Chapter+1

__**Chapter 1 Meeting Summary from Group 1**__

View the [|PowerPoint Presentation] from the Organizational Meeting, which refers to topics in Chapter 1.

What a fantastic meeting last night. It was refreshing to sit with a group of professionals and chew the fat about a serious issue surrounding our profession. I'm still amazed at how quickly time went by--and the quality of conversation... I think we are well on our way to becoming a true community of professional learners--PLC.
 * __Major Points from After School Meeting, March 3rd:__**

Here is what I have as a recap:

1. We are all committed to responding to at least one question (posed by the team) per chapter as a way to share thoughts and feeling regarding discussion times. 2. We are all now wikispace users and know how to log on and edit. We are also going to construct our own personal pages to log hours, reflections, and strategies of implementation. 3. Because of the nature of this topic (its volatility and emotional-ness :)) Ginger handed out a Gradients of Agreement form be used to when needed. Another cool resource.
 * question: Where are you regarding the statement: "Grades are solely a reflection of academic achievement?"** Think about where you fall personally on the Gradients of Agreement form. This might be a wikispace discussion topic--anyone for posting it?

Our first conversation was about what we want our grades to reflect? We tossed around attendance, behavior, work ethic, and academic achievement. The larger question posed was "What is the purpose of school?" "Are we not to teach responsibility?" This conversation led to the fact that in a true PLC, where the first big idea is a shift from teaching to a focus on learning, the foundation is actually the school's mission, vision, values, and beliefs.
 * Chapter One topics:**

From there we went to a discussion of grade inflation and what the effects of that might look like at BHHS.

We also discussed what data we want Tami to gather for us and what we are looking at: GPA's, test scores (ACT, MAP, PAWS, etc), grade distributions perhaps. All of this will be done without names (including grade distributions).

We started watching the DVD with Rick Stiggins and Ken O'Connor talking about grading issues--Cheryl or Sara have it if someone needs it.