CWCS August 2007 ES Agenda
Please read the agenda, along with each
of its links (all links available in ES Manual for future reference).
Complete the August Agenda Quiz
in WEBfiles
CWCS Goals:
Improve student achievement
in reading and writing
Improve student achievement
in mathematics
Improve STAR attendance
to 100 %
1) Dates to Remember
and Dated Duties
a) All ES Meetings
August 14, 2007 and February 25 & 26, 20
-The All ES meeting will be at the Modesto
Centre Plaza. For Free Parking, park in the 9th street garage:
only on 9th street between “K” and “L” street (right across from Double
Tree). Enter the conference through the Double Tree Hotel and have
your ticket validated at the front desk, and then proceed to the the Modesto
Centre Plaza. Here are the directions to the Double
Tree Hotel.
-Smile! Your picture will be taken right after
registration for the ES meeting. The picture will be for the CWCS yearbook
and possibly for the website. Everyone will have their picture taken unless
prior arrangements have been made with Sherri Nelson.
-We will have a brief time to discuss the ES agenda, so come prepared
with any questions for discussion and/or research.
-Your regularly
scheduled ES meetings will commence in September.
-The Modesto and Ceres Learning Centers will be open from 4:00-5:00
on August 14th after the All ES/Staff Meeting. You may pickup curriculum for
your new students or look through the Curriculum Library.
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b) August 13-17: Scholastic Book Fair
at Modesto Learning Center- ESs, please tell your families.
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c) August 16:
Back
to School Night
at Modesto Learning Center- ESs, please tell your families.
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d)
August 17:
*Field
Day- Student organized event. Nice way to start the new
school year.
*Ceres Learning
Center Open House: 3:00-7:00 pm
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e) August
17: PLIPs Begin preparation and document in learning records, using
last year’s STAR and CAHSEE data, your students’ Personalized Learning Improvement
Plans according to the CW Curriculum
Policy. To view STAR scores for continuing CW students, see Edusoft Directions.
(Email your advisor a list of all students that need a PLIP by August 27th)
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f) August
24: Preliminary Assessments for all First Semester Graduates due
to be e-mailed to your advisor according to the Graduation Procedure.
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g) August-September
Scantron Testing for all 2-12th grade students.
*Encourage your students to do their best on their test!
All ESs should have completed their pretest for all students no later than
October 8th.
*Students that were enrolled this summer (prior to August 1st) still need
to have a Scantron Pre-test completed.
*If an appointment is made with a proctor, and the appointment
is missed without giving 24 hour notice, a $50 deduction will be made from
the instructional funds. Please forewarn your parents. If a student misses
a Scantron appointment, please complete the
Missed
Appointment form and fax or mail it to Sherri Nelson in the Waterford
Office to have the funding removed from their IF. When you schedule these
appointments, be sure to tell the parent that if they miss the appointment
without giving the proctor/teacher prior notification (within 24 hours), they
will have the funding removed from their IF.
The second time Scantron
is missed, it will be considered a truancy. *Remember to check your Scantron list to be sure that a new student is
listed prior to arranging for their test. If not there, email cwcstestclerk@connectingwaters.org
at least one week before your testing appointment to have them added.
*Your December Graduates must be pre-tested in
August in order to be able to do the post test before the end of the first
semester.
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h) August
27:
*Email your advisor
a list of all students that need a PLIP
*STAR Incentives- Review all of your student STAR
reports in Edusoft and identify the following for the STAR incentive award
plan. Email this information to your Area Facilitator prior to August 27,
2007.
1) Students who moved from Basic to Proficient in either
math or English
2) Students who moved from Proficient to advanced in either
math or English
3) Students who moved a band level from far below basic
or increased by 20 points or more
4) Students who increased 21-40 points in either math or
English
5) Student who increase 41-60 points in either math or
English
6) Identify your most improved student
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i) August 29,
2007: Parent Information Meeting at Modesto Learning Center for 7th
and 8th grade Washington DC trip.
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j) September
5, 2007: "How to Use Assessment to Drive Instruction"
Workshop for parents and
ESs.
