• School Community Council Minutes

    December 19, 2023

    Present: Sheri, John, Don, Teri, Kathy, Melanie, Connie, Tom, Brady, Shane, Kathy

                                   

    We were welcomed by John.  He asked for approval of last month's meeting minutes. Sheri motioned to approve them and Melanie seconded the motion. All were in favor.

     

    1. Teacher of the Year: Shane announced that Vanessa Hall was chosen as Teacher of the Year for Sky View.  He said that she does very well in the classroom, is always figuring out technology and how to get better. She is dedicated and spends a lot of time with student leadership, homecoming, and working on the new Sky View branding.  She bleeds SV blue. He expressed thanks to the school board for letting us celebrate our teachers.

     

    1. School District Report: Shane presented a 20-minute report about Sky View to the School Board. Teri mentioned that she especially liked that he included the data package. It is good having all the schools in the district report to all the board members so they can see what is going on in the schools.

    Shane said he has met with the person in charge of accreditation because we will be going through accreditation again next year.  The School Community Council will probably be involved like they have been in the past.  Kathy said that she and Teri helped last time as well and would be willing to help with anything needed again. 

    We’re still adding pieces to our data package.  We just got the results back from the Panorama survey given to the students earlier.  It has given some good information broken down by groups.  One question was about the student’s belief in their selves in academics and it was surprisingly low.  It is most likely because of fear of failure and inadequacy.  The 9th graders scored the highest on that question.  Kathy wondered if social media has made a difference with that.  John said he is doing research and is finding that there is a big disconnect.  Melanie said she is teaching a Strategies for Academic success at the University. It is going to be a concurrent class, so that might be a good one for students to take. The most likely reason that 9th graders have a higher percentage is because they start high school out feeling good then get into everything then start having doubts, but hopefully comes back up by the time they are seniors.

    Shane said we’ll share the full report when we get it.

    Teri mentioned that sometimes the oldest children or parents who weren’t successful in school are probably the ones that struggle the most with self-efficacy, because they don’t know what they don’t know.

    The Gear Up and College Access advisors are great assets for our students here. Their names are Ellie Christensen and Landon Lloyd.  We will have them come to our next meeting. Our ACT prep program is helpful too.

     

    1. PCCR and Registration Information: Tom reported that we are getting geared up for next year already. We will be starting our PCCR and Registration meetings on January 23rd to go over career and educational goals and select classes for next year.  We’ll be having class meetings to get out information to students and parents.  The Counselors meet with all Juniors and Seniors.  Our parent participation at these meetings is high -over 80%.  We will be doing a Course fair during RCK hour on the 16th and 17th of January. Teachers will be able to share information about the courses they offer.  John asked about what the success is of doing the PCCR’s.  Tom replied that it is a great opportunity to sit down with each student and parents to talk about them and their goals and help them make a plan to meet their goals.  They also look over testing results and give them ideas to help them improve.

    The statistics show that 50% of students go to college and 50% of those don’t finish.

    1. Report on YouScience: Tom talked about a new program that was just brought on this year.  It is called YouScience and is an interest testing for students.  Teri said that Cache High uses it, and it is fun- it uses brain games.  The students accounts go with them after they graduate.  Tom said that before we just used interest inventories and this is more based on aptitudes.  During the freshmen year in the RCK academy courses,  we have every freshman go through it.  Once they have an account they can get on it anytime.  It is also used in Career Workshops so they are exposed to it. 

    Teri said the really good thing about it is that the program tells them if their interests and skills don’t match.  Tom said it will be nice to pull up a one-page summary for each student.  We can add all of the Sky View courses to it so it can suggest classes to take that matches their aptitudes. 

    Kathy Christiansen said that she has been meeting with leadership at BTECH.  Their scholarship applications are due Feb 28th.  We didn’t have very many of our students get scholarships from them in the past.  Shane said we don’t have as many students take BTECH because our schools have grown but BTECH hasn’t. It isn’t because of lack of interest. There are not enough spaces and a lot of the classes fill up quickly.  Kathy said she would pass the information on. Teri asked about the new nursing facility- if we will be able to send more students?

    Tom said that our biggest issue is their registration. They open registration August 1st and we don’t even give students their schedules by then and by the time they try to register that classes are full.  Teri said that they should base the enrollment on the % of students at the school. Counselors meet with them every year and have talked about it with them for the past two years but still hasn’t been any changes.

    We will have a Freshmen Parent Welcome Night in February. There is a little glitch working with NC and their scheduling. They register students for classes  before we meet with students and parents. Then they don’t have enough information to decide what courses they want to take. That is something that we need to work out with them.

    Teri said the Legislature requires so much more than they used to for everyone- teachers, counselors, administration and school boards.  She and Kathy expressed their appreciation to the counselors and admin for everything they do.

     

    Don Darrington, a new member of the council, was introduced.  He has a sophomore here at Sky View, two that have graduated, and an 8th grader.

    Shane said that we appreciate all the parents on the council.  We want everyone to know that they are welcome to ask questions about anything.

     

    Sheri suggested a debriefing with the students who were present when we had a medical incident with one of our students.  Shane and Tom said that they will follow through with those students.

     

    The meeting was adjourned until our next meeting on Tuesday, January 16th