LTVI SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT MEETING NOTES

As a member of the LTVI School Improvement Council I attended last night's meeting and learned several encouraging things about my favorite school (Okay I said it but when have you ever known me to not play favorites?).

First I want to rave about the spread put out for the attendees. Sure there were the cookies and chips and while I have always been partial to a good cookie, hands down were the delicious wraps, tuna, egg salad, etc, prepared by the kids in the culinary dept. Mr. Bountempo, LTVI principal, displayed them like a proud father. I told him it sure beats the cold pizza the other schools must get.

The first item on the agenda was the reporting of the closure of the ELECTRONICS shop which I had already known about from witnessing Mr. B's presentation to the LSC. The program was a victim of the changing scope of technology and the job market. It seems to me the basic principles of the program are not so much lost as swallowed up by the pre-Engineering program.

An exciting development was the talk of potentially starting up two new programs, one in IT and the other in HVAC. These are areas with currently hot job markets and great growth potential. With everything, the hold-up on rapidly rolling out these new programs is money. My understanding is that the money from the state to sustain these programs only starts flowing after the programs are initially set up. So that means LPS would have bear the start up costs. The funding of TECH schools seems to be a whole other animal that differs from the traditional academic model. There is a CH. 74 accreditation and PERKINS monies that can fill wish lists of different shop instructors aside from what is included in the regular LPS budget. I may be a little wrong in some of my perceptions but I have a sneaky filling that many of those on the LSC don't have an accurate concept on how the funding mechanisms work for vocational schools.

There was an interesting discussion on MCAS testing. It seems that LTVI students caught last year the bug going around that caused Math scores to go down. The data people have delved headlong into the analytics to look for areas to improve. A mock MCAS test was administered earlier in hopes of gleaming some additional insights and more familiarize the students with the rigors of test expectations. Also from some additional monies given LTVI were able to expand the mandatory "MCAS prep" Sat. school and one evening a week classes for "at-risk" students.

It was somewhat refreshing also to hear about a topic that wasn't MATH related. There is an effort to do some historical investigation to go beyond the typical recitation of documents. Also we learned about a concerted effort by the shop teachers to relate the rudiments of the academic classes to the vocational instruction.

Probably all of these exciting developments along with a new emphsis on guidance counselor involvement have led to an upsurge in growth in prospective student population for the upcoming year.