ELA+Breakout+Session11-12

=Curriculum & Pacing Guides at PLE, AGIS, FSEMS, AGHS=
 * AGHS -** Time to work during the school day. Faculty meeting time is being given to the departments for working on department work. English has been working on pacing guides. Ninth grade is completed.
 * FSEMS** - Bi-monthly curriculum workshop time to reflect on pacing guide. Teachers have been using them to guide their teaching and have put notes on the guide itself rather than instructional logs. Examined to see what we are covering and what we are not getting to. Concern with research and time to fit into the schedule. Made up a common assessment as a discussion starter about instruction and student performance. Item analysis was conducted. PCO's and pacing guides are both being used.
 * AGIS -** Spent time to during PD discussing how things were going. TEachers thought pacing guides were too fast. Time in vs. time out of anthology. Linking social studies with ELA in some cases. Plan to revise pacing guides to address issues that have been raised. Author studies are being experimented with across the grades. Pacing guides more helpful than PCOs
 * PLE -** Struggling with genre study due to the way in which Harcourt is set up. Planned for LLT to map out theme three for pacing guide over the next couple of weeks. Kindergarten had time to review pacing guide for standard 1.1 . First time to have all kindergartent teachers together to work on pacing guides.

=**Professional Development Planning & Collaboration Time**= Need to study this to determine more effective use and a year long plan for each school. Add this to our next coaches' meeting discussion session. Note - Margie to send info on SS and Science workshop to all coaches.

=Conferences/training for coaches & reading specialists= Opportunities for coaching workshops participation at CCIU. Margie will assist with finanicial support. KSRA - October 2008 in Valley Forge. Lucy to get information on session to share. Conference to be held at the Valley Forge Convention Center from October 18 - 21, 2008. The theme for the conference is "Literacy: Food for Thought." Please check the KSRA website for additional information. Teacher Leader Group - Janet, Kate, Dianna, Holly, etc. Folks involved in PD activities. Networking group. Fall and Spring meeting time. Great session for professional development and sharing!

=Bridging between schools: Book Buddies, etc.=
 * AGHS -** Book swap this week. Keep up through parent conferences
 * PLE /AGI** - Book buddies day - AGI come to PLE to read to students. Trying to do this one time a trimester.
 * AGI -** Tea for Two for mothers and daughters. 120 attendees. Library was set up as two tea rooms. Served cookies and tea and mints. Guest speakers...sharing books, Strings ensemble. In March plan to do the father and son event with the basketball coaches. Adult library in the AGI library, bring one and take one. Lots of teachers participating. Community readers program. Working to build a community of readers. Poetry workshops in fourth grade. Poet will come in the spring. Wednesday announcements will feature teachers reading favorite poem.

=**Book Room Labeling**= Sharing of the Destiny catalogue system and it's use with the book rooms at PLE. Need to consider training for additional folks. Consider asking librarians to assist with training. Investigate if it would be easier to input the school book room libraries.

=**DORA**= Valerie shared information on the Diagnotic On-line Reading Assessment (DORA) - adaptable to students performance. Measures 8 subskills. Creates a report for each individual student. Assessment will take 30-40 minute per student. [|www.Let]sGoLearn.com K-12 assessment. Averaged $5 per assessment. There is a parent report that is parent friendly. Will set up a demo with the company for reading specialists and literacy coaches to review.