(This is for the new K-1
benchmark assessment).
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k) September
14, 2007: Check WEBfiles Student
Details Screens for accuracy for each student (see below for more info)
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l) September
17-21: 1st Quarter Writing
Prompts/Benchmarks- Mention these dates when you do your first meeting
of the school year so that the topic will not seem like a foreign concept
when it is time to do them in September. More Writing Prompt Booklets will
be available at the All ES Meeting.
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m) September
28: Deadline
for entering info from Graduation Requirements Agreements, checking report
cards and trancripts, and for completing and entering all info from parent
checklist (more info in "things to do" below)
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n) October
2 and 3 CAHSEE for 11th and 12th graders. CAHSEE Prep Courses offered at each Learning
Center. MLC/CLC
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o) CW
Paperwork Timetable 2008: Use this Paperwork Timetable
as a guide when planning your school year work duties. (Also posted on Index
page of the ES Manual)
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2) Things to Do
a) Student Detail
Screens: Check your Student
Detail Screens by September 14, 2007 for the following:
*check for any new contact info (address, phone, e-mail, etc.) for the
families. To change a student’s address or phone number, please e-mail stuaddresschange@ieminc.org (note
new email address). ESs do not contact parent support for this service.
*check that Instructional Funds were deposited for each student
*check that correct courses are listed on report cards
*for any 2007 potential graduates that didn't graduate, change their grad
date to 2008
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b) First Meeting:
Items to complete with or give to your Parents at your first meeting.
*Parent Checklist: Complete and mark all forms by September
28th on the parent checklist
in WEBfiles, and keep them in your students’ files but be prepared give
them to your advisor or the school office if they are needed.
*Graduation Requirements Agreement: Please do
a Graduation Requirements
Agreement for all of your 9th graders and for any high school student
new to our school. This form is printed from WEBfiles and must have the
information marked into the database by September 28th deadline.
*First Meeting Information Sheet: Remember to
complete a First Meeting
Information Sheet with each of your families, both new and returning.
These forms are printed from WEBfiles, are kept by the ES and the information
is marked on the parent checklist in WEBfiles. (This sheet now includes
CAHSEE letter and the Math Placement test)
*NEW ES Post-Intake Checklist: The
ES
Post-Intake Checklist is a new organization tool has been developed for
ESs
that receive newly enrolled students after school has started. The
form can be found on the Student
Enrollment page as well as on the CW
forms page. Thank you ES Shoni Johnson for contributing towards the development
of this checklist.
*NEW Math Placement Exam: Any middle or high school
student may take a placement test, but the Math
Placement exam is required for all
middle or high school students grades scoring Below Basic on the STAR test,
a grade of below a C- in the previous math course, or a new middle school
or high school student who is planning on beginning Algebra 1. To be done
at First Meeting of the school year, and recorded in the learning record.
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c) High School
Courses: After your first meeting, please check to see that the course work on
the report card/student agreement is accurate. Any students underage that
are taking high school courses should also have a report card made at this
time. This information will be used for ordering STAR tests. This would also
be a good time to check to see if Summer School grades were recorded for any
of your HS students that took Summer School.
(Create report cards in same order as listed in learning record growth
areas. never leave the first line blank, never have any skipped lines)
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d) 40+ credits:
Maximum credits
If
you have a student that may be earning more than 40 credits, remember, these
must be pre-approved by your Advisor, so consult with them now, at the beginning
of the semester.
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e) CWCS
August Newsletter: A
copy of the August
Newsletter was mailed to each of your families and to all ESs. Please
encourage your families to read subsequent newsletters online.
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f) a-g
Required: a-g
courses, proficieny in STAR, and consultation with guidance counselor are
now required for students when assigning Carnegie
Units to students under typical high school age.If an ES has a parent/student
that would like to earn high school credits but is not high school age, the
parent must schedule an appointment with the Guidance Counselor, Mary Halter.
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g) Missed Appointments / Truancies?
