Meeting Updates

The School Council met from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. tonight, December 4, 2012.

The agenda is detailed in a previous post and the official minutes will be posted on the bulletin board within 20 days of the meeting and online after approval at the January meeting.

A few of the meeting highlights are recapped here.

Magnet Revision Discussion

DCSD representatives responded to the draft of the Magnet Revision Proposal and requested two changes. On point 4, they requested that control of seat selection for at large students remain in the School Choice Office.  The School Council is requesting that the county include the Evansdale Principal in this process.  On point 5, the county requests that no achievement metric be tied to enrollment for out of district students in order to keep them on a level playing field with the in-district students.  The revised proposal follows below. If the county agrees with the minor changes suggested by the School Council at tonight's meeting, next week's meeting with Pat Copeland will be cancelled.  The next step for the proposal is to acquire DCSD approval prior to open enrollment which begins in January.     

Current Magnet Program	Proposed Magnet Program
One magnet homeroom per grade level (except PreK).	Dissolve the magnet homerooms and distribute resident and non-resident Magnet students among all homerooms.
Every K-5 homeroom has science lab once a week for 45 minutes.	No Change
All Magnet homerooms receive French once a day for 30 minutes. Non-Magnet homerooms receive French once a week starting in second grade for 30 minutes.	Offer French or other world language instruction as funding allows.
Magnet homerooms (one per grade) are comprised of 50% resident and 50% non-resident students. (For example, Kindergarten currently contains 13 resident and 13 non-resident students.)	Each grade will contain non-resident students determined by the Magnet Program, the Planning Department, and the Evansdale Administration based solely on enrollment, class size, and grade size. Students will be selected via the existing DCSD Choice Lottery. All current students will remain enrolled.
Students must maintain a “B” average to stay in the Magnet program.	Out of district students selected to enroll at Evansdale Elementary may continue enrollment through the highest grade level. Enrollment will not be based on academic performance.

 STEM Certification Process

The presentation detailed in the previous blog post was presented to the School Council. There was Council support for exploration of certification.  Specifically, 1) an informational flyer will be drafted for parents and approved at the next meeting, and 2) a group of parents will begin to examine what specific things have to be introduced or changed at Evansdale in order to pursue certification, 3) the PTA, BLT, and Evansdale Foundation will be queried to determine their level of support.

STAR Testing Updates

Explanation of the testing scores will be posted on the school website by Dr. McGuire.  Individual student scores will go home before the end of December.  In general, the scores have improved this semester and we are on track for CRCT testing.  The problem areas identified are being addressed.