Literacy Council Meeting Notes
1/11/08

Members present:
Soto, Barker, Brener, Algarin, Turner, Carter, Mancini, Boergers, Ferreira, Moriarty, Molina, Comfort, Hall, Casillas, Haupfear, Barbosa, Mendez, Smith, B., Ahlers, Mohapatra, Amodt, Boergers.
Special guests:
M. Study, J. Snyder, C. Morales

Discussion:
The focus of the Literacy Council this year has been the county’s initiative on “Strategies for Improving Instruction for Black & Hispanic Students”.

Today we did a comparison of these students Nationally, OCPS and SJMS.

We found that based on this year’s Reading Benchmark tests, our students are making improvements in all categories.

So what are we, at Jackson, doing to foster this growth?
The council members came up with the following:

1. we are acknowledging socio-economic backgrounds
2. we give students options/choices for learning
3. we provide correction without being demeaning
4. we acknowledge ethnicities
5. we set high standards and expectations
6. we provide tutoring
7. as educators we are willing to change, to grow, to be versatile
8. we provide  peer mediation
9. we develop language
10. we address the “whole” student (courtesy, behavior, attitude)

What one (1) item do we need to work on as a “whole” literacy community?

How do we motivate male students to “read”?

Any comments on this please direct to a member as we are brainstorming this question for February’s meeting.

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