*Provide the parents with the following message:
Attendance to all classes is expected! Attendance and promptness
to classes and appointments is an expectation of our school. We want to
honor your time and the instructor's time by being prepared and on time to all
classes/appointments. Please provide the instructor a 24 hour notice of absence
whenever possible.
*Truancy Policy Revisited: Please remember that the definition of "truancy"
for this charter School is defined in the policy below as a missed appointment/attendance
period. This is not the same definition of "truancy" as defined
by California Education Code, nor are the practices and procedure below defined
by California Education Code, but by this charter school.
*Student classes or tutoring appointments missed without prior notice are
considered truancies according to the CW
Truancy Policy. A school appointment may be defined as learning record
meetings, classes, tutoring, any required testing appointments, etc. We
are not currently applying the truancy policy to the HQT Dept. courses and
other CP courses, but we are counting the CAHSEE prep and CAHSEE online courses,
etc. Please note, however, that any CP instructor has the right to drop a
student from the class or give them a non-passing grade for not attending
or completing work. Some ESs are allowing their compassionate to natures
rule their decisions, when they actually need to adhere to the policy. Please
consult your ES Advisor when you have a situation that is questionable.
*Scantron appointments: When you schedule these appointments, be sure to
tell the parent that if they miss the appointment without giving the proctor/teacher
prior notification (within 24 hours), they will have the funding removed from
their IF. The second time Scantron is missed, it will be considered a
truancy.
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h) Cell Phones:
Please enter your
cell number in the ES Detail screen in ES Webfiles under "cell phone".
The ES Detail Screen also asks for a work number. Your work number must be
the phone number that you can be reached at during the day when you are not
at your home number (whether that be another place of work or your cell phone).
The work number and the cell number may or may not be the same, but the
work number must be different than the home number.
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i) Rollsheets: When addressing
your rollsheets to the IEM office, write IEM/CWCS ATTENDANCE and
only put rollsheets in the envelope. Do NOT put several different types of
documents into one envelope.
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j) HQT
*Courses
and Syllabi listed through password protected CW button: Click
on the HQT Classes button on the CW
website to view the course information needed to enroll students in HQT
Department courses. User name and password information can be found on your
ES Welcome Screen in WEBfiles.
*HQT Student Agreement
Addendums: The HQT Student Agreement
Addendum will now be printed and signed from WEBfiles by the HQTs at the
end of the course. This change occurred thanks to the suggestion of an ES
on the survey at the end of the school year.
*Elluminate Notice/Training
classes for students: This Elluminate Notice
was sent on the Parent Listserve. Please give it to each of your Elluminate
students.
*Elluminate
Progress Reports:
Elluminate
Progress Reports must be used by the ES to show student progress
on work completed at home. They should email this to the HQT for each student
enrolled in an HQT class by the 15th of each month. They should encourage
the parent to have this form filled out at each learning record meeting.
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k) Test
Prep Materials- Order Test
Prep Material now for all students grade 2-11.
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l) Be sure
to refresh your bookmarked pages: Many of the pages on the CWCS website, Guidance
page, Curriculum page, Assessment page, and CW Forms page were updated this
summer!
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3) Training Items
a) New CWCS
High School Enrollment Contract and Academic Probation Policy: The High
School Enrollment Contract is completed at Intake (or by ES if sibling
enrollment) and added to the student files. CW has a new Academic
Probation Policy . Newly enrolled HS students have been marked in the
database if they need to be on probation. You will see this on their Student
detail screen. Their progress will be tracked and monitored. If you have a
newly enrolled HS student that is not marked as being
on academic probation, but should be, please fill out the contract with them
and email mhalter@connectingwaters.org
to have the box marked in the database. (There may be cases where a student
is marked "academic probation" but still needs a contract filled
out. If this is the case, Mary Halter will email the ES so the contract can
be filled out at the first meeting. Please mail the original to Sherri Nelson
at the Waterford Office. All subsequent students will have the form filled
out at intake.)
The enrollment contract and academic probation
policy will affect all new enrollees this school year (07/08), and all high
school students beginning next school year (08/09). Please inform any families
that this may potentially affect at this time so that they may strive to improve
their grades and STAR scores this year in an effort to prevent being in academic
probation next year.
