• The two online courses available for training teachers on this issue were reviewed. The committee recommends that all teachers and site administrators be required to complete the Keenan Safe Schools course. This course takes approximately 25 minutes to complete and can be completed online anytime, anywhere. Completion can be monitored by administrative reports in the system.
   
• Noelle Kreider presented a variety of free curriculum materials teachers can use to instruct students in the topic of cyberbullying. NetSmartz is linked on all schools' homepages and provides games and songs for elementary and video vignettes for secondary. CyberSmart provides lesson plans with related worksheets and online resources. Teachers who complete the online iSAFE training can also access this organization's curriculum materials.

• Jerry Sturmer and Floyd Braggs recommended the student AUP include clear language explaining the cyberbullying law to students.

• Technology Scope & Sequence: The most significant task identified in the plan is to integrate a technology scope and sequence into the core content area timelines with key lessons at each grade level. These will help us meet and show evidence of achieving the NCLB goal for students to achieve technology literacy by the end of 8th grade. This will be the primary focus of this committee next year.
   
• Electronic Gradebook Program: The plan also requires the committee to continue evaluation of gradebook programs next year. eSchool's gradebook feature was evaluated in February; Easy Grade Pro will be evaluated early next school year.

• Student file security was discussed. Secondary students are encouraged to store their electronic files in eChalk to prevent tampering. Each secondary student has 50mb of storage in their eChalk account. Concerns about large media files were discussed and suggestions were offered for compression. Questions or problems regarding the use of eChalk should be directed to Noelle Kreider.
   
• Noelle reported that IT Dept is currently evaluating a product by NComputing that allows one computer to serve multiple users. This could help address the age of our computers - 56% of student computers are over 4 years old.

1. Configuration and System Management: An overview was provided on how the gradebook component of eSchool would function "on the back-end." The following items need to be configured at the district or building (school) level on the system prior to implementation.
    
   • Categories: These must be set up at the building level. They can be copied from one building to another. Typically, these include items such as homework, tests, etc. Teachers cannot create categories - they can only select from the list set up at the building level.
      
   • Grading Scales: All grading scales and their "level tables" are set up at the building level. This includes scales such as A-F, 1-4, Pass/Fail, and unique scales used for special needs students.
      
   • Terms: The grading periods must be established at the administrative level as well as the policy for calculating combination of grades for a marking period. For example, if the semester grade will be a 50-50 weight of the quarter 1 and 2 grades, this must be configured. Teachers can be given access to adjust the weighting.
      
   • Alpha Marks: These are set up at the administrative level to allow teachers to enter codes such as EXC for excused in their gradebook. How these codes are treated must also be configured at this level. Examples were excused is not counted toward grade, but missing is counted as a zero.
      
   • Teacher Access Options: From the administrative side of the system, teachers can be allowed/denied access to various options including calculation (round or truncate scores) and grade scale selections, ability to override students' calculated grades. 
      
2. Teacher Perspective: A demonstration of the gradebook from the teacher's perspective was provided by the company representative.
    
   • Define Categories: To begin use of the gradebook, the teacher selects the categories of assignments to include in the gradebook. (The categories are defined at the building level, so the teacher cannot add categories.) The teacher can choose to use points-based grading or category weighting. For each category selected, the teacher determines the weight, number of lowest scores to drop, and how missing scores are handled (count as zero or exclude from calculation).
      
   • Grading Scale: For each class, the teacher can choose a grading scale from the scales set up on the administrative side of the system. The teacher can also assign a different grading scale to individual students, such as a modified grading scale for special needs students.
      
   • Entering Assignments: The teacher enters the date assigned (optional), date due, category, extra credit (optional), maximum points, weight within the category. When the Parent Access Center is used, the teacher can also choose to publish the assignment and/or scores and attach related files.
      
   • Entering Scores: The traditional grid display does retain the header at the top and student information on the left as the teacher scrolls down/right. A Default Grade button provides auto-fill functionality and teachers can enter established codes such as EXC for excused.
      
