March 21, 2025
SDSM&T, Surbeck Center
1:00 - 3:30
The meeting opened at 1:00 pm. Members present: Andy Johnson, BHSU; Becky Hale, Wall School District; Bob Magelky, TIE, Lead Evaluator; Joe Hillberry, Douglas School District; Ben Sayler, BHSU; John Swanson, Belle Fourche School District; Bill Roggenthen, SDSM&T; Jim Meszaros, Douglas School District; Tim Creal, New Underwood; Deb Thorpe, Lead-Deadwood School District; Loree Anderson, Lead-Deadwood School District; Josephine Hartmann, Kadoka School District; Dorothy Keller, BHSU.
Members absent: Mitch Chapel, Lead-Deadwood School District, Sandy Gaspar, Spearfish School District; Kathleen VanHorne, Meade School District; Charles Lamb, BHSU.
Ben began the meeting with information about his site visits to the school districts. He has visited New Underwood, Lead-Deadwood, Belle Fourche and Wall. He intends upcoming visits to Kadoka, Spearfish, Meade, and Douglas school districts. So far the visits have been very beneficial. Mostly what he's done during the site visits has involved teacher-interviews and observations of science classes. He's seen some strong kit-based and non-kit-based lessons, but in general, he said he's finding at least solid instruction with kit-based lessons and "all-over-the-map" instruction when it is not kit-based. He asked Deb Thorpe and Loree Anderson from Lead-Deadwood, how working with the kits is going. They stated that the students really enjoy the hands-on experience. They seem to retain what they have learned. Ben asked if we are providing the right information to the teachers? Possibly some mentoring/coaching would be beneficial. Becky Hale suggested that the more in-depth, science-content-oriented professional development, the better. John Swanson mentioned that in a year or so smaller meetings convening teachers who've been using the same instructional materials might be valuable. It was suggested that perhaps we should involve the high school science teachers in our project so they would be aware of what we are doing and where we are going with the lower grades so that they could build on the students experiences. BLAHST staff could coordinate or at least attend such gatherings within school districts to facilitate the dialogue. Study groups would be another good idea to institute.
Because Bill Roggenthen had to leave to teach a class, Ben jumped to #5 on the Agenda. Ben explained the situation with Derrick and asked for input on how to proceed with the project. He explained that according to NSF, we need a letter emanating from the President of BHSU to advise Joyce Evans, our Program Officer at NSF, about the change in leadership for the project. Recommendations from this meeting will guide the preparation of the letter. This letter will need to be signed by the PMT members before sending it on to NSF. We went on to discuss the proposed change in staffing. Ben proposed himself as the PI and Project Director for 25% of his time. Twenty five percent of his salary would be paid through the grant, the balance as cost-share from the BHSU. Also proposed was the hiring of a Program Manager who would be a master K-8 teacher. He or she would make about 8 site visits per year to each district. Site visits could involve model teaching, co-teaching, peer coaching, facilitation of after-school staff discussions, etc. The Program Manager would also oversee web-site, coordinate external evaluation with Bob Magelky, facilitate PMT meetings, oversee the materials coordinator. This position would be full-time, but only 75% would be charged to the grant, 25% to BHSU. We also need to hire a Materials Coordinator who would manage the materials and refurbishment for the districts. This person would be paid through BHSU as part of the cost-share. After discussion, the group agreed that this was a good way to proceed. Tim Creal composed a job description for the Program Manager that the group approved. (follows with a few revisions)
NSF Project Manager
Job Announcement
Black Hills State University seeks a Program Manager for an NSF-funded Local Systemic Change project in Science Education. This project provides professional development for teachers of grades K-8 within eight school districts in western South Dakota. A master teacher with extensive experience related to hands-on, inquiry-based science at the K-8 level is required. Salary and benefits will depend on qualifications, but the salary is not to be less than $40,000 per year. This will be a 2-year, full-time contract with the possibility of a 2-year renewal, depending on availability of funds. Please send a letter of application, names of 3 references, and resume to the Program Manager Search Committee, Center for the Advancement of Math and Science Education, BHSU, Unit 9005, Spearfish, SD 57799-9005. Review of applications begins April 15. Anticipated starting date is July 1, 2000.
Dorothy will work with the Business Office at BHSU to start the paperwork for getting the position approved and advertised. The Center office will handle the paperwork for the search for this position. A committee will be appointed to review the applications and conduct interviews.
Josephine Hartmann suggested using the South Dakota Job Service to post Program Manager job announcement for free on a national level. Bob Magelky suggested posting it on LSC-Net, the web-site for all of NSF's projects like ours.
Ben moved on to Agenda item #6. Joyce Evans has asked to come for a site visit either this summer or fall. The group decided a fall visit might be better. Hopefully, we will have hired a Project Manager, and we can set a PMT meeting and a workshop that she can observe. Ben will suggest some possible dates to her.
Ben gave an update on the academic workshops that have been offered this spring. Attendance has been much better than the actual sign-ups. So far this has not been a problem. Need better coordination on who is coming so we have enough materials. Average overall evaluations of the workshops have been 4.2 on a scale of 1-low to 5-high, which seems solid.
Tentative Summer 2000 Workshop Schedules were distributed. With a few revisions and suggestions the schedule was approved. A corrected schedule will be sent to all PMT members as soon as we nail down a couple remaining details.
FOSS Materials Update: FOSS has started meeting orders in a more timely fashion than they had been. Many PMT members have had good experiences with a FOSS rep named Bill Corbett (800.258.1302). Some mention of the possibility of participating in pilot of 8th grade materials. A bunch of new middle school units are slated for availability in July, 2000.
Bob Magelky, who works through the TIE office, has been approved as our Lead Evaluator. He just returned from observation training in North Carolina. Bob replaced Ron Senne as Lead Evaluator because he has a strong science background. His credentials have been approved by NSF and Horizon, thus allowing him to conduct all necessary observations. In response to a question about whether NSF is really strict about the 100 hrs of professional development per teacher, Bob mentioned that new NSF projects will need to fulfill 130 hours of professional development per teacher. Our project, however, still requires the 100 hrs. We hope all teachers in the project will reach that level, because otherwise we would need to return some of NSF's funding to them.
Bob mentioned that questionnaires will be mailed soon to the districts. Please get them filled out and back to him quickly.
There is a new incentive plan to compensate teachers who are observed by Bob (and/or Ben or another "approved" evaluator) for an official Horizon evaluation (10 teachers selected at random need to be observed by the end of this school year). The compensation will be a $25 dollar gift certificate to apply towards purchase of instructional materials. Bob will inform PMT members immediately of any teachers in their district who's names have been randomly selected.
What is quality professional development and what counts as far as NSF is concerned? There should be a project representative at school events that we are going to count. A sign-up sheet should be used to document attendance. The activity should be very clear and tied to the project.
At this time the BLAHST web-site is dysfunctional. We are trying to remedy the situation. We plan to keep this information updated so teachers can check it for workshop dates, times, locations, etc.
Our next meeting will be May 17th at 1:00 at SDSM&T in the Dorr Room. Tim Creal requested that this next meeting adjourn by 3 pm. If more than 2 hours will be needed, the start-time might be moved ahead to noon.