West Briar VPAC Meeting Minutes

School library

September 12, 2011

The meeting started at 4:15 pm.

In attendance:

Tara Blood, Coleen Carr, Cynthia Stange, Margaret Fitzgerald, Laura Grobowsky, Brittney Robey, Valerie Breunig, Nathalie Hoyt, Cindy Henry, Stephen Wyatt, Adam, Beckham, Kate Giarattano, Chris Sanchez, Meg Willett

I. Introduction – Ms. Hoyt said this was the third year of the VPAC committee and thanked everyone for coming. Everyone then introduced themselves.

II. Springboard Curriculum

Springboard was approved and adopted by HISD. This will be the first year it will be used. It has a mandatory curriculum all teachers must follow.

How Springboard is different:

- educational research

- rigorous standards

- instructional framework

- differentiated instruction

- assessment

- teacher support

Standards:

1. Define what kids should be able to do

2. Two assessments for each unit

3. build framework so child can go where they need to go

Ms. Giarratano (from the Language Arts department) explained that the end goal of Springboard is Advanced Placement (AP) classes. At this middle school level, they will break the curriculum into pieces and work their way up to AP starting in 6^th grade. It provides a path to AP in that it involves higher order thinking, increasingly challenging texts and complex writing tasks.

The West Briar Language Arts Department will be using Springboard in the following ways:

Reading English

- Analyzing texts - Creating texts

- Building a rich reading experience - Building a rich writing experience

covering many genres covering many genres

How GT classes will be differentiated from regular classes:

- Process (different texts)

- Product

- Content

- Theme

- Extend and make deeper

In addition to the Springboard curriculum requirements, other books can be supplemented and the work can be made more challenging for the GT classes. There are many resources from which to pull information, including LTF.

III. West Briar Gifted and Talented Service Plan (TPSP)

At West Briar, GT students are homogeneously grouped in Language Arts and Social Studies. For math and science, GT students are in Pre-AP/GT classes with students of similar abilities.

The goals of the TPSP are:

1. Teach research process skills to 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders in order to prepare them for the TPSP

2. Provide teachers with necessary training to ensure differentiation of instruction for GT students

The teachers for the Pre-AP/GT classes will work together to develop lessons. They will be asked to use the TPSP rubric for all projects assigned in the GT classes. Ms. Fitzgerald monitors GT work in social studies, Ms. Hoyt monitors GT work in Language Arts and science. Math is addressed through acceleration—high school level courses.

How West Briar will implement TPSP:

It will first be implemented in history/social studies classes. All 6^th grade GT students will learn to do a Level I project, 7^th and 8^th GT students will learn how to do a Level II project, and students in Ms. Fitzgerald’s Capprensi classes will do a Level III or Level IV project.

Projects will probably start in January and be done by March.

Additionally, West Briar offers many GT activities, including Odyssey of the Mind, Future Problem Solvers, Math counts and UIL in theatre, art, dance and sports. Students also have opportunities to participate in Scholastic Art and Scholastic Writing.

IV. Suggestions for next meeting

The next VPAC meeting is scheduled for October 17. It was decided that the topic of the meeting will be the Open Houses.

The dates for the Open Houses were discussed with Ms. Henry and set as follows:

Tuesday, October 25 – 6:30 pm – GT Curriculum Open House (auditorium)

Fifth through Seventh grade parents/students will be invited.

Tuesday, November 15 – 6:30 – 8:00 pm West Briar Open House (school-wide)

All fifth graders and their parents are invited so that they can tour the school.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:35 pm

Tara Blood

West Briar VPAC Recording Secretary, 2011-2012