Department+Minutes

Occupational Education Department Meetings Fall Semester 2007

Thursday, Sept. 13: The Occ. Ed. Dept. has agreed to meet several times this semester in order to have common planning time for our new Freshmen Experience course. At each meeting we hope to share teaching ideas, lesson plans and teaching materials. All four Freshmen Experience teachers have begun the “Digital Scavenger Hunt” project. We discussed locating digital cameras and use of computer rooms for each class to work on a Power Point slides. Ginnie will send an e-mail to HHS staff about the project so everyone will understand the purpose of freshmen students taking pictures and interviewing staff. Our first “Teen Focus” program will be in our classes on Sept. 20. We discussed the need to have a backup lesson planned for each Teen Focus class in case our speaker is not able to come that day.

Monday, Sept 24: We began planning dates for district resource people to meet with the Freshmen Experience classes. We would like to schedule Suzanne Stover and Trooper Grogan (internet safety& plagiarism), Sue Ferguson (study skills), Mike Merrick (making good choices), and Missy Wagner & Lisa Hanlon (“Choices” career exploration). We would also like to have one or two outside speakers from an area business to speak to students about the importance of school in preparation for the future and expectations of employers. We would like to take freshmen students on a fieldtrip to a local college in conjunction with our unit on setting goals and decision making. Lisa Hanlon in guidance will help us make arrangements for the fieldtrip. All four teachers report that Freshmen Experience is going well. We have heard several positive comments from teachers reporting that the freshmen seem more organized and focused than in past years.

Weds., Oct. 10 Ginnie mentioned the use of “wikispaces for educators” that was discussed at the Sept. ILT meeting. More information will be given at the next ILT meeting. Pat Hager has been working on finding a good speaker from a local business to address our freshmen classes. He is going to ask someone from Pioneer Motor Sports as this will be an area of high interest for students. Freshmen English teacher Cathy Chassin has asked to attend our department meeting this semester to share concerns about freshmen students. A few subject area teachers have asked us to do what we can to help steer some of their students in a positive direction. We will meet with our freshmen experience students on an individual basis if another of their teachers shares a concern with us. Mrs. Chassin mentioned the names of three of her students that have not gotten off to a good start in her class. The appropriate Freshmen Experience teacher will work with those students.

Thurs., Oct.18: Lisa Hanlon has arranged a trip to Erie Community College for all freshmen students in early Dec. Lisa has asked our department to meet with Tina Dietz from the admissions department of ECC to plan the details of the fieldtrip. We will meet after school on Mon., Oct.22. In conjunction with this, we will work on student interest profiling to divide freshmen into smaller groups for our campus tour. We would like our students to see classrooms and meet professors in the specific careers that they are interested in exploring. We discussed our upcoming presentation to the school board on Dec. 17. We are going to highlight our new Freshmen Experience Course. We would like to include input from students, parents and high school staff for our presentation. We would like our presentation to display some of the technology we are using in the class. Pat Hager has scheduled Chad Armstrong from Pioneer Motor Sports to be a guest speaker for all Freshmen Experience classes on Weds., Nov. 7. We discussed the “Teen Focus” program and each of think it is going well. We are going to follow up several “Teen Focus” topics in our classes.

Mon., Oct.22: Our department met with Tina Dietz from ECC and Lisa Hanlon to plan our freshmen fieldtrip. Prior to the trip, we will have students take an on-line interest profile questionnaire to help students assess what college programs they may be interested in. Ms. Dietz will divide the freshmen into small group tours during our visit to ECC. Ginnie will chaperone the fieldtrip with Scott Firester ,Cathy Chassin and the guidance counselors.

Weds. Nov.14: Ginnie reported that the ILT meeting was about the use of a common wikispace for the department. Each dept. member will be invited to sign onto the site. Each of us is working on the on-line interest profile with our freshmen. Results need to be compiled and sent to Tina Dietz at ECC. We will compile the results at the next department meeting. Scott Hunt has devised a spread sheet that we will all use for the results. Cathy Chassin attended our meeting. We discussed study skills that she is teaching in English class that can be reinforced in our freshmen classes. We discussed more ideas for our school board presentation next month. We will meet several times in Dec. to put our ideas together.

Tues., Nov.27: Department members worked on compiling our freshmen student’s on-line interest profiles onto a common spreadsheet. This information will be used to divide the freshmen into tour groups for the ECC fieltrip on Dec. 6.

December 5, 12 and 13: The department worked on putting a presentation together about the Freshmen Experience class for the Dec. 17 Board of Ed. Meeting. We incorporated interviews from students along with comments from parents and staff members about the new course. We also used statistics comparing discipline referrals and failure grades from previous freshmen to our current freshmen class.

Mon., Jan.28:

The Occ. Ed. Dept. met in the morning to evaluate the Freshmen Experience class. Each teacher shared thoughts about the topics and lessons that they felt were the most successful. We will continue to look for teaching ideas for the next year when we teach the course again. We evaluated each of the guest speakers we brought into this course. We all felt that the “Teen Focus” program included a lot of important topics for our students. We thought that the “Teen Focus” presenter was not as dynamic a speaker as we had hoped for. She also seemed to have a 45- minute lessons planned and that left 15 minutes of “downtime” which was too much. We will speak to Lisa Hanlon about the program. We felt that our “in district” staff speakers were excellent. We also plan to invite the speaker from Pioneer Motor Sports back again next year. We discussed taking our freshmen on a fieldtrip to a four- year college next year. Hilbert, St. Boneventure or Madialle were suggested. All four teachers agreed that we liked the Pass/Fail grading system of the course. Most of us agreed that students who fail the class should not take it again next year as the course would not be as useful to a second year freshmen. We discussed several websites that might be helpful with the course and hope to spend a future dept. meeting investigating those. Our first time teaching the Freshmen Experience course went well. We will continue to evaluate and make positive changes to the curriculum.

Pat Hager mentioned that he would like a teacher’s desk and a computer at the high school. He has difficulty checking e-mail when he is at the high school. Pat also mentioned that the high school shop needs attention from the evening cleaners. He would like the garbage emptied, the floor swept and occasionally mopped, the sink and entrance rug cleaned.

Mon. March 31, 2008

The Occ. Ed. Department met today and discussed where each person is in the curriculum mapping process. : Our map for the Freshmen Experience course is complete. Pat Hager is working on his 5th grade map and has not completed any other maps. Scott Hunt is working on the CAD 1 map and has not completed any other maps. Pat Zurbrick is working on maps for Basic Keyboarding and Accounting 1. Joy Bucknam has completed 8th grade Home & Careers and is working on 7th grade Home & Careers. Virginia Schindler has completed Child Development & Psychology, Health & Parenting course maps. We each worked on mapping today and will continue to do so. Because of the large number of courses taught in our department, we would like to have future staff development time to designated to do this. Each member of the department reported that their current classes are going well. During the 2008-09 budget process, our department may submit new textbook requests. Each of us should decide which courses are in need of new books and begin to order sample textbooks to preview. Pat Hager and Scott Hunt mentioned that there continue to be concerns regarding the cleaning of the shop. The sink needs to be cleaned, trash emptied and the floor swept on a regular basis. Pat Hager would also like to have a locked closet or cupboard for his coat and personal effects during the school day. He also reported that he does not have a period each cycle for staff development in his schedule.

Respectfully Submitted, Virginia Schindler Department Chairperson