First Elementary Math Committee Meeting – April 12, 2018

The Superintendent convened the first meeting of the Elementary Math Committee on Apr. 12, 2018. The minutes taken by district staff from the first meeting can be viewed here:

Elem_Math_Committee-Minutes.2018.04.12

Attendees:

Teachers (6): Lori, Arbucci, Debbie Au, Jane Chang-Hur, Christine Matthews, Marie Morin, Mandy Redfern
Administration (3): Karen Hurley, Wendy Sinnette, Anais Wenn
Governing Board (2): Brent Kuszyk, Ellen Multari
Parents (8): Alphan Altinok, Stacey Boland, Tuan Do, Sunyoung Fahimi, Anna Hasbun, Ajay Perumbeti, William Schulze, Jomjai Srisomburananont

Summary:

A summary of the meeting follows:

  • Introduction by Superintendent Sinnette and introduction of committee members.
  • Review of Superintendent’s goal and review of minutes from the second Elementary Math Discussion Forum on Feb. 26, 2018 with an emphasis on themes that emerged from that meeting.
  • Superintendent Sinnette defined the purpose of the committee, then solicited discussion of proposed solutions. Ideas presented by committee members included:
    • A math docent program run through PTA. There are art and science docents, why not math docents?
    • Homogeneous grouping.
    • Regular teacher conferences, instead of just one at the start of the year.
    • Improved communication between school and home and teachers and families, etc.
    • Research how other school districts educate their parents in the area of math.
    • Use the kindergarten model (small group, individual packets, time to process, etc.) at all levels.
    • Host parent nights similar to STEAM nights where parents could learn the different strategies being used to teach mathematical concepts.
    • Videos to help educate parents on math concepts.
    • Parent math nights geared to specific grade levels.
    • Sharing the K-5 Everyday Mathematics (EM) Tracker with families,
    • A model similar to Math Academy.
    • The idea of teaming as was done in the past at LCUSD (not acceleration but differentiation by math cluster).
    • The idea of all teachers at a grade level teaching math at the same time and students dispersed according to ability (movement into different groups could be flexible).

Superintendent Sinnette also solicited committee members to suggest short-term and long-term goals for the committee:

  • Possible short-term goals suggested by committee members:
    • More curriculum education for parents.
    • Flexible ability-based grouping – grouped based on pre-tests. (Ed: this is also known as “in-class homogeneous grouping” as described on the Proposed Solutions page.)
    • Support for after-school programs for math enrichment.
  • Possible long-term goals suggested by committee members:
    • Pathways for acceleration opportunities for advanced students at the elementary level (acceleration is discussed in depth on this LCMP special issues page.)
    • Early identification and intervention for struggling math students.
    • Expert training for teachers and parents.
    • Articulation meetings among teachers for curriculum transition from 5th grade (Everyday Math) to 6th grade (Math In Focus) – how can teachers communicate with parents the needs for each grade level to be sure children are prepared for next grade level?

Committee members then brought up concerns about ideas presented during the meeting. See the district minutes for a list of concerns raised.

Superintendent Sinnette then summarized the main themes she heard from the meeting as:

  1. Communication – This includes communication of curriculum content, pathway, terms, techniques, and supplementary material to parents, as well as vertical communication amongst teachers to bridge gaps between the two curricula used in the elementary schools.
  2. Homogeneous grouping – What is it? What are the options for implementation within the classroom? Does it address the acceleration need? And it has to be carefully handled. If we go back to the homogeneous grouping that was used in the district in the past, how do we avoid tracking students and not create new problems? Have we done the research on effectiveness of homogeneous grouping?(Note: the broader issue of homogeneous grouping and what the research says about its effectiveness is discussed on the LCMP special topics page here.)

Superintendent Sinnette concluded the meeting by stating that the committee would meet again and suggested that she might divide the committee into smaller groups to start exploring some of the proposed solutions. She also asked for feedback to help create a working agenda for the next meeting, scheduled for April 26, 2018.