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b) New CWCS
Org Chart
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c) Typing/Computer:
New CWCS policy
allows students that can pass an ES administered typing test to
waive the typing requirement and take the 5 units as a life skills elective
instead. See Typing
Requirements under "course info" in the ES Manual.
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d) Basic
Courses: Basic
Courses are for students
reading below 5th grade and who score far below basic on the STAR ELA portion).
Using the Individual
Learning Plan Checklist, and the Course
Level Placement form, ESs may not assign basic course work for any student
that reads 5th grade or above or scores above far below basic on STAR ELA.
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e) High School
Grade Placement: Remember, Students may work at a grade
higher than their age level and have this noted on the level of the course
on their report card and their transcript, but must be placed in a grade level
on their student agreement based on their birth date, not accelerated to
a higher grade level for student records. They will also do assessments
(STAR, CAHSEE, etc) at the grade level according to their birth date.
We should not
have any CWCS 12th graders that are not 12th grade according
to their birth dates (only exceptions would be for students that
transfer from another school that may have promoted them to a higher grade
level at an early age).
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f) Learning Center Guidelines: Review the Learning Center Guidelines
for ES use.
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g) CP Courses
and Educational Activities: Please remind your parents that vendors must not provide
services through CP courses or educational activities until the vendor has
received a contract or a purchase order. The vendors are told this when they
sign the contract. Too many times last year, students began an activity prior
to the date that the PO was processed! (Sometimes
it was because an Es forgot to mark the PO
“done”… check regularly for this! We have no way of knowing if a PO is ready for processing, unless you mark it “done”…)
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h) Upcoming
WASC Mid-Year Visit will be 2007-2008.
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i) College Prep Endorsement: The College
Prep endorsement has been removed as an option from the Graduation Paperwork.
It is no longer applicable.
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j) ES Vacations
during School Year: If an ES expects to be away from home during the school
year, they must get approval from their advisor at least two weeks prior to
leaving. They must inform their parents and their advisor of when they are
leaving and when they expect to return, and must provide them with contact
information in case of need. All work responsibilities, email and phone responses
within 24 hours on work days included, must be tended to as normal. This has
been added to the Communications Protocol.
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k) School Restricted
Courses: Swimming, Indoor Rock Climbing, Fencing, General PE
Courses (a specific course, not all PE courses in general, overall),
and Fitness Courses have been added to the 30% Restricted Courses.
This is 30% of the funding per semester, not 30% of the entire
year's funding.
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l) Last Learning
Record meeting: Remember, as you prepare your schedules for this
school year, all LR meetings must be face to face. The end of the school
year can be difficult, so one possible way to meet all of your families at
the end of the year for the last LR meeting is to schedule an end of the year
“park day” where all of your families join together for a day at the park,
or come to see you at a library or local public location. The 2nd
to last learning record of the year can be used to view all current work and
project ahead to what the student will be accomplishing over the next learning
period. The last learning record can be typed beforehand, and then all that needs to be done at the last learning record meeting
is review the work to see that it matches what was projected, and sign and
collect the rollsheets. This date must
not be prior to the last day of school. If this sounds like a possibility for you, you may want to plan ahead
so your families will know about your “park day”!
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m) Writing Prompt Samples:
Note the following addition to the Writing
Prompt information. An example is included in the link.. The Writing Prompt
may be something that was written for another subject rather than a specific
Writing Prompt. If this is the case, the following must be applied:
1) The sample is
a standard that is being required to do for that benchmark assessment for
writing.
2) The sample be completed to fit the standard. For 2-12 grades the sample
should be a complete essay not just a paragraph.
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n) Work Permits:
Once a work permit request is received, it takes up to three days for it to
be processed. See Work
Permit Email Template for more information.
