Faculty Council Meeting of Tuesday, 18 September 2001

President: Joe Liles; Vice-president: John Woodmansee; Secretary: Floyd Bullard

Minutes

At 3:45 Noreen Naiman entered Hill 19, increasing the number of faculty (and indeed of all people) in the room by 33%.  At 3:52 Joe Liles remarked that although Chuck Britton was probably not alone in preferring socializing to getting down to business, it was time to begin the meeting.

Announcements

Emily Gallagher, who serves on the board of the One World Market, informed the faculty of its mission (to build relationships between local communities and developing nations by sharing handcrafted furniture, stationery, pottery, etc.) and circulated a sign-up list for people who wanted to receive more information or to make a donation.

Joe announced that at future Faculty Council meetings, if we were not spending the entire meeting time discussing crucial issues, he would like to take a few minutes to have faculty members share “capsules” of professional development experiences they’ve had.  Sally Adkin, having records of everyone’s professional development activities, vouched for the existence of a number of “shining stars out there” among the NCSSM faculty.

Jon Bennett shared via an overhead transparency some questions that the School Improvement Group (SIG) is considering, and announced that he would like to have a group of 6-8 faculty members to investigate them.  He said that Carol O’Dell would chair this group, and asked that anyone interested in being a part of the group email Carol in the next couple of days.  He added that a “Curriculum Standards Task Force” was being formed by the Executive Director, but that he was not aware of any charge they had yet received.

Joe remarked that the level of detail in recent minutes should not be taken as a standard for future Faculty Council secretaries.  The minutes of the 4 September meeting were approved unanimously by oral vote, after one correction was announced by the secretary: “ALT Days were made a graduation requirement…” should have read “Student Life 101 and 102 were made a graduation requirement…”.

Peggy Craft reminded teachers to put their tests on the test schedule.  She waved her hands in the air to show how this is done on-line, but the computer she was using was not visible to everyone else.  Her instructions were:  While in Outlook, go to ToolsàFormsàChoose FormsàTest Schedule, then enter the appropriate information.  If you want to view all entered tests, then while in Outlook, go to ViewàFolder ListàPublic FoldersàAll Public FoldersàTest Schedule.

Agenda Item: “The Big Picture” (4:04PM)

Joe explained the nature of the discussion he hoped to have during the rest of the meeting.  We would define what we want in terms of an educational environment/experience for our students, then we would brainstorm more specific ideas for making that a reality.  We would conclude by making a committee of volunteers who would distill the Faculty Council’s suggestions into specific recommendations to bring back to a future Faculty Council meeting (or meetings) for discussions and votes.  Joe reassured all present that in fulfilling the Faculty Council’s mandate (“to present to the Executive Director its point of view on all matters of concern to the school. … [and] assist the Director in every way possible in finding the most satisfactory operation of the school’s programs”) we were not trying to compete with work that was being done by task forces, but rather, that we wanted to cooperate with them and share with them, and that the sharing could go both ways: we could make recommendations to task forces, and vice-versa.   

Joe stated that the ground rules for the present discussion were: all viewpoints were welcome, and that everyone should make comments and suggestions (and receive them) in a respectful way, without giving or taking offense.  Comments were equally welcome from faculty and non-faculty.  He urged people who are normally silent in Faculty Council meetings to share their ideas, saying that they would be like a “breath of fresh air”.  (Faculty members whose comments are like stale, musty air were not named.) 

Joe went on to say that we were not turning our back on the work that was done by the Faculty Council of 1999-2000, in which a “Plan for the Future” was written after much deliberation.  Joe shared, via three overhead transparencies, the results of that deliberation.  That Plan for the Future would be passed on to any committee that was formed at the end of the present Faculty Council meeting. 

[The entirety of the Plan for the Future document created by the 1999-2000 Faculty Council is attached to the end of these minutes.] 

