digital Media Youth Leadership Program and that is what these particular grants are intended to support. If there are any questions Cindy Shultz is here, she is the chair of our business department and media arts teacher. Then Jessie is here from MCAT. One other thing that I should mention, this is exciting news for us at Sentinel; Jenn Keintz teaches all of our journalism courses, broadcast as well as digital and print. She was just granted her CTE endorsement from OPI through all of her many many hours. Fuller: Asks Trevor if it was 15,000 hours? Fuller: 15,000 hours of work in the field of broadcast journalism in particular, working with PBS news hour. Now students in her courses are actually able to earn practical art credit for those courses rather than just general elective credit. Which has been the case in the past, those courses have existed outside of particular required credit for graduation and now it also provides a CTE anchor for our career academy in digital media by having her endorsed in CTE through OPI. Kendall: Congratulations Ted on your promotion. Can one of you explain what exactly is included in the term digital media? Fuller: Right now under the umbrella of digital media we have two primary strands; the media arts strand which Cindy can talk a little bit more about and within that strand, courses in a variety of media arts including four courses with which students can earn dual credit. The second strand being a focus on digital print media in our case that being our yearbook and newspaper. Both which come out in print but require a pretty high level of skill regarding digital publishing and then the broadcast element. The broadcast element is three levels of coursework; Introduction to Broadcasting, Broadcasting II and then an upper level broadcast class which produces what we call Spartan TV. That group produces an episode weekly, which has generally some video announcements, two serious pieces and then two more pop culture pieces. These are kids who are involved in producing anywhere from a 20 to 30 minute weekly episode that contains a variety of stories. They also work as I mentioned with PBS News Hour. They won an Emmy last year for their work. Also included in digital media, though we’re not exactly sure how these will fit, will be our two Project Lead The Way strands which include engineering and computer science and software engineering. The computer science is probably a better fit under the digital media umbrella. Those are the academy strands or the major courses of 2 study and then once the academy is fully implemented we’ll add rigorous core classes that are taught through the lens of digital media and media in general. Kendall: Is the Sentinel student newspaper online? Fuller: The newspaper is not online. Kendall: The Hellgate Lance is not either I’ve noticed. Is that something they might learn at some point? Fuller: Yes, definitely that’s the direction we’re headed with that for sure. Smith: I just had a question about the digital media academy and its availability to students not at Sentinel. Are there any programs or any ways, I’ve been to building 500 and it’s an awesome set up that MCAT has set up there for us and I know obviously not all classes can be for everyone across at all places. But can you talk a little bit about the availability for other students? Fuller: In terms of it working kind of like the Agricultural Ed program does where kids would stay enrolled in their home high schools? At this point, I know we have some Hellgate students in our computer science class in the mornings and I’m not sure about Big Sky students. That class is scheduled as such that it could accommodate students from other schools. Trevor you might be able to answer this a little more clearly, I’m not sure what the future might hold for opening those programs up to students from other high schools. We certainly are open to it and I know MCAT’s partnership is intended to be something that is made available for all MCPS students. Laboski: We have a number of courses that kids take from various schools. We have kids taking music technology at Big Sky for example that are Sentinel students. As Mr. Fuller said, there are students at Sentinel that are from Hellgate. To take the full academy package really you need to go to that school and that’s where the open enrollment is a real positive for us. And at the Health Science Academy for example there are lots of kids from other schools that are attending Big Sky. In terms of cherry picking classes it happens when the kids’ schedules allow it. Shultz: One of our original goals was to open it up to all schools, all teachers so that they do have it. And maybe even do some professional development training for teachers to bring it into their classrooms. That was one of our ultimate goals we just haven’t gotten there yet.