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4) Messages from School
Departments
a) Assessment
News from Leita Barlow and Glenna
Miller
Overview of the 2007/2008 Assessments:
*CWCS
2007/2008 Assessment Calendar
* CAHSEE: CAHSEE
in a Nutshell There will be four opportunities in the year depending on
the grade of the student. Grade 10 students may only attempt one time
per year and it must be in the spring. Grade 11 students may attempt two times
per year. Grade 12 may attempt three times per year. Students
who desire to participate in the graduation ceremony must take the first
three sessions of the CAHSEE during their senior year (unless exam
has been passed). We will not allow students to schedule for the makeup date in May unless
it is absolutely necessary. We will review the requests and grant them based
on their need. The reason for this is that we had students that scheduled
ahead of time to take their tests in May during the makeups because they had
a vacation or they were working during the Feb. testing and then when makeups
came along they were sick or left home or whatever, and couldn't test. This
could have been very detrimental if we don't get our 95% tested and there
is nothing we can do about it as they would have to be dropped back to Feb
in order for it not to negatively affect us, so we need to keep our makeup
dates to a minimum.
*The waiver for special ed
students regarding the CAHSEE test has been extended through December
of 2007 with the following
criteria as specified by CDE for 2007.
*CAHSEE
notice from Jack O'Connell
* STAR:
*check the student grade level and courses on report card-
tests will be ordered early using this (if it needs to be changed, e-mail
stuassign@ieminc.org)
We will work on quicker communication with information
for the ES. We will utilize the database and website with more efficiency
and use that as our main communication tool, except when there are emergencies
that need attention right away and then email or phone will be the tool.
*SCANTRON: The Information for SCANTRON
has been revised and updated.
*WRAT: ESs now enter information for WRAT in
ES WEBfiles. See WRAT Information
for directions.
b) Curriculum
News from Lori Freeman: August
Curriculum News
*New CWCS
Approved HQT CAHSEE List
*New MathFacts
in a Flash program
*New Accelerated
Reader Information
*New
Library System:
additional
comments:
Material
Check In: Only materials that were checked out from
the center will be accepted for return at this time. Please make sure that
when you are returning materials that all pieces/parts are included such as
games pieces, manipulatives, and cd’s. Parents should not attempt to return
materials to the centers that you have checked out to them. These materials
are to be tracked by the ES (see
Family Inventories). You will be notified when and if we will accept outdated
materials that were purchased with our school funds later in the year. The
following are the guidelines of materials that will be accepted. 2000-2007
Will go to the Library; 1999-1998 If in good condition and there is room on
the shelves; 1997 and Older “Obsolete”
Material Check Out for new families: English and Math
curriculum was available to new families and AESS students on August 6 &
7 at the Modesto Learning Center.Families who’s ES did not order science
and/or history were able to check out the limited amount of science and
history that was ordered over the summer. You may check out materials in
your student’s name but the limits still apply. If you have an AESS student
who needs more than the 5 item check out limit, please email the learning
centers of the need so that we can provide what’s needed for your student
if the materials are available. Please be patient with us while we work
out the kinks of our new library/check out system. Each of you will help
us know what is working and what may need to be changed. We appreciate your
feedback.
Please note, although not written in the policy yet, these materials will
need to be returned to the learning center if a student drops
*K12: If you have a parent with computer access, doesn’t mind
logging on to the computer daily to see what they should be having their student
do, and wants high quality, rigorous curriculum-- K12 may be for you. K12 is
available in all subjects for K-8th grade. For more information on what the
program is about and how to order, please look in the curriculum section of
our website:
http://www.ieminc.org/handbook/curriculum/cresource/K12/K12index.htm.
If you have any questions about K12 or would like the order please contact Lisa
Compton at
lcompton@connectingwaters.org.
*New Study Island
online
test prep vendor
*Intake
Curriculum, and how to use
*Home Tutoring
Plus Guidelines: Note
sent from Vendor
*Course
option for 9th grade underperforming students: This letter was sent
to all 9th grade underperforming students and
their ESs.
c) Guidance News
from Mary Halter: August
Guidance News
* New
Educ/Career Planning course:
Course title added to Life
Skills Elective planning chart. Course title only to be used for new course.
*
Modesto Junior
College Waives
Fees! This info has been added to the Community College
section of the ES manual.