The floor was opened up for comments, and as people made them (ranging from very philosophical to very concrete), Joe recorded them on the blackboard.  Here were the things people said: 

• Physical Activity is an important part of students’ experience and should be a larger part of that experience than it is at present.
• We need to foster intellectual curiosity.  (Query: How do you do that?)  Response: Present kids with interesting material, teach it in such a way that the overall aim is provoking thought as well as conveying content.
• We want our kids to have “critical thinking skills”, or “higher-order thinking skills”.  We need to ask them questions that require them to use these skills.
• Critical reading skills are essential [and our students lack these skills at present].
• Communication skills are important in addition to thinking and reading skills.
• Learning should be fun.  Many students seem to think of most or all of their academic work as a tedious chore.
• It’s real-life applications that make learning fun.
• Students should be recognized externally for their accomplishments.
• Character development is crucial: being a great thinker is not enough.
• We need to train our students to be fluent with information technology—management of information, not just computer science.  (Although we do need to expand our computer science curriculum.)
• We need to prepare students for college, whatever that means.  We need them to be successful when they leave here, which means following some traditions: e.g., using some standard textbooks, etc.
• The curriculum needs to be brought up to date.
• In looking at our curriculum, we need to think about how NCSSM can be a leader.  We want not to be “like” other high schools, but to be the leader that other high schools look to, doing things that are different and risk-taking for both us and our students.  We want to provide an innovative risk-taking educational experience.
• Two years ago, Phil Nelson charged us to write down what we wanted to look like in the future, and he would give it to the new Executive Director, and he did.  That document [the Plan for the Future mentioned earlier and given at the end of these minutes] has a lot of this stuff in it.  (At this point Joe reminded everyone that the present goal was to provide information—including the Plan for the Future—to a short-term ad hoc committee that would bring specific recommendations to the Faculty Council for discussions and votes.)
• Students should be aware of a larger community they belong to, outside NCSSM.
• We need to be able to assess much more quickly than we do now where students are academically when they arrive.
• Query is made to faculty who have been around 10+ years: Is the academic culture different now than it was, say, in the 1980’s?  If so, how?
• Response: When the entire student body was 250 students it was different because it was smaller.  Research shows that when a school exceeds 150 students you lose a sense of community.  Maybe a “community within a community” is a way we could address that.
• The entire culture of our state has changed.  Today’s students are poorer at algebra, are less well-read, have smaller vocabularies, etc., than they once did.  That’s true all over the state.  But then again, they know more about computers than they did then. They’re no less apt or able today, but they’ve been exposed to different things.
• The NCSSM environment needs to be nurturing.  Students need to feel that adults care about them.

Joe asked that at this point we shift gears and try to focus on specific suggestions rather than large philosophical issues. 

Steve Warshaw then requested that we talk about the committee itself for a minute, and Joe obliged.  Steve stated that there is already a Curriculum Standards Task Force that Jerry has announced, of which three-quarters will be faculty.  He said he didn’t understand why another committee was needed.  It seemed like there would be two separate groups working on the same things.  Steve felt the committee charged by the Faculty Council would not have a good foundation on which to function.  If the Faculty Council voted in favor of some of its suggestions, would they then be taken to the Curriculum Standards Task Force?  Why not simply be part of that Task Force and thus participate directly? 

Joe pointed out that Steve had missed his opening comment about this committee not wanting to compete with the Task Force, but rather work in conjunction with it.  He stated that Yes, if items proposed by the Faculty Council committee were voted on favorably by the Faculty Council, then they would be brought to the Curriculum Standards Task Force as well as to the Executive Director. 

Two people asked what the charge was to the task force.  Steve stated that Jerry Boarman had asked him and Donita Robinson to chair the Task Force. 

Jerry responded:  Nothing so far discussed in this meeting is something that the Task Force does not want to discuss.  I don’t have a problem with a Faculty Council committee, but the Task Force could look at these issues in more detail over the next year.  The Task Force will look at where things are now and our whole program, from grading to whether we have a written curriculum standard—every aspect of what’s going to take place at this school in the next five years from learning to the skills that you have on the board [referring to Joe’s notes on the first half of the Faculty Council discussion].  I’ve said this before: there is a question of equity.  If a student takes an AP US History class, how is that student assessed?  Is it equitable for every student?  [To the faculty member who had asked what the Task Force’s charge was:] You look puzzled. 

Response.  I’m not so much puzzled as overwhelmed.  That’s a tremendous charge—huge for a Task Force.  I would have thought a task force would discuss how we can set ourselves up to discuss those issues. 