   • Notes: Teachers can use the notes icon to keep general notes about a student (ie: behavior, conferences, etc.). Each note is dated and can be published to the Parent Access Center. Teachers can also add notes to individual assignment scores for a student. It was not clear if these notes will appear on any of the reports or in the parent view.
      
   • Reports: The Student Detail report provides an individual student report of all assignments and their scores by category. The Missing Assignments report also provides individual reports. The Score Threshold report shows which students scored above/below a teacher-defined level on a selected assignment or in their overall class grade - useful for identifying students in need of intervention. All reports are retained in a report list by date for easy retrieval and verification of reporting frequency.
      
   • Term Grades: Teachers can choose to load term grades automatically from the gradebook and can also override individual grades. Grades that combine multiple terms (ie: semester may be a 50-50 combination of quarter 1 and 2 grades) are calculated based on school level settings. It appeared that teachers could not set the gradebook to continue grading across multiple terms - current grade calculations are based on current term only. The committee expressed several concerns about this - many teachers set their gradebook to continue throughout the semester, and the current grade would not be an accurate reflection of the semester grade. (Reports may show a student is doing well in Q2, but when the quarters are combined for the final semester grade, it may actually be lower if the student struggled in Q1.)
      
3. Standards: This gradebook does not currently support the use of standards. The committee discussed the possibility of setting up categories by standard or major concepts instead of by assignment type, but this could be a very cumbersome list since each subject area at each grade level may have a unique list. The company representative indicated some upcoming enhancements may provide standards-related functions - he will investigate and report back on this.
   • Elementary teachers expressed concerns about grading by standard because the list of standards they must address across all content areas is very lengthy. Concern was also expressed regarding the elementary report card not reflecting standards-based grading.

Time: 3:00pm at the District Registration Center, Conference Room

Schools Represented: Carter, Eisenhower, Fitzgerald, Frisbie, Henry, Hughbanks, Myers, Trapp

Cyberbullying:

New legislation, AB86, authorizes schools to take disciplinary action against students who have been cyberbullying another student(s).  It was discussed that our district may need to revise our AUP and may want to add a note defining cyberbullying and warning students that disciplinary action may be taken, even if the cyberbullying was not done on the school district’s network. To train teachers and administrators in identifying and addressing cyberbullying, Noelle presented two online courses currently available to our district. One is in the Keenan Safe Schools System and the other is in the Professional Development System. Committee members will review these and make a recommendation on their use.

Technology Plan:

The proposed district technology goals, #1-11, for the revised district Educational Technology Plan were passed out to the members. Each member was asked to take one of the district technology goals and provide feedback and revisions on that goal. The first four goals were presented and suggested revisions were discussed. Since the hour of allocated meeting time was drawing nigh, the rest of the members passed their suggestions/revisions to Noelle Kreider, and Noelle said she will present those later.

Electronic Gradebook System

The last item discussed by the committee was the need for and lack of a district gradebook program that would meet the needs of teachers and would integrate with the eSchool management system. Matt Kelly discussed the prior recommendation, from the Technology Committee last school year, that we review the gradebook program that is part of eSchool. It was agreed that the committee should use meeting time next month to begin this gradebook review. Matt will make arrangements with the IT Dept for a demonstration and review of the gradebook component of eSchool. Matt said that the Middle School Grading Committee would also be invited to the evaluation meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:05 p.m.

• Four schools provided the requested input using the online form presented at the last meeting - thank you to Garcia, Frisbie Jehue, RMS for doing your homework!
• Representatives provided input on curriculum component of district technology plan - the attachment below combines this input and responses from the online form.
• Concerns and ideas were shared about the instructional time needed to teach technology, providing opportunities for student access and use, teacher training, parent training, and more.
• A sub committee will review the input and previous goals to create a draft of suggested curriculum goals.

• District is currently working on installing a fiber optic network to increase bandwidth. Garcia was recently brought online.
• eRate funds will be used to replace servers as needed.

• Handout was provided on how to access online teacher editions.
• Information regarding the online student edition will be provided soon.