001Hi, good evening. This is the policy committee meeting tonight at we're starting a little bit late June 3rd right before we have Miss Ratner, Dr. Peek, Mr. Zikner, Dr. Layman, and Mrs. Fabian. Today we have we were from the board meeting in May, we as a board decided to table the discussion on regulation 5440. There was a lot of feedback from the community regarding the component under the National Honor Society and whether or not cumulative averages should be weighted or not. The administration met uh Dr. Leman met with Dr. Higgins at the high school and they came up with a proposal that we're going to go over tonight and present it to you the public. Yep. So, uh Dr. Higgins worked with his team um which includes uh you know the adviserss for the committee
002or for the national society as well as uh his assistant principles. He left me some information regarding the uh recommended change. Um and just to be on the front end of it, the recommendation takes into account uh the interest and the motivation for having a weighted grade considered. um and that's related to an honors and an AP course. So the recommendation would be to have a weighted cumulative average of 95 um and that would apply for both the first marking of period of the senior year because that's one of the screening points but also uh the weighted average of a 95 by the end of the first semester which is the second marking period of the junior year. Meeting that threshold, they would the students would then get an invitation to apply to uh engage
003in the National Honor Society and then they go through that application process. Um you mentioned that senior year, aren't they inducted in their junior year? They are, but there's also a narrow band of students uh in the senior year. We had a couple this year also included. Okay. Yep. Yep. Um so that's not new. That's just a you know consistent application. So, um, they met as a group and, uh, this is I'll just read some of his highlights here. He said, uh, currently the minimum GPA requirement to be invited to apply to NHS is a 90 cumulative weighted GPA. Uh, their proposal is to change it to a 95 cumulative cumulative weighted GPA. Um, the grading here at MTHS works on 100 point scale. So 95 is an A, 96 to 100 is an A+,
00494 to 90 is an A minus. So, um, by having it a weighted 95, uh, makes a solid A in regardless whether you're a standard track course or one of the weighted courses, a a solid A or above would get you over the threshold to uh, be invited to apply. He he applied this uh, criteria to the current junior class, which is the most recent class that was uh, invited to apply. and they're looking at uh about 51% using the current criteria were invited to apply. 51% of the junior class was invited to apply to the NHS currently. That's a large percentage. And that's with the weighted 90%. If they adjusted it to 93.75, it would be 36%. And then with the 95, it makes it uh 28%. So their target was somewhere between 25
005and 30%, this lands right uh right in the middle there. Um so they did provide that data. Um and again that's at the end of the second mark period this year's junior class real time. Um this change again wouldn't impact anybody in the high school right now. It would begin with the incoming classes and uh you know that's some of the factors that they consider. Um I think it's a nice balance between the feedback about keeping the weighted piece there as a incentive slashmotivation um for students to continue to strive to be in those honors and AP courses um while maintaining the rigor of the NHS thresholds. Okay, you have a question? I do. Okay. Okay. Um, so first of all, I just want to thank the administration for going back to take another look
006at this because I was one of the people who really wanted us to look at the weighted component um for for this part um of the regulation. I think um I agree with reducing the total percentage of students that are eligible because once you have the majority of students that are eligible, it's really not, you know, an elite group necessarily. I think my only concern now is those students who are not necessarily both honored and AP um class students that I don't really know if there's a way to get numbers for students who take a minimum amount of classes um in honors and AP. are we excluding a large group of those students by making it so much higher um for them? And I don't know if there's a way to do that while still
007bringing the percentage of students that are eligible down whether it's the amount of weight for the classes or um the rest of the criteria. Yeah. So, so I'll address a couple points. I don't think the goal I don't believe the goal was to reduce the amount of students that are in or able to apply. It's about it was about raising the rigor to represent like if our whole student body gets 95s and above then they're meeting the rigorous threshold that's established by the National Honor Society. So I think that was the piece just looking at what we currently get that's what would happen. It it does happen 100%. But that wasn't it's not about hitting the target number of students in a in a an opportunity. It's about it was about raising the rigor to
