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Post date: Feb 18, 2018 12:20:46 AM
Agenda 02.07.18.
Approval of Minutes
Reports
Notes and New Business
Council Minutes 01.31.18.
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” -Oscar Wilde
1. Approval of Minutes
2. Reports
A-Mod: Thanks to all that came to Cell phone Motion Veto Meeting last Friday, which has led to direct debate in Admin for wording.
Treasurer: Council fund = $6660.90. Co-curricular fund = $4400. All transactions are up to date.
Secretary: Senior alternate, junior alternate, and sophomore alternate can vote.
DSB: Wrote Broadside report on DSB meeting.
PR: Updates on bulletin board, will place updated motion sheet up soon.
Admin: Discussed Cell phone Motion, currently making edits. Deadline is next week.
Curric: Discussed bylaw revisions.
OEC: Finalized wording for OEC Common Ground Motion being brought today.
SAC: Sent out activity sign-ups for Winter Carnival.
SL: Discussing where SL wants to focus: whether that will be late start or schedule changes. Hopefully will talk about meeting spaces within the school.
Student Voice Summit: Had video conference to help plan what happens on the 23rd. Run mostly by students. Hanover High School will play large role in giving impact statements from experience about what student voice looks like. Will continuing looking at agenda. Contact Linda Addante at linda_addante@yahoo.com if want more information or speak to her about attending the event. Opportunity to look at student voice not only in school, but on a broader scale.
In the case that even after placing there is not a Council member in a Common Ground, other option is that a Council member will volunteer to be in charge of reporting to more than one Common Ground or ask for a volunteer from the Common Ground to take responsibility of attending Council meetings and giving report.
Idea of asking Common Grounds to read minutes in Common Ground announcements. Logistically would not work because discussion in Common Ground should be about meeting from day before, not week before.
Possible solution proposed is using Common Grounds as basis of representation of Council. Would solve challenge of students voting for other students that they don’t know, even though they are in same grade.
Council is body made up of people who are truly invested and interested in being part of democratic process at school. Part of problem in Common Grounds is not all students are not engaged and choosing member that is not engaged only because required would disrupt meetings. This motion provides the best solution without disrupting Council members in Common Grounds as much as in the past while providing the most Common Grounds with Council members.
OEC should speak to Katie Lowery in terms of placement of Council members so that it is correctly entered in Powerschool for attendance purposes.
Motion Passes
4. Exam Discussion
Believe that exam schedule is good the way it is. Not reasonable to have exams in normal week, where most exams takes at least one hour and normal periods are short. Schedule of even having one exam in normal school day could result in students missing parts of school to study or students would be unfocused in other classes.
Exams are preparing students for college in a sense. Most college exams are not seen based on what a HHS teacher said after being taken.
Timing of exam week is more of a problem. Having right after Christmas break is difficult. After break it is difficult to recall information from year before. Having exams before break can help reduce stress over break and overall.
Idea of block schedule to have exam time and instruction time.
Believe that too much time is spent on exam week. Each exam is at most 2.5 hours. Easy to fit two exams into one day, and still not have a complete school day.
Need to talk about different way of having exams rather than whether or not we should have exam week. Hope to see conversation move into specific disciplines and be discussed within departments about what exam scenario would benefit specific subject the best.
Important to go over exams in high school even though it may not be done in college. Not sure that going over exams would necessitate a whole period per exam for a whole school day of exam review.
Exam time is fun time to spend time with friends and spend time studying too. Best to have one a day. Having more than one a day may create expectation among students that exams will be easier due to having multiple a day, when in reality, tests will remain at the same difficult.
Based on prior experience of coming from school that has more than one exam a day. Useful to have only one exam a day which allows for greater studying time, and also personal time that student can spend doing other things to decrease stress. Good experience for time management.
Greater issue is that students are still learning new information up to exam week, even though stated in handbook that that is not allowed.
Idea during Exec meeting on Monday was having exams before break, and also shortening second semester to make sure that semester lengths are similar. Then, idea to add two weeks after second semester to work on creative projects that are cumulative but different from exams and normal class time.
5. 10% Exam Discussion
Was going to be brought as motion, but is out of Council’s jurisdiction. Based on role of CPP, even though current rule about weighting of final exams is in Handbook, Mod and A-Mod do not feel that it should be brought to Council as a motion. Belief that all exams should be 10% because exam week is already very stressful and should place emphasis on long term performance in comparison to singular high-stake assessment.
Some assessments for semester are simply a reflection, and 10% would be too great. Should be 10% maximum for weighting of semester exams.
Exams can be viewed as cumulative assessment of entire course. Most college course grades come from few papers and exams, which are all high-stake forms of assessments. Maximum of 10% cheapens assessment that is reflection of all work in the semester. 10% is so little that as long a student does all their homework for the semester, that is what will be reflected more in the final grade, which doesn’t seem like accurate reflection of work in class.
False perception at HHS that as long as students work hard and have strong work ethic, they will be able to achieve whatever they want, specifically earn good grades. Frustrating that students believe that students should get a good grade in the class based on consistent homework and lots of hours put into studying for exam.
Conversation is frustrating because seems strange for students to care more about the grade than the learning process.
Feels wrong to create jurisdiction on how much a teacher should weigh their semester exam.
6. Notes and New Business
Wall of Shame/Wall of Limbo: Names are crossed out and student stated that students are not allowed to have names up on letters. Unclear of rationale. Wall of Shame is seen as group disappointment and failure. If names are not put on letter, feels impersonal. Would like to see letters on Wall of Shame/Wall of Limbo with names or not up at all.
At HHS few years ago, Wall of Shame/Wall of Limbo was filled with rejection/deferred letters. Currently, there are only three letters presence. Like the idea of mocking college application process. Wish that all students would post rejection/deferred letters.
Find that members of Council takes two points of views at different times, depending on what is most advantageous to the specific situation. One view is that we should do things in high school in a way to prepare for college and the future, other view is that students in high school are still in high school and should have such opportunities. Council should hold more consistent views.
7. Meeting Adjourns
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