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M.L. Honors and Awards Committee
Minutes from meeting of 1/10/2005
Connecticut Association of SchoolsMiddle Level Honors and Awards Committee
January 10, 2005
Minutes
In attendance were Rochelle Schwartz, Norma Posocco, Henry Coe and Earle Bidwell
1.0 Teacher of the Year Program: After a review and revision of the documents, the committee approved the “Revised Application,” “Letter of Recommendation Title Sheet” and website description.
2.0 Using the concepts for good teaching outlined in “This We Believe, Successful Schools for Young Adolescents,” the committee developed a “Teacher of the Year Scoring Guide.” The guide is intended as an aid for paper screeners of TOY applications.
3.0 School of the Year Program: After a review of the documents, the committee approved the revised “Application for School of the Year.” The approved documents (TOY as well as SOY) will be circulated to member schools within the next week.
4.0 Procedure for Visitation: The committee began a discussion of visitation procedures for school of the year finalists. While time did not permit bringing closure to the issue, several key decisions were made. They are as follows.
• It is essential that members of the visiting committee have assigned areas of responsibility; preferably determined in advance of the site visits.
• The areas of responsibility should be reflective of the School of the Year Scoring Guide to avoid getting too far off the topic.
• Questions developed by each member of the visiting committee should, by-and-large, reflect her/his area(s) of responsibility.
• While rigidity needs to be avoided, there should be some consistency in the questions asked at each site.
• There is a need for one member of the team to serve as facilitator/gatekeeper to ensure that the interviews are efficient and effective. That role most likely will be handled by either the chairperson or assistant executive director.
• Whether to keep the visiting committee intact for all interviews or to break up into sub-groups is a subject that needs further study. Earle has bee asked to prepare a couple of drafts of different possibilities for the next meeting.
• The number and composition of the visiting committee was discussed. It was determined that the outcome should be driven by the decisions made regarding whole group vs. sub group configurations.
5.0 The next meeting is scheduled for February 14, 2005 at 4:00 pm