008be more accurately reflecting this the national standard the the standard which we would we would expect. Um and then the other piece we we spoke about when we didn't have the weighted word in there is we uh we spoke about the students are taking courses um through which they're appropriately position right so an AP student when we took away the weighted piece the threshold and the expectation is they're in that class because they're uh in the appropriately leveled class right some of them may stretch up there but you you wouldn't stretch from a dynamics class to an AP class, right? So, you're funneled into the the courses in which your academic performance kind of lets you strive. So, if you're if you're alluding to the fact that 95 is high for an unweighted course, right,
009relative to 95 being the right level for an honors in an AP course, using that same philosophy we talked about when we had unweighted there, the students in the weighted courses are in and they're they're achieving those levels. And same thing with that threshold for an unweighted course. Um, the expectation is you get a 95 either way. So if you're in the unweighted course, um the threshold to get a 95 would be equivalent to getting the 95 in the weighted course. Um and so we talked about it on the other side, right, last month at the board meeting saying it's unweed, that's why this is the number. Now it's it's a consistent approach. Um it's just a different way to look at it. And and I think you know if we if we arbitrarily said
010if you can you get a 90 in an unweighted course and a 95 in a weighted course we lose you know we don't have that same standard that same threshold. I also like that a 95 is an A. That's where an A starts. Like a 94 is an A minus. Yeah. So it's good that you have to have an A to get into the national and that and that was the grounded that was what Dr. Hickkins right represented is it's an A. that was where their starting point was and that's why because they did consider the 93 or 93.75 or whatever. Um, and again, it wasn't about hitting a number. It was about, you know, they they an A is a 95 and above, right? Blanket that standard track, honor track, AP track, dynamic track,
011right? Whatever track it's in. So, just a way to think through it a little differently. You certainly have a different opinion, which is a lot of respect. Um, but just I wanted you to keep I mean, I was you guys saw me. I was plenty outspoken for the weighted GP. So, I'm not suggesting not to do that. I just want to make sure that, you know, we're giving equal assessment to it for, you know, students for all levels. Um, but I appreciate you from bringing that perspective. Yep. Um, the other question I just had was about that middle school component because I know we had discussed adding that. Um, but I don't it's not added. The only changes were those literal words cumulative average of 95 for both the juniors and seniors. Um I think
012we move with what we have here because I think there is still discussion. It's it's a club right now. Um so there's still discussion about if we move it in here then are we going to we going to go back to the National Honor Society threshold there. Right now it's its own kind of you know separate operating piece right and I think to make a move on that just to get it done to do it at the same time here I think there needs to be some more engagement. Um, and then they're totally open at the middle school to taking a deeper dive in there. Um, and we can certainly come back and tweak this, but I think this would put everything in place, including all the changes we made, uh, in terms of honor
013roll and things like that, which were, you know, not necessarily discussed, but that's the core piece of the top part of the policy here too, right? Which we don't do middle school till the winter, right? So, there would be time, you know, reevaluate that, I guess, if they wanted to. It just I know like we talked about the consistency of cumulative versus the middle school that like that one marking period for eighth grade can make you or break you which people aren't aware of until afterwards. So I just want to make sure like high school and middle school were consistent. It's totally on the radar and I think um you know working with Dr. H at the middle school and his team to I do think it's going to be a little different because again
014it's different courses. There's again different levels, not as many levels of course, so it has to be a little different. Um, but what that looks more analyzing. Yeah. So, but it's on the radar. Didn't I actually thought of that when we went through this and uh, you know, I think it it did it didn't have enough time to get flushed out as we came through the end of the school year and right, we're kind of pumping out all the activities and things like that. So, we we need to give it some more thought than just pushing it through to edit it again. So, so I have a question now. We're going to put this back on the agenda. Is this a second read? So, it goes back to the first read. So, the the threshold
015there is were there substantial changes? Um, and I would defer to Adam one step. I would I would think this probably is a first read. Um, I nonsubstantial changes are fixing a typo that may all right and the committee is okay with moving this forward for first read. Yes. Anything else? Any other questions, comments? All right. So, that concludes policy for this evening. I wanted to give our IT department our early night