Jerry.  A task force is a recommending body.  You can’t discuss curriculum without discussing assessment.  And you can’t discuss where you are [with regard to curriculum (?)] without discussing how you accomplish it. 

At this point Joe remarked that how we learn to interact with the Executive Director’s Task Force style of governance is absolutely crucial.  He repeated once more that what we were doing now [with the committee] was a “capsulized short-term thing” that will be brought to Faculty Council and the Curriculum Standards Task Force.  The Task Force itself would go on for a long time.  Joe stated that you could have a Faculty Council and Task Forces both at the same time.  Your voice could be heard in both groups and they don’t cancel one another out. 

Joe then requested that we press on for the remaining twenty minutes, asking that faculty members respond with specific suggestions.   

Steve suggested that since the School Improvement Group (SIG) has already worked on a lot of these things and had come up with measured and indicators, etc., then as long as there were to be several different groups working on the same thing, it would be helpful if they shared information. 

The comments made from that point on are given below. 

• A good portion of the things on the board are classroom-based.  Intellectual curiosity is fostered primarily in the classroom, not on the soccer field.  We need more classroom time.
• Before the school year begins, we need a short period of time—1-2 weeks, say—to prepare some students, bring them up to speed, so they can hit the ground running when they get here.
• I want to know what my colleagues believe that every well-educated high school graduate should know, so that when I teach what I teach, I can know what history, etc., is vital.
• We need to make better use of ALT eve.  Students currently claim that time as their own.
• We should explore the possibility of using a couple of blocks of time on ALT Day that students could be required to do special things like field trips, see feature-length films, etc.
• Good curriculum needs to have focus to it, direction, a sense of sequence and consequence.  No curriculum can be all things to all people.  We cannot accomplish ALL the things we’ve mentioned today given our resources and time.  There needs to be a logic to our curriculum, a look at the whole picture.  Presently, we are setting up goals that are at odds with one another.
• I wonder whether we can look at curriculum absent consideration of the calendar and daily schedule.  All aspects of these impact every activity we hope to engage students in.
• This is a regression to a philosophical issue, not a concrete suggestion.  I want a job that’s doable, and I don’t think I have one.  And it’s getting worse.  The overall expectations of me are unrealistic: the extra things that I do outside of the classroom.  (Query: Are these things NCSSM asks of you or that you ask of yourself?)  Response: I have asked the same things of myself for the last 5 or 10 years, but the things NCSSM has asked of me have been increasing.
• I’m finding it increasingly difficulty to have a good academic program in the time that we have to teach it.  Forget about the other things we have to do outside the classroom, just the teaching part of our job is becoming increasingly not doable. [*]
• We don’t have enough classroom time.
• We have named today all the things we’d like NCSSM to be in a perfect world, but we can’t walk on water.  In fact, we’re barely keeping our heads above water.  If the kids don’t have their own feeling of being overwhelmed, then they pick it up from us.
• Adding to the comment made [marked with a * above], I spend more time now teaching students how to learn than I once did.  And I put in more hours now with students in informal ways outside of the classroom (but addressing academics).
• The time we spend with students outside of class are more demanding today than they once were.  That takes up an increasingly important part of my day.  We ARE working during those gaps of time in our schedules.
• I need more class time with my kids.  When I don’t get enough time with them in class, then I am forced to expect them to do more outside of class, and that creates a negative spiral. [**]
• I don’t understand admissions.  Are we taking lower SAT scores than we once did?  Or am I just hearing strange stories?  It matters, because how we help our students depends on who they are.
• We want to do a lot, and all of our goals are laudable.  But we should adopt the motto “Less is More”.  We shouldn’t try to do everything.
• A comment was made [**] saying we want more face-to-face time with students.  But I’d like to see there be more room for independent work by students, like Project XL [of 1986-87].  Different classes need to evaluate their needs for in- and out-of classroom time with students.
• It was said [much earlier] that we don’t foster intellectual curiosity on the soccer field.  I disagree.  If you want students to appreciate real-life applications of what they’re learning, then you need to get them to study physics on the volleyball court.  Get them out of the classroom to learn.  And you can’t do that in a 40-minute class.  It takes innovative thinking and planning.
• As we try to share information across disciplines, we have to discuss everything that goes on at this school, and sometimes I have enough trouble focusing on my own discipline because of all the things I’m being asked to do.  We need to have a clearer division of labor, in order to be more effective.

