Bella Vista SCC Meeting
April 21, 2025
- Approval of March minutes—unanimously approved
- Review of new hire of aide for instruction and recess behavior support
- Approval was given by SCC via email right after last meeting
- Cole was hired—has extensive behavior background, has already been a great success
- Shuffled some roles around for everyone’s best fit
- Discussion about elementary-level Chromebook filtering and access options
- Some parents have been concerned about the filtering systems; district-wide conversation going on to assess options
- District is collecting information and feedback from all the SCCs and BLTs and then will make a district-wide decision
- Review of current policies and practices
- Average minutes a day that elementary students are on Chromebooks: 39
- Immediate actions:
- Eliminate Chromebook free use time for those who finish classwork early
- Block media file share-filtering category
- Provide regular Digital Citizenship updates to parents and families
- Identified options:
- 1: No change. Filtering system is acceptable
- 2: All elementary-level Chromebooks put on “highly restrictive” filtering as CSD’s standard
- 3: All elementary-level Chromebooks put on “highly restrictive” but parents can opt into less-restrictive settings (reverse of current practice)
- Group discussion:
- Access to student accounts at home is very valuable, especially for high-needs students who can use reinforcement and support
- Query about what teachers voted—they voted no change
- Vote taken—4 votes for option 3, 2 votes for option 1. SCC’s final vote will be for option 3
- Should CSD remove access to school accounts outside of school hours? Unanimous no
- Long-Range Planning Discussion
- Board discussion has begun about ten of the smaller schools, and Bella Vista is the very smallest
- Factors considered: Dual-language immersion programs, building capacity, quality of buildings, birthrate and projections for new young families, etc.
- In May they will vote to open up the study—if it is open, there will be opportunities for community input
- Whatever they decide to do, we will know by December 2025
- Our building is one that’s in the best condition, but we don’t have a ton of capacity—max that we could have would be about 300
- TSSP/Land Trust Plan submitted
- BLT would like to consider removing STEAM Fridays as a goal
- It requires more planning by teachers and loses some instruction time
- What you don’t get at the brain booster than you do get at STEAM Fridays is the student rotation and more adults knowing more students
- Pros and cons for teachers—if it went away, they’d have more instruction time, could do more small groups, etc. But there are definite benefits for students
- It has definitely helped Friday attendance and still helps with our role in the community and for our students
- Behavior
- Referrals have been trending downward since February
- Working on things still for the last month
- Have noticed improvement in 3rd/4th graders since discussion—have the clear path of consequences available now when the behavior is tested and that has helped things go more smoothly when issues arise
- Attendance
- 86% on track
- Special ed have higher than average attendance
- Low-income and ELL populations trend lower in attendance—working with other staff on home visits and other outreach/attempts to make improvements with these students
- Safety drill and budgets
- Land Trust: 10,503.27
- TSSA: 23,734.07
- Cell tower: 15,241.77
- April drill: earthquake
- Parking lot update
- Keep bus drop-off and parent drop-off completely separate
- Need the organization to move the donation bin—will follow up with Scott (new custodian)
- Moving reserved principal spot to back
- Not changing the direction of the flow of the parking lot—it would have students getting out of the car among traffic rather than on the sidewalk
- Egg drop tradition
- May look at other options or ways to make it easier on everyone
- If we do it, anyone on roof has to be harnessed when six feet from the edge
