This month’s School Site Council was filled with ideas to help the budgetary issues at Taft High. The school is hoping to pursue Title I. Title I will grant Taft High an extra $295,803. This money is to support core classes. 10% of this money will have to be spent on professional development.

Taft high is also looking to pursue Title II, part a. The amount received from this is $41,153. The money from this is to support effective instruction through professional development.

Title III is to help support English learners. This will bring Taft High an extra $7,550. Taft High is eligible to receive funding from Title V due to there being 20% or more of the students below the poverty line. This will grant the school an extra $24,926. These federal funding opportunities bring an extra $369,433 total to Taft High. The district will take 7% from the total. James Hooker commented on the extra funding available, saying, “It would help our whole school out.”

Mrs.Toro, our assistant principal, is working on starting parent seminars. She said, “What we’re going to be doing is creating parent seminars. For efficiency I chose a Spanish session and an English session. We’re also providing dinner and child care. The CTEC people participating are not being paid for this.” This seminar is to help parents learn about their students’ phone usage, and the dangers of the Internet. The date for the Spanish session is March 1st. The English session will be held on March 8th. Both will be from 5:30pm to 6:30pm.

There is a new plan for students that don’t pass proficiently on the spring math and English tests. Mary Alice Finn added, “Our math and English scores are not where they need to be.” The idea is that students who do poorly in math or English will have to take a remediation class. Students who don’t try will have an elective taken away.

If you are interested in attending the next School Site Council meeting, the tentative date is April 4th.