(Although the Faculty Council meeting’s discussion seemed at times somewhat aimless, it appeared to the secretary to conclude with a recognizable theme: We can’t be all things to all students.  “Less is More”.) 

Joe wrapped up the meeting by asking for volunteers to be on the committee that would “distill” the discussion items into suggestions to be discussed and voted upon by the Faculty Council in a not-too-distant meeting.  The following person volunteered: 

Dan Teague. 

There were no more volunteers for a short while, the first one having apparently stifled enthusiasm.  Joe cajoled the faculty a bit, and other volunteers emerged: 

Jon Miller, Lisa Nanney, Jane Shlensky, Peg Kirk, Betsy Holland. 

Joe stated that if people later wanted to volunteer, they should feel free to contact the Faculty Council officers.  It was pointed out that there was no one from the science department on the committee, and Jonathan Keohane grumbled and volunteered, perhaps underjoyed at the thought of serving on a committee with Dan.   

The Faculty Council meeting ended at 5:01PM.

Appendix to Minutes:  The Plan for the Future document created by the 1999-2000 Faculty Council.

 Plan for the Future

The following passages are from the Plan for the Future developed by Faculty Council in the 1999-2000 school year.  I felt that these passages were particularly relevant to our "Big Picture" discussions in Faculty Council. 

Who will our students be in ~5 years?

NCSSM seeks to attract and enroll motivated students who have exceptional talent and interest in  math and science, and who are interested in achieving excellence in all areas of their educational experience.  These students will want to participate in a stimulating academic and residential experience that furthers their scientific and mathematical knowledge in innovative ways and encourages the development of their reading, writing, analytic, artistic, social and physical abilities. 

What can our program do to meet the needs of our students of the future? 

1.   We have a broader computer science curriculum to include opportunities beyond introductory programming for students who are interested in this area.  This curriculum might include courses, independent studies and mentorships.  In addition, all areas of the curriculum ensure that students develop appropriate technology skills within each discipline. 

2.   We have physical spaces that are conducive to a wide variety of teaching methods including lab work, small group work, and class lecture.  Labs are designed so students can work independently on projects when appropriate. 

3.   We have up-to-date, high-quality technology available both in and out of class.  This technology might include computers, calculators, probes, microscopes, other scientific equipment, visualization and auditory technology, etc.  Our equipment should be as up-to-date as or better than that available for our outreach programs and that which students might find in the best high schools in the state. 

4.   We provide opportunities for students to enhance the backgrounds they bring with them in a manner that permits students to be successful without being overwhelmed.  We accommodate students’ weaknesses as well as their strengths.  (This may include a pre-junior year summer program for some students.) 

5.   We address the physical well-being of the students with regard to nutrition, rest and play.  We accomplish this by providing adequate, appealing and varied food; comfortable living spaces; and many and varied recreational activities that appeal to students with different interests.  The academic work load is reasonable so that conscientious students have time to think and reflect, do what is needed for class, rest, and play. 

We address the psychological and emotional well-being of the students by teaching  and fostering healthy choices for successful growth in these areas.  

6.   We have graduation requirements that are rigorous yet flexible. Graduation requirements reflect the special math and science nature of our school yet also help produce students who have a variety of strengths, are articulate, well-read, thoughtful, and are good citizens.  

7.   We use the expertise of alumni and others in the Durham area to help teach our students or help faculty learn new skills and content. 

8.   We have a curriculum that permits and encourages students to engage in independent work in all of their classes.  In addition,  a few select seniors are permitted to develop and study a specialized curriculum that they design under the direction of faculty.  This might resemble Project XL from 1986. 

9.   We have  programs, both formal and informal, that help students make the transition from adolescence to adulthood.  These programs provide students opportunities to develop their leadership skills by having to make decisions and lead others.  Our entire program helps all students make progress towards being responsible for themselves and considerate of the needs of others. We provide experiences by which students develop an altruistic regard for the needs of others, locally and globally.   

10.  We have flexibility the allows for on-going revision of curriculum to reflect new areas of study and approaches to study so the academic experience is unmatched in quality. 

11.  The faculty actively  pursue professional development activities and the school provides significant support for these activities.