*Reminder:
Summer School Graduates
do not participate in the graduation ceremony in May, but they can participate
in the following school year.
d) IT
*
High Speed Internet: We
may have an opportunity to provide high speed internet to our students at
a low price. Please contact cwisp@connectingwaters.org
with the names of your students that may need high speed internet, and Alyssa
Epley will research to see if it is available in the student's area.
* New Database
additions:
-High School Course titles are now automatically written in to each growth
area based on the courses on the current report card.
- K-8 report cards: To easily view which of your K-8 students have
requested and require a report card each semester, go to "view"
all students.
-To view all learning records sorted by your students alphabetically and
by end date of the LR for any one growth area:
Go to "View all LRs"
Click on any student number
Click on "Show All" at top right... this will alphabetize and
sort your records by date.
You may now select any growth area in one learning record and scroll through
each of your students' records by that growth area by using the arrow keys
at the top.
* School
ES Laptop Batteries:
If your CWCS owned school laptop has problems with the battery, check this
link for IT
contact information.
*ES Wallet
of CDs: All
ESs are provided with a Microsoft Office, an Anti-virus program, and a Dell
Refresh/Restore disk. These are to be used by the family when they receive
the new Dell computer for set up purposes, and collected by the ES at the
next LR visit.
Microsoft Office is now ordered through Dell. Please make
a PO for Dell using this Dell Quote for any school owned computer that does
not already have the software included. Any new Dell computer order includes
the price of the MS Office already, and can have the software installed without
an additional PO. Here are the Installation Directions. (Although the order
number on the Dell quote links to MS Office 2007, CWCS IT and the WUSD Tech
Lead have decided that MS Office 2003 will be ordered to provide the most
trouble free usage for the time being.)
For non-school
owned computers (family owned computers), instructional funds can be used
to purchase Microsoft Office – we don’t use theOffice disk included in the
ES CD Wallet.Gov Connection offers a student
edition.
New
Install and Restore Directions
*Citrix
note regarding Vista
e) Vendor Relations
*PO Inquiries:
When an ES hasn't received an item after four weeks, the ES notifies
PO Inquires. We check on the item, if it is canceled, PO Inquires enters the
canceled items on the PO in the database. If the item is canceled, and the items
are the last items on the PO we do the "final"
which returns the additional funds to the ES. Often on the packing slip the
vendor will list the canceled items and the back ordered items. When PO Inquires
calls the vendor to check on "missing items" the vendor often tells
us the item was listed on the packing slip as canceled or backordered. ESs
need to be sure to read the packing slips and mark the POs in WEBfiles accordingly.
If there is a discount that would be the price the ES would enter.
We don't remove the discounted shipping "up front" as vendors
often have a free shipping which only apply to specific items or on-line ordering
etc.
*Vendor
3845- Division of Independent Study name has changed to:North
Dakota Center for Distance Educ.
f) Personnel
The 2007 Open Enrollment for Health Benefits begins September
17th-October 12th. During Open Enrollment eligible members may enroll, change
plans or add eligible family members not currently enrolled under this enrollment
program. Any changes made during open enrollment take effect January 1, 2008.
Contact Cary Sharp for additional information at personnelbenefit@ieminc.org.
Phone 530-295-3566 or 800-979-4436.
5) ES Networking
a) Your
student’s CAHSEE results should be viewable in Edusoft
however the STAR results will not be viewable the first week of school.
Please use the directions to download your student’s CAHSEE scores. You will
be given your student’s STAR results at the ES meeting. You can also print
off the CST results for the 05-06 school year for a student in 2-6, 7-8, and
9-11. If the student was a student with us last year you may want to compare
the student’s results. Using either the Language Arts or Math results, discuss
with your group the following:
What is the Performance Level
is of your student(s)?
What may have contributed to your students increase/decrease?
What curriculum was used?
What was the student’s time spent on subjects?
How involved was the parent?
How many points away is your student from the next higher performance level?
How will explain what the scores mean to your parents?
How can you share the test results with your parents and make suggestions
for areas of improvement?
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