Summary Of 12-8-08 School Governance Council (SGC) Meeting

Provided by an AC Leadership Parent at the Meeting

On Tuesday, 12/09/08, the School Governance Council approved a revised Redesign plan for Berkeley High School. A full description will hopefully be available soon from School Governance.  The following summary was put together by a member of AC parent leadership who observed most of the SGC meeting:

A block schedule with 4 x 90 minute periods per day.  

Advisory classes twice a week and Student Support and Community Access Periods (SSCAPs) as follows:

• The blocks will be periods 1 through 6 plus one block of SSCAP and one block of combined Advisory/SSCAP.  

• Each student will have 3 classes per day plus either the SSCAP or the Advisory/SSCA period.  

• Each teacher will teach 5 classes plus the Advisory/SSCA period.  The 6th block and SSCAP will be prep periods.

Weekly Professional Development (PD) will be on Mondays with late start and 4 shortened blocks alternating 1234/5678.

Advisory will be spread throughout the schedule.  Each of the 8 blocks will be the Advisory/SSCAP block for approximately 1/8 of the students, or about 400.  The first 30 minutes will be advisory curriculum, at which point those students will be released to seek out their SSCAP activity: tutoring, community service, etc.  

A subcommittee will work on the logistics of the SSCA periods for discussion by the SGC at their next meeting prior to putting the proposal to the School Board.  

Science and Math teachers will be assigned to specific Small Learning Communities.

A poll of the faculty will be taken at the next Berkeley Federation of Teachers